[5]
PREFACE.

The present Volume is intended as a sequel to
my two former volumes in the Newnes Series
of “Useful Stories,” entitled respectively the
“Story of the Solar System,” and the “Story
of the Stars.” It has been written not only as
a necessary complement, so to speak, to those
works, but because public attention is already
being directed to the forthcoming total eclipse
of the Sun on May 28, 1900. This eclipse,
though only visible as a partial one in England,
will be total no further off than Portugal and
Spain. Considering also that the line of totality
will pass across a large tract of country forming
part of the United States, it may be inferred
that there will be an enormous number of English-speaking
spectators of the phenomenon. It
is for these in general that this little book has
been written. For the guidance of those who
may be expected to visit Portugal or Spain, a
temporary Appendix has been prepared, giving
a large amount of information showing how those
countries can be best reached, whether by sea
or overland, from the shores of England.

[6]If anyone is inclined to doubt whether an eclipse
expedition is likely to provide non-astronomical
tourists with incidents of travel, pleasant, profitable,
and even amusing, perhaps the doubt will
be removed by a perusal of the accounts of
Sir F. Galton’s trip to Spain in 1860 (Vacation
Tourists in 1860, p. 422), or of Professor Tyndall’s
trip to Algeria in 1870 (Hours of Exercise in the
Alps, p. 429), or of Professor Langley’s Adventures
on Pike’s Peak in the Rocky Mountains,
Colorado, U.S., in 1878 (Washington Observations,
1876, Appendix III. p. 203); or of some of
the many Magazine and other narratives of the
Norway eclipse of 1896 and the Indian eclipse
of 1898.

Subject to these special points no further prefatory
explanation seems needed, the general style
of the contents being, mutatis mutandis, identical
with the contents of the Volumes which have
gone before.

I have to thank my friend, Dr. A. M. W.
Downing, the Superintendent of the Nautical
Almanac, for kindly verifying the calculations
in chapters II. and III.

G. F. C.

Northfield Grange,
Eastbourne, 1899.

[7]CONTENTS.

[8]LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

[9]THE STORY OF ECLIPSES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

It may, I fear, be taken as a truism that “the
man in the street” (collectively, the “general
public”) knows little and cares less for what is
called physical science. Now and again when
something remarkable happens, such as a great
thunderstorm, or an earthquake, or a volcanic
eruption, or a brilliant comet, or a total eclipse,
something in fact which has become the talk of
the town, our friend will condescend to give the
matter the barest amount of attention, whilst he
is filling his pipe or mixing a whisky and soda;
but there is not in England that general attention
given to the displays of nature and the philosophy
of those displays, which certainly is a characteristic
of the phlegmatic German. However,
things are better than they used to be, and the
forthcoming total eclipse of the Sun of May 28,
1900 (visible as it will be as a partial eclipse all
over Great Britain and Ireland, and as a total
eclipse in countries so near to Great Britain as
Spain and Portugal, to say nothing of the United[10]
States), will probably not only attract a good
deal of attention on the part of many millions of
English-speaking people, but may also be expected
to induce a numerically respectable remnant to
give their minds and thoughts, with a certain
amount of patient attention, to the Science and
Philosophy of Eclipses.

There are other causes likely to co-operate in
bringing this about. It is true that men’s minds
are more enlightened at the end of the 19th
century than they were at the end of the 16th
century, and that a trip to Spain will awaken
vastly different thoughts in the year 1900 to
those which would have been awakened, say in
the year 1587; but for all that, a certain amount
of superstition still lingers in the world, and total
eclipses as well as comets still give rise to feelings
of anxiety and alarm amongst ill-educated
villagers even in so-called civilized countries.
Some amusing illustrations of this will be presented
in due course. For the moment let me
content myself by stating the immediate aim of
this little book, and the circumstances which
have led to its being written. What those
circumstances are will be understood generally
from what has been said already. Its aim is
the unambitious one of presenting in readable
yet sound scientific language a popular account
of eclipses of the Sun and Moon, and (very
briefly) of certain kindred astronomical phenomena
which depend upon causes in some degree
similar to those which operate in connection
with eclipses. These kindred phenomena are
technically known as “Transits” and “Occultations.”[11]
Putting these two matters entirely aside
for the present, we will confine our attention
in the first instance to eclipses; and as eclipses
of the Sun do not stand quite on the same footing
as eclipses of the Moon, we will, after stating
the general circumstances of the case, put the
eclipses of the Moon aside for a while.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL IDEAS.

The primary meaning of the word “Eclipse”
(ἔϰλειψις) is a forsaking, quitting, or disappearance.
Hence the covering over of something by
something else, or the immersion of something
in something; and these apparently crude definitions
will be found on investigation to represent
precisely the facts of the case.

Inasmuch as the Earth and the Moon are for
our present purpose practically “solid bodies,”
each must cast a shadow into space as the result
of being illuminated by the Sun, regarded as a
source of light. What we shall eventually have
to consider is: What results arise from the existence
of these shadows according to the circumstances
under which they are viewed? But
before reaching this point, some other preliminary
considerations must be dealt with.

The various bodies which together make up
the Solar system, that is to say, in particular,
those bodies called the “planets”—some of them[12]
“primary,” others “secondary” (alias “Satellites”
or “Moons”)—are constantly in motion.
Consequently, if we imagine a line to be drawn
between any two at any given time, such a line
will point in a different direction at another
time, and so it may occasionally happen that
three of these ever-moving bodies will come
into one and the same straight line. Now the
consequences of this state of things were admirably
well pointed out nearly half a century ago
by a popular writer, who in his day greatly aided
the development of science amongst the masses.
“When one of the extremes of the series of three
bodies which thus assume a common direction is
the Sun, the intermediate body deprives the other
extreme body, either wholly or partially, of the
illumination which it habitually receives. When
one of the extremes is the Earth, the intermediate
body intercepts, wholly or partially, the other
extreme body from the view of the observers
situate at places on the Earth which are in the
common line of direction, and the intermediate
body is seen to pass over the other extreme body
as it enters upon or leaves the common line of
direction. The phenomena resulting from such
contingencies of position and direction are variously
denominated Eclipses, Transits, and Occultations,
according to the relative apparent
magnitudes of the interposing and obscured
bodies, and according to the circumstances which
attend them.”[1]

The Earth moves round the Sun once in every
year; the Moon moves round the Earth once in[13]
every lunar month (27 days). I hope everybody
understands those essential facts. Then we must
note that the Earth moves round the Sun in a certain
plane (it is nothing for our present purpose
what that plane is). If the Moon as the Earth’s
companion moved round the Earth in the same
plane, an eclipse of the Sun would happen regularly
every month when the Moon was in “Conjunction”
(“New Moon”), and also every month
at the intermediate period there would be a total
eclipse of the Moon on the occasion of every
“Opposition” (or “Full Moon”). But inasmuch
as the Moon’s orbit does not lie in quite the same
plane as the Earth’s, but is inclined thereto at an
angle which may be taken to average about 5⅛°,
the actual facts are different; that is to say,
instead of there being in every year about 25
eclipses (solar and lunar in nearly equal numbers),
which there would be if the orbits had
identical planes, there are only a very few eclipses
in the year, never, under the most favourable
circumstances, more than 7, and sometimes as
few as 2. Nor are the numbers equally apportioned.
In years where there are 7 eclipses, 5
of them may be of the Sun and 2 of the Moon;
where there are only 2 eclipses, both must be of
the Sun. Under no circumstances can there be
in any one year more than 3 eclipses of the
Moon, and in some years there will be none.
The reasons for these diversities are of a technical
character, and a full elucidation of them would
not be of interest to the general reader. It may
here be added, parenthetically, that the occasions
will be very rare of there being 5 solar eclipses[14]
in one year. This last happened in 1823,[2] and
will only happen once again in the next two
centuries, namely in 1935. If a total eclipse of
the Sun happens early in January there may be
another in December of the same year, as in
1889 (Jan. 1 and Dec. 22). This will not
happen again till 2057, when there will be total
eclipses on Jan. 5 and Dec. 26. There is one
very curious fact which may be here conveniently
stated as a bare fact, reserving the
explanation of it for a future page, namely,
that eclipses of the Sun and Moon are linked
together in a certain chain or sequence which
takes rather more than 18 years to run out when
the sequence recurs and recurs ad infinitum. In
this 18-year period, which bears the name of the
“Saros,” there usually happen 70 eclipses, of
which 41 are of the Sun and 29 of the Moon.
Accordingly, eclipses of the Sun are more numerous
than those of the Moon in the proportion of about
3 to 2, yet at any given place on the Earth more
lunar eclipses are visible than solar eclipses, because
the former when they occur are visible over
the whole hemisphere of the Earth which is turned
towards the Moon whilst the area over which a
total eclipse of the Sun is visible is but a belt of the
Earth no more than about 150 to 170 miles wide.
Partial eclipses of the Sun, however, are visible
over a very much wider area on either side of the
path traversed by the Moon’s shadow.

Fig. 2.—THEORY OF A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

Confining our attention in the first instance to
eclipses of the Sun, the diagrams fig. 2 and fig. 3
will make clear, with very little verbal description,[15]
the essential features of the two principal kinds
of eclipses of the Sun. In these figures S represents
the Sun, M the Moon and E the Earth.
They are not, of course, even approximately drawn
to scale either as to the size of the bodies or their
relative distances, but this is a matter of no
moment as regards the principles involved. M
being in sunshine receives light on, as it were, the
left hand side, which faces S the Sun. The
shadow of the Moon cast into space is, in the
particular case, thrown as regards its tip on to the
Earth and is intercepted by the Earth. Persons
at the moment situated on the Earth within the
limits of this shadow will not see any part of the
Sun at all; they will see, in fact, nothing but the
Moon as a black disc with only such light behind
and around it as may be reflected back on to the
sky by the illuminated (but to the Earth invisible)
hemisphere of the Moon, or as may proceed
from the Sun’s Corona (to be described
presently). The condition of things therefore is
that known as a “total” eclipse of the Sun so
far as regards the inhabitants of the narrow strip
of Earth primarily affected.

Fig. 3.—THEORY OF AN ANNULAR ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

Fig. 3 represents nearly but not quite the same
condition of things. Here the Earth and the
Moon are in those parts of their respective orbits
which put the two bodies at or near the maximum[16]
distance possible from the Sun and from one
another. The Moon casts its usual shadow, but
the tip does not actually reach any part of the
Earth’s surface. Or, in other words, to an
observer on the Earth the Moon is not big
enough to conceal the whole body of the Sun. The
result is this; at the instant of central coincidence
the Moon covers up only the centre of the
Sun, leaving the outer edge all round uncovered.
This outer edge shows as a bright ring of light,
and the eclipse is of the sort known as an “annular”
eclipse of the Sun.[3] As the greatest[17]
breadth of the annulus can never exceed 1½
minutes of arc, an annular eclipse may sometimes,
in some part of its track, become almost
or quite total, and vice versâ.

Fig. 4.—ANNULAR ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

The idea will naturally suggest itself, what
exactly does happen to the inhabitants living
outside (on the one side or the other) of the
strip of the Earth where the central line of
shadow falls? This depends in every case on
circumstances, but it may be stated generally
that the inhabitants outside the central line but
within 1000 to 2000 miles on either side, will see
a larger or smaller part of the Sun concealed by
the Moon’s solid body, simultaneously with the
total concealment of the Sun to the favoured
individuals who live, or who for the moment are
located, within the limits of the central zone.

Fig. 5.—PARTIAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

Now we must advance one stage in our conceptions
of the movements of the Earth and the
Moon, so far as regards the bearing of those[18]
movements on the question of eclipses. The
Earth moves in a plane which is called the
“Plane of the Ecliptic,” and correspondingly,
the Sun has an apparent annual motion in the
same plane. The Moon moving in a different
plane, inclined to the first mentioned one to the
extent of rather more than 5°, the Moon’s orbit
will evidently intersect the ecliptic in two places.
These places of intersection are called “Nodes,”
and the line which may be imagined to join these
Nodes is called the “Line of Nodes.” When the
Moon is crossing the ecliptic from the S. to
the N. side thereof, the Moon is said to be
passing through its “Ascending Node” (☊); the
converse of this will be the Moon passing back
again from the N. side of the ecliptic to the
S. side, which is the “Descending Node” (☋).
Such changes of position, with the terms designating
them, apply not only to the Moon in its movement
round the Earth, but to all the planets and
comets circulating round the Sun; and also to
satellites circulating round certain of the planets,
but with these matters we have no concern now.

CHAPTER III.

THE “SAROS” AND THE PERIODICITY OF
ECLIPSES.

To bring about an eclipse of the Sun, two things
must combine: (1) the Moon must be at or near
one of its Nodes; and (2), this must be at a time
when the Moon is also in “Conjunction” with[19]
the Sun. Now the Moon is in Conjunction with
the Sun (= “New Moon”) 12 or 13 times in a
year, but the Sun only passes through the Nodes
of the Moon’s orbit twice a year. Hence an
eclipse of the Sun does not and cannot occur at
every New Moon, but only occasionally. An exact
coincidence of Earth, Moon, and Sun, in a straight
line at a Node is not necessary to ensure an
eclipse of the Sun. So long as the Moon is
within about 18½° of its Node, with a latitude
of not more than 1° 34′, an eclipse may take
place. If, however, the distance is less than
15¼° and the latitude less than 1° 23′ an eclipse
must take place, though between these limits[4] the
occurrence of an eclipse is uncertain and depends
on what are called the “horizontal parallaxes” and
the “apparent semi-diameters” of the two bodies
at the moment of conjunction, in other words,
on the nearness or “far-offness” of the bodies
in question. Another complication is introduced
into these matters by reason of the fact that the
Nodes of the Moon’s orbit do not occupy a fixed
position, but have an annual retrograde motion
of about 19¼°, in virtue of which a complete
revolution of the Nodes round the ecliptic is accomplished
in 18 years 218⅞ days (= 18.5997 years).

The backward movement of the Moon’s Nodes
combined with the apparent motion of the Sun in
the ecliptic causes the Moon in its monthly course
round the Earth to complete a revolution with
respect to its Nodes in a less time (27.2 days) than
it takes to get back to Conjunction with the Sun[20]
(29.5 days); and a curious consequence, as we shall
see directly, flows from these facts and from one
other fact. The other fact is to the Sun starting
coincident with one of the Moon’s Nodes, returns
on the Ecliptic to the same Node in 346.6 days.
The first named period of 27.2 days is called the
“Nodical Revolution of the Moon” or “Draconic
Month,” the other period of 29.5 days is called
the “Synodical Revolution of the Moon.” Now
the curious consequence of these figures being
what they are is that 242 Draconic Months,
223 Lunations, and 19 Returns of the Sun to one
and the same Node of the Moon’s orbit, are all
accomplished in the same time within 11 hours.
Thus (ignoring refinements of decimals):—

The interpretation to be put upon these coincidences
is this: that supposing Sun and Moon to
start together from a Node they would, after the
lapse of 6585 days and a fraction, be found again
together very near the same Node. During the
interval there would have been 223 New and
Full Moons. The exact time required for 223
Lunations is such that in the case supposed the
223rd conjunction of the two bodies would
happen a little before they reached the Node;
their distance therefrom would be 28′ of arc. And
the final fact is that eclipses recur in almost, though
not quite, the same regular order every 6585⅓
days, or more exactly, 18 years, 10 days, 7 hours,
42 minutes.[5] This is the celebrated Chaldean[21]
“Saros,” and was used by the ancients (and
can still be used by the moderns in the way of
a pastime) for the prediction of eclipses alike of
the Sun and of the Moon.

At the end of a Saros period, starting from any
date that may have been chosen, the Moon will
be in the same position with respect to the Sun,
nearly in the same part of the heavens, nearly in
the same part of its orbit, and very nearly indeed
at the same distance from its Node as at the date
chosen for the terminus a quo of the Saros. But
there are trifling discrepancies in the case (the
difference of about 11 hours between 223 lunations
and 19 returns of the Sun to the Moon’s Node is
one) and these have an appreciable effect in disturbing
not so much the sequence of the eclipses
in the next following Saros as their magnitude
and visibility at given places on the Earth’s
surface. Hence, a more accurate succession will
be obtained by combining 3 Saros periods, making
54 years, 31 days; while, best of all, to secure
an almost perfect repetition of a series of eclipses
will be a combination of 48 Saroses, making 865
years for the Moon; and of about 70 Saroses, or
more than 1200 years for the Sun.

These considerations are leading us rather too
far afield. Let us return to a more simple condition
of things. The practical use of the Saros
in its most elementary conception is somewhat on
this wise. Given 18 or 19 old Almanacs ranging,
say, from 1880 to 1898, how can we turn to
account the information they afford us in order
to obtain from them information respecting the[22]
eclipses which will happen between 1899 and
1917? Nothing easier. Add 18^y 10^d 7^h 42^m to
the middle time of every eclipse which took place
between 1880 and 1898 beginning, say, with the
last of 1879 or the first of 1880, and we shall find
what eclipses will happen in 1898 and 17 following
years, as witness by way of example the
following table:—

[23]There having been 5 recurrences of Feb. 29
between Dec. 1879 and Jan. 1899, 5 leap years
having intervened, we have to add an extra
day to the Saros period in the later part of the
above Table.[6]

Let us make another start and see what we can
learn from the eclipses, say, of 1883.

The foregoing does not by any means exhaust
all that can be said respecting the Saros even on
the popular side.

If the Saros comprised an exact number of
days, each eclipse of a second Saros series would
be visible in the same regions of the Earth as the[24]
corresponding eclipse in the previous series. But
since there is a surplus fraction of nearly one-third
of a day, each subsequent eclipse will be visible
in another region of the Earth, which will be
roughly a third of the Earth’s circumference in
longitude backwards (i.e. about 120° to the W.),
because the Earth itself will be turned on its
axis one-third forwards.

After what has been said as to the Saros and its
use it might be supposed that a correct list of eclipses
for 18.03 years would suffice for all ordinary purposes
of eclipse prediction, and that the sequence
of eclipses at any future time might be ascertained
by adding to some one eclipse which had already
happened so many Saros periods as might embrace
the years future whose eclipses it was
desired to study. This would be true in a sense,
but would not be literally and effectively true,
because corresponding eclipses do not recur exactly
under the same conditions, for there are small
residual discrepancies in the times and circumstances
affecting the real movements of the Earth
and Moon and the apparent movement of the
Sun which, in the lapse of years and centuries,
accumulate sufficiently to dislocate what otherwise
would be exact coincidences. Thus an
eclipse of the Moon which in A.D. 565 was of
6 digits[7] was in 583 of 7 digits, and in 601
nearly 8. In 908 the eclipse became total, and
remained so for about twelve periods, or until
1088. This eclipse continued to diminish until
the beginning of the 15th century, when it
disappeared in 1413. Let us take now the life[25]
of an eclipse of the Sun. One appeared at the
North Pole in June A.D. 1295, and showed itself
more and more towards the S. at each subsequent
period. On August 27, 1367, it made its
first appearance in the North of Europe; in 1439
it was visible all over Europe; in 1601, being
its 19th appearance, it was central and annular
in England; on May 5, 1818, it was visible in
London, and again on May 15, 1836. Its three next
appearances were on May 26, 1854, June 6,
1872, and June 17, 1890. At its 39th appearance,
on August 10, 1980, the Moon’s shadow
will have passed the equator, and as the eclipse
will take place nearly at midnight (Greenwich
M.T.), the phenomenon will be invisible in
Europe, Africa, and Asia. At every succeeding
period the central line of the eclipse will lie more
and more to the S., until finally, on September
30, 2665, which will be its 78th appearance, it
will vanish at the South Pole.[8]

The operation of the Saros effects which
have been specified above, may be noticed in
some of the groups of eclipses which have been
much in evidence (as will appear from a subsequent
chapter), during the second half of the
19th century. The following are two noteworthy
Saros groups of Solar eclipses:—

[26]If the curious reader will trace, by means of
the Nautical Almanac (or some other Almanac
which deals with eclipses in adequate detail), the
geographical distribution of the foregoing eclipses
on the Earth’s surface, he will see that they fulfil
the statement made on p. 24 (ante), that a Saros
eclipse when it reappears, does so in regions of
the Earth averaging 120° of longitude to the W.
of those in which it had, on the last preceding
occasion, been seen; and also that it gradually
works northwards or southwards.

But a given Saros eclipse in its successive
reappearances undergoes other transformations
besides that of Terrestrial longitude. These are
well set forth by Professor Newcomb[9]:—

“Since every successive recurrence of such an
eclipse throws the conjunction 28′ further toward
the W. of the node, the conjunction must, in
process of time, take place so far back from the
node that no eclipse will occur, and the series
will end. For the same reason there must be
a commencement to the series, the first eclipse
being E. of the node. A new eclipse thus
entering will at first be a very small one, but
will be larger at every recurrence in each Saros.
If it is an eclipse of the Moon, it will be total
from its 13th until its 36th recurrence. There
will be then about 13 partial eclipses, each of
which will be smaller than the last, when they
will fail entirely, the conjunction taking place[27]
so far from the node that the Moon does not
touch the Earth’s shadow. The whole interval
of time over which a series of lunar eclipses thus
extend will be about 48 periods, or 865 years.
When a series of solar eclipses begins, the penumbra
of the first will just graze the earth not
far from one of the poles. There will then be,
on the average, 11 or 12 partial eclipses of the
Sun, each larger than the preceding one, occurring
at regular intervals of one Saros. Then the
central line, whether it be that of a total or
annular eclipse, will begin to touch the Earth,
and we shall have a series of 40 or 50 central
eclipses. The central line will strike near one
pole in the first part of the series; in the equatorial
regions about the middle of the series, and
will leave the Earth by the other pole at the end.
Ten or twelve partial eclipses will follow, and
this particular series will cease.”

These facts deserve to be expanded a little.

We have seen that all eclipses may be grouped
in a series, and that 18 years or thereabouts is
the duration of each series, or Saros cycle. But
these cycles are themselves subject to cycles, so
that the Saros itself passes through a cycle of
about 64 Saroses before the conditions under which
any given start was made, come quite round again.
Sixty-four times 18 make 1152, so that the duration
of a Solar eclipse Great Cycle may be taken
at about 1150 years. The progression of such a
series across the face of the Earth is thus described
by Mrs. Todd, who gives a very clear
account of the matter:—

“The advent of a slight partial eclipse near[28]
either pole of the Earth will herald the
beginning of the new series. At each succeeding
return conformably to the Saros,
the partial eclipse will move a little further
towards the opposite pole, its magnitude
gradually increasing for about 200 years, but
during all this time only the lunar penumbra
will impinge upon the Earth. But when the
true shadow begins to touch, the obscuration
will have become annular or total near the pole
where it first appeared. The eclipse has now
acquired a track, which will cross the Earth
slightly farther from that pole every time it
returns, for about 750 years. At the conclusion
of this interval, the shadow path will have
reached the opposite pole; the eclipse will then
become partial again, and continue to grow
smaller and smaller for about 200 years additional.
The series then ceases to exist, its
entire duration having been about 1150 years.
The series of “great eclipses” of which two
occurred in 1865 and 1883, while others will
happen in 1901, 1919, 1937, 1955, and 1973,
affords an excellent instance of the northward
progression of eclipse tracks; and another series,
with totality nearly as great (1850, 1868, 1886,
1904, and 1922), is progressing slowly southwards.”

The word “Digit,” formerly used in connection
with eclipses, requires some explanation. The
origin of the word is obvious enough, coming as
it does from the Latin word Digitus, a finger.
But as human beings have only eight fingers and
two thumbs it is by no means clear how the word[29]
came to be used for twelfths of the disc of the
Sun or Moon instead of tenths. However, such
was the case; and when a 16th-century astronomer
spoke of an eclipse of six digits, he meant
that one-half of the luminary in question, be it
Sun or Moon, was covered. The earliest use
of the word “Digit” in this connection was to
refer to the twelfth part of the visible surface
of the Sun or Moon; but before the word went
out of use, it came to be applied to twelfths of the
visible diameter of the disc of the Sun or Moon,
which was much more convenient. However,
the word is now almost obsolete in both senses,
and partial eclipses, alike of the Sun and of the
Moon, are defined in decimal parts of the diameter
of the luminary—tenths or hundredths
according to the amount of precision which is
aimed at. Where an eclipse of the Moon is
described as being of more than 12 Digits or
more than 1.0 (= 1 diameter) it is to be understood
that the eclipse will be (or was) not only
total, but that the Moon will be (or was) immersed
in the Earth’s shadow with a more or
less considerable extent of shadow encompassing
it.

There are some further matters which require
to be mentioned connected with the periodicity of
eclipses. To use a phrase which is often employed,
there is such a thing as an “Eclipse Season,”
and what this is can only be adequately comprehended
by looking through a catalogue of eclipses
for a number of years arranged in a tabular form,
and by collating the months or groups of months
in which batches of eclipses occur. This is not[30]
an obvious matter to the casual purchaser of an
almanac, who, feeling just a slight interest in the
eclipses of a coming new year, dips into his new
purchase to see what those eclipses will be. A
haphazard glance at the almanacs of even two or
three successive years will probably fail to bring
home to him the idea that each year has its own
eclipse season in which eclipses may occur, and
that eclipses are not to be looked for save at two
special epochs, which last about a month each,
and which are separated from one another and
from the eclipse seasons of the previous and of
the following years by intervals of about six
months, within a few days more or less. Such,
however, is the case. A little thought will soon
make it clear why such should be the case. We
have already seen that the Moon’s orbit, like that
of every other planetary member of the Solar
System, has two crossing places with respect to
the ecliptic which are called “Nodes.” We know
also that the apparent motion of the Sun causes
that body to traverse the whole of the ecliptic in
the course of the year. The conjoint result of all
this is that the Moon passes through a Node
twice in every lunar month of 27 days, and
the Sun passes (apparently) through a Node
twice in every year. The first ultimate result of
these facts is that eclipses can only take place at
or near the nodal passages of the Moon and the
Sun, and that as the Sun’s nodal passages are
separated by six months in every case the average
interval between each set of eclipses, if there
is more than one, must in all cases be six months,
more or less by a few days, dependent upon the[31]
latitude and longitude of the Moon at or about
the time of its Conjunction or Opposition under
the circumstances already detailed. If the logic
of this commends itself to the reader’s mind, he
will see at once why eclipses or groups of eclipses
must be separated by intervals of about half an
ordinary year. Hence it comes about that, taking
one year with another, it may be said that we
shall always have a couple of principal eclipses
with an interval of half a year (say 183 days)
between each; and that on either side of these
dominant eclipses there will, or may be, a fortnight
before or a fortnight after, two other pairs
of eclipses with, in occasional years, one extra
thrown in. It is in this way that we obtain
what it has already been said dogmatically that
we do obtain; namely, always in one year two
eclipses, which must be both of the Sun, or any
number of eclipses up to seven, which number
will be unequally allotted to the Sun or to the
Moon according to circumstances.

Though it is roughly correct to say that the
two eclipse seasons of every year run to about a
month each, in length, yet it may be desirable to
be a little more precise, and to say that the limits
of time for solar eclipses cover 36 days (namely
18 days before and 18 days after the Sun’s nodal
passages); whilst in the case of the Moon, the
limits are the lesser interval of 23 days, being
11½ on either side of the Moon’s nodal passages.

We have already seen[10] that the Moon’s nodes
are perpetually undergoing a change of place.
Were it not so, eclipses of the Sun and Moon[32]
would always happen year after year in the same
pair of months for us on the Earth. But the
operative effect of the shifting of the nodes is to
displace backwards the eclipse seasons by about
20 days. For instance in 1899 the eclipse seasons
fall in June and December. The middle of the
eclipse seasons for the next succeeding 20 or 30
years will be found by taking the dates of June
8 and December 2, 1899, and working the months
backwards by the amount of 19⅔ days for each
succeeding year. Thus the eclipse seasons in
1900 will fall in the months of May and
November; accordingly amongst the eclipses of
that year we shall find eclipses on May 28, June
13, and November 22.

Perhaps it would tend to the more complete
elucidation of the facts stated in the last half
dozen pages, if I were to set out in a tabular
form all the eclipses of a succession, say of half a
Saros or 9 years, and thus exhibit by an appeal
to the eye directly the grouping of eclipse seasons
the principles of which I have been endeavouring
to define and explain in words.

The Epochs in the last column which are
marked with stars (*) or (**) as the case may be,
represent corresponding nodes so that from any[34]
one single-star date to the next nearest single-star
date means an interval of one year less (on
an average) the 19⅔ days spoken of on p. 32 (ante).
A glance at each successive pair of dates will
quickly disclose the periodical retrogradation of
the eclipse epochs.

CHAPTER IV.

MISCELLANEOUS THEORETICAL MATTERS CONNECTED
WITH ECLIPSES OF THE SUN
(CHIEFLY).

One or two miscellaneous matters respecting
eclipses of the Sun (chiefly) will be dealt with in
this chapter. It is not easy to explain or define
in words the circumstances which control the
duration of a Solar eclipse, whereas in the case
of a lunar eclipse the obscuration is the same in
degree at all parts of the Earth where the Moon
is visible. In the case of a Solar eclipse it may be
total, perhaps, in Africa, may be of six digits
only in Spain, and of two only in England.
Under the most favourable circumstances the
breadth of the track of totality across the Earth
cannot be more than 170 miles, and it may be
anything less than that down to zero where the
eclipse will cease to be total at all, and will
become annular. The question whether a given
eclipse shall exhibit itself on its central line as a
total or an annular one depends, as has been
already explained, on the varying distances of the
Earth and the Moon from the Sun in different[35]
parts of their respective orbits. Hence it follows
that not only may an eclipse show itself for
several Saros appearances as total and afterwards
become annular, and vice versâ, but on rare occasions
one and the same eclipse may be annular in
one part of its track across the Earth and total in
another part, a short time earlier or later. This
last-named condition might arise because the
Moon’s distance from the Earth or the Sun had
varied sufficiently during the progress of the
eclipse to bring about such a result; or because
the shadow just reaching the Earth and no more
the eclipse would be total only for the moment
when a view perpendicular upwards could be had
of it, and would be annular for the minutes
preceding and the minutes following the perpendicular
glimpse obtained by observers actually
on the central line. The eclipse of December
12, 1890, was an instance of this.

If the paths of several central eclipses of the
Sun are compared by placing side by side a series
of charts, such as those given in the Nautical
Almanac or in Oppolzer’s Canon, it will be noticed
that the direction of the central line varies with
the season of the year. In the month of March
the line runs from S.W. to N.E., and in September
from N.W. to S.E. In June the line is a
curve, going first to the N.E. and then to the
S.E. In December the state of things is reversed,
the curve going first to the S.E. and then to the
N.E. At all places within about 2000 miles of
the central line the eclipse will be visible, and
the nearer a place is to the central line, so much
the larger will be the portion of the Sun’s disc[36]
concealed from observers there by the Moon. If
the central line runs but a little to the N. of the
Equator in Winter or of 25° of N. latitude in
Summer, the eclipse will be visible all over the
Northern Hemisphere, and the converse will
apply to the Southern Hemisphere. It is something
like a general rule in the case of total and
annular eclipses, though subject to many modifications,
that places within 200-250 miles of the
central line will have partial eclipse of 11 digits;
from thence to 500 miles of 10 digits, and so on,
diminishing something like 1 digit for every 250
miles, so that at 2000 miles, or rather more, the
Sun will be only to a very slight extent eclipsed,
or will escape eclipse altogether.

The diameter of the Sun being 866,000 miles
and the Moon being only 2160 miles or 1⁄400th how
comes it to be possible that such a tiny object
should be capable of concealing a globe 400 times
bigger than itself? The answer is—Distance.
The increased distance does it. The Moon at its
normal distance from the Earth of 237,000 miles
could only conceal by eclipse a body of its own
size or smaller, but the Sun being 93,000,000
miles away, or 392 times the distance of the
Moon, the fraction 1⁄392 representing the main
distance of the Moon, more than wipes out the
fraction 1⁄400 which represents our satellite’s
smaller size.

During a total eclipse of the Sun, the Moon’s
shadow travels across the Earth at a prodigious
pace—1830 miles an hour; 30½ miles a minute;
or rather more than a ½ mile a second. This great
velocity is at once a clue to the fact that the[37]
total phase during an eclipse of the Sun lasts
for so brief a time as a few minutes; and also
to the fact that the shadow comes and goes
almost without being seen unless a very sharp
watch is kept for it. Indeed, it is only observers
posted on high ground with some miles of open
low ground spread out under their eyes who
have much chance of detecting the shadow come
up, go over them, and pass forwards.

Places at or near the Earth’s equator enjoy the
best opportunities for seeing total eclipses of the
Sun, because whilst the Moon’s shadow travels
eastwards along the Earth’s surface at something
like 2000 miles an hour, an observer at the equator
is carried in the same direction by virtue of the
Earth’s axial rotation at the rate of 1040 miles
an hour. But the speed imparted to an observer
as the result of the Earth’s axial rotation
diminishes from the equator towards the poles
where it is nil, so that the nearer he is to a
pole the slower he goes, and therefore the sooner
will the Moon’s shadow overtake and pass him,
and the less the time at his disposal for seeing
the Sun hidden by the Moon.

It was calculated by Du Sèjour that the
greatest possible duration of the total phase of
a Solar eclipse at the equator would be 7^m 58^s,
and for the latitude of Paris 6^m 10^s. In the case
of an annular eclipse the figures would be 12^m 24^s
for the equator, and 9^m 56^s for the latitude
of Paris. These figures contemplate a combination
of all the most favourable circumstances
possible; as a matter of fact, I believe that the
greatest length of total phase which has been[38]
actually known was 6½^m and that was in the case of
the eclipse of August 29, 1886. It was in the open
Atlantic that this duration occurred, but it was not
observed. The maximum observed obscuration
during this eclipse was no more than 4^m.

Though total eclipses of the Sun happen with
tolerable frequency so far as regards the Earth
as a whole, yet they are exceedingly rare at any
given place. Take London, for instance. From
the calculations of Hind, confirmed by Maguire,[11]
it may be considered as an established fact that
there was no total eclipse visible at London
between A.D. 878 and 1715, an interval of 837
years. The next one visible at London, though
uncertain, is also a very long way off. There
will be a total eclipse on August 11, 1999,
which will come as near to London as the Isle
of Wight, but Hind, writing in 1871, said that
he doubted whether there would be any other
total eclipse “visible in England for 250 years[12]
from the present time.” Maguire states that
the Sun has been eclipsed, besides twice at
London, also twice at Dublin, and no fewer
than five times at Edinburgh during the 846
years examined by him. In fact that every part
of the British Isles has seen a total eclipse at
some time or other between A.D. 878 and 1724
except a small tract of country at Dingle, on
the West coast of Ireland. The longest totality[39]
was on June 15, 885, namely, 4^m 55^s, and the
shortest in July 16, 1330, namely, 0^m 56^s.

Contrast with this the obscure island of Blanquilla,
off the northern coast of Venezuela.
The inhabitants of that island not long ago
had the choice of two total eclipses within three
and a half years, namely, August 29, 1886, and
December 22, 1889; whilst Yellowstone, U.S.,
had two in twelve years (July 29, 1878, and
January 1, 1889).

Counting from first to last, Du Sèjour found
that at the equator an eclipse of the Sun might
last 4^h 29^m, and at the latitude of Paris 3^h 26^m.
These intervals, of course, cover all the subordinate
phases. The total phase which alone
(with perhaps a couple of minutes added) is
productive of spectacular effects, and interesting
scientific results is a mere matter of minutes
which may be as few as one (or less), or only as
many as 6 or 8.

As a rule, a summer eclipse will last longer
than a winter one, because in summer the Earth
(and the Moon with it), being at its maximum
distance from the Sun, the Sun will be at its
minimum apparent size, and therefore the Moon
will be able to conceal it the longer.

[40]CHAPTER V.

WHAT IS OBSERVED DURING THE EARLIER STAGES
OF AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

The information to be given in this and the next
following chapters will almost exclusively concern
total and annular eclipses of the Sun, for,
in real truth, there is practically only one thing
to think about during a partial eclipse of the
Sun. This is, to watch when the Moon’s black
body comes on to the Sun and goes off again, for
there are no subsidiary phenomena, either interesting
or uninteresting, unless, indeed, the
eclipse should be nearly total. The progress of
astronomical science in regard to eclipses has
been so extensive and remarkable of late years
that, unless the various points for consideration
are kept together under well-defined heads, it
will be almost impossible either for a writer or a
reader to do full justice to the subject. Having
regard to the fact that the original conception of
this volume was that it should serve as a forerunner
to the total solar eclipse of May 28, 1900
(and through that to other total eclipses), from a
popular rather than from a technical standpoint,
I think it will be best to mention one by one the
principal features which spectators should look
out for, and to do so as nearly as may be in the
order which Nature itself will observe when the
time comes.

Of course the commencement of an eclipse,
which is virtually the moment when the encroachment[41]
on the circular outline of the Sun
by the Moon begins, or can be seen, though interesting
as a proof that the astronomer’s prophecy
is about to be fulfilled, is not a matter of
any special importance, even in a popular sense,
much less in a scientific sense. As a rule, the
total phase does not become imminent, so to
speak, until a whole hour and more has elapsed
since the first contact; and that hour will be
employed by the scientific observer, less in looking
at the Sun than in looking at his instruments
and apparatus. He will do this for the purpose
of making quite sure that everything will be
ready for the full utilisation to the utmost extent
of the precious seconds of time into which all his
delicate observations have to be squeezed during
the total phase.

With these preliminary observations I shall
proceed now to break up the remainder of what
I have to say respecting total eclipses into what
suggest themselves as convenient sectional heads.

THE MOON’S SHADOW AND THE DARKNESS IT CAUSES.

In awaiting the darkness which is expected to
manifest itself an unthinking and inexperienced
observer is apt to look out for the coming obscurity,
as he looks out for night-fall half an hour
or more after sunset and during the evening
twilight. The darkness of an eclipse is all this
and something more. It is something more in
two senses; for the interval of time between the
commencement of an eclipse and totality is different
in duration and different in quality, so to
speak, from the diminution of daylight on the[42]
Earth which ensues as the twilight of evening
runs its course. Speaking roughly, sunset may
be described as an almost instantaneous loss of
full sunlight; and the gradual loss of daylight is
noticeable even at such short intervals as from
one five minutes to another. This is by no
means the case previous to a total eclipse of the
Sun. When that is about to occur, the reduction
of the effective sunlight is far more gradual. For
instance, half an hour after an eclipse has commenced
more than half the Sun’s disc will still
be imparting light to the Earth: but half an
hour after sunset the deficiency of daylight will
be very much more marked and, if no artificial
light is at hand, very much more inconvenient.

If there should be within easy reach of the
observer’s post a bushy tree, such for instance as
an elm, 30 ft. or 40 ft. high, and spreading out
sufficiently for him to place himself under it in a
straight line with the Sun, and with a nice smooth
surface of ground for the sun’s rays to fall on, he
will see a multitude of images of the Sun thrown
upon the ground.

Until the eclipse has commenced these images
will be tiny circles overlapping one another, and
of course each of these circles means so many
images of the Sun. These images indeed can be
seen on any fine day, and the circles increase in
size in proportion to the height of the foliage
above the ground, being something like 1 inch
for every 10 feet. It may be remarked, by the
way, that the images are circles, because the Sun
is a source of light having a circular outline, and
is not a point of light like a star. If it were, the[43]
outline of the foliage would be reproduced on
the ground leaf for leaf. It follows naturally
from all this that when in consequence of there
being an eclipse in progress the shape of the
Sun’s contour gradually changes, so will the
shape of the Solar images on the ground change,
becoming eventually so many crescents. Moreover,
the horns of the crescent-shaped images
will be in the reverse direction to the horns of
the actual crescent of the Sun at the moment,
the rays of the Sun crossing as they pass through
the foliage, just as if each interstice were a
lens.

Supposing there are some spots on the Sun
at a time when an eclipse is in progress the
Moon’s passage over these spots may as well be
noticed. In bygone years some amount of attention
was devoted to this matter with the view of
ascertaining whether any alteration took place in
the appearance of the spots; distortion, for instance,
such as might be produced by the intervention
of a lunar atmosphere. No such distortion
was ever noticed, and observations with this idea
in view may be said to possess now only an
academic interest, for it may be regarded as a
well-established fact that the Moon has no atmosphere.

During the passage of the Moon over Sun-spots
an opportunity is afforded of comparing the
blackness, or perhaps we should rather say, the
intensity of the shade of a Sun-spot with the
blackness of the Moon’s disc. Testimony herein
is unanimous that the blackness of the Moon
during the stages of partial eclipse is intense[44]
compared with the darkest parts of a Sun-spot;
and this, be it remembered, in spite of the fact
that during the partial phase the atmosphere
between the observer and the Sun is brilliantly
illuminated, whilst the Moon itself, being exposed
to Earth-shine, is by no means absolutely devoid
of all illumination.

When the Moon is passing across the Sun there
have often been noticed along the limb of the Moon
fringes of colour, and dark and bright bands.
This might not necessarily be a real appearance
for it is conceivable that such traces of colour
might be due to the telescopes employed not
having been truly achromatic, that is, not sufficiently
corrected for colour; but making every
allowance for this possible source of mistake there
yet remains proof that the colour which has often
been seen has been real.

As to whether the Moon’s limb can be seen
during a partial eclipse, or during the partial
phase of what is to be a total eclipse, the evidence
is somewhat conflicting. There is no doubt that
when the totality is close at hand the Moon’s
limb can be seen projected on the Corona (presently
to be described); but the question is,
whether the far-off limb of the Moon can be
detected in the open sky whilst something like
full daylight still prevails on the Earth. Undoubtedly
the preponderance of evidence is
against the visibility of the Moon as a whole,
under such circumstances; but there is nevertheless
some testimony to the contrary. A
French observer, E. Liais, said that three photographic
plates of the eclipse of 1858 seen in S.[45]
America all showed the outer limb of the Moon
with more or less distinctness. This testimony,
be it noted, is photographic and not visual; and
on the whole it seems safest to say that there is
very small probability of the Moon as a whole
ever being seen under the circumstances in
question.

What has just been said concerns the visibility
of the Moon during quite the early, or on the
other hand during quite the late, stages of a
total eclipse. Immediately before or after totality
the visibility of the whole contour of the Moon
is a certain fact; and the only point upon which
there is a difference of opinion is as to what are
the time-limits beyond which the Moon must not
be expected to be seen. The various records are
exceedingly contradictory: perhaps the utmost
that can be said is that the whole Moon must
not be expected to be visible till about 20
minutes before totality, or for more than 5
minutes after totality—but it must be admitted
that these figures are very uncertain in regard to
any particular eclipse.

It has been sometimes noticed when the
crescent of the Sun had become comparatively
small, say that the Sun was about ⅞ths
covered, that the uncovered portion exhibited
evident colour which has been variously described
as “violet,” “brick-red,” “reddish,” “pink,”
“orange,” “yellowish.” The observations on
this point are not very numerous and, as will
appear from the statement just made, are not
very consistent; still it seems safe to assume that
a hue, more or less reddish, does often pervade[46]
the uncovered portion of a partially-eclipsed
Sun.

The remark just made as regards the Sun
seems to have some application to the Moon.
There are a certain number of instances on
record that what is commonly spoken of as the
black body of the Moon does, under certain
circumstances, display traces of red which has
been variously spoken of as “crimson,” “dull
coppery,” “reddish-brownish” and “dull glowing
coal.”

SHADOW BANDS.

Let us suppose that we have a chance of
observing a total eclipse of the Sun; have completed
all our preliminary preparations; have
taken note of everything which needs to be
noted or suggests itself for that purpose up till
nearly the grand climax; and that the clock tells
us that we are within, say, five minutes of totality.
Somewhere about this time perhaps we shall
be able to detect, dancing across the landscape,
singular wavy lines of light and shade. These
are the “Shadow Bands,” as they are called.
The phrase is curiously inexplicit, but seemingly
cannot be improved upon at present because the
philosophy of these appearances—their origin
and the laws which regulate their visibility—are
unknown, perhaps because amid the multitude of
other things to think about sufficient attention
has hitherto not been paid to the study of them.
These shadow bands are most striking if a high
plastered wall, such as the front of a stone or
stuccoed house, is in their track as a screen to[47]
receive them. The shadow bands seem to vary
both in breadth and distance apart at different
eclipses, and also in the speed with which they
pass along. Though, as already stated, little is
known of their origin yet they may be conceived
to be due to irregularities in the atmospheric
refraction of the slender beam of light coming
from the waning or the waxing crescent of the
Sun, for be it understood they may be visible
after totality as well as before it. It is to be
remarked that they have never been photographed.

Fig. 6.—SHADOW BANDS.

[48]In addition to the shadow bands there are
instances on record of the limbs of the Sun’s
crescent appearing to undulate violently on the
approach of totality. These undulations were
noticed by Airy in 1842 about 6 minutes before
totality. Blake, in America in 1869, observed
the same phenomenon 8 minutes before totality.
In other cases the interval would seem
to have been very much shorter—a mere matter
of seconds. A very singular observation was
made in 1858 by Mr. J. D. Smith at Laycock
Abbey, Wiltshire, on the occasion of the annular
eclipse of that year. He says[13]:—“Both my
brother and myself were distinctly impressed
with the conviction that the withdrawal of light
was not continuous, but by pulsations, or, as it
were, waves of obscuration, the darkness increasing
by strokes which sensibly smote the eye,
and were repeated distinctly some five or seven
times after we had remarked the phenomenon
and before the time of greatest obscuration.
This did not occur on the return of light,
which came back continuously and without
shock or break.” Rümker mentions that
though this phenomenon was very apparent
to the naked eye it was not visible in the
telescope.

Faint rays or brushes of light sometimes seem
to spring from the diminishing crescent of the
Sun. These rays generally are very transient
and not very conspicuous, and perhaps must be
distinguished as regards both their appearance
and their origin from the more striking rays[49]
which are usually seen a few minutes before or
after totality, and which are generally associated
with, or even
deemed to belong
to, the Corona.
Fig. 7 represents
these rays as seen
in Spain on July
18, 1860, some
minutes after totality.
They are
described as having
been well
defined, but at
some moments
more marked
than at others,
and though well-defined
yet constantly
varying.
Radiations of
light more or
less of the character
just described
may probably
be regarded as a standing feature of every
total eclipse.

Fig. 7.—RAYS OF LIGHT SEEN NEAR THE TIME OF TOTALITY.

THE APPROACH OF TOTALITY.

The next thing to think about and to look
out for is the approach of the Moon’s shadow.
I have mentioned this already,[14] and also the[50]
appalling velocity with which it seems to
approach. By this time the coming darkness,
which characterises every total phase, will have
reached an advanced stage of development.
The darkness begins to be felt. The events
which manifest themselves at this juncture
on the Earth (rather than in the sky around
the Sun) are so graphically described by the
American writer whom I have already quoted,
and who writes, moreover, from personal experience,
that I cannot do better than transfer
her striking account to my pages.[15] “Then,
with frightful velocity, the actual shadow of
the Moon is often seen approaching, a tangible
darkness advancing almost like a wall, swift as
imagination, silent as doom. The immensity
of nature never comes quite so near as then,
and strong must be the nerves not to quiver
as this blue-black shadow rushes upon the
spectator with incredible speed. A vast, palpable
presence seems overwhelming the world.
The blue sky changes to gray or dull purple,
speedily becoming more dusky, and a death-like
trance seizes upon everything earthly.
Birds, with terrified cries, fly bewildered for
a moment, and then silently seek their night-quarters.
Bats emerge stealthily. Sensitive
flowers, the scarlet pimpernel, the African
mimosa, close their delicate petals, and a
sense of hushed expectancy deepens with the
darkness. An assembled crowd is awed into absolute
silence almost invariably. Trivial chatter
and senseless joking cease. Sometimes the shadow[51]
engulfs the observer smoothly, sometimes apparently
with jerks; but all the world might well
be dead and cold and turned to ashes. Often the
very air seems to hold its breath for sympathy;
at other times a lull suddenly awakens into a
strange wind, blowing with unnatural effect.
Then out upon the darkness, gruesome but
sublime, flashes the glory of the incomparable
corona, a silvery, soft, unearthly light, with
radiant streamers, stretching at times millions
of uncomprehended miles into space, while
the rosy, flaming protuberances skirt the
black rim of the Moon in ethereal splendour.
It becomes curiously cold, dew frequently
forms, and the chill is perhaps mental as
well as physical. Suddenly, instantaneous as
a lightning flash, an arrow of actual sunlight
strikes the landscape, and Earth comes to life
again, while corona and protuberances melt
into the returning brilliance, and occasionally
the receding lunar shadow is glimpsed as it
flies away with the tremendous speed of its
approach.”

In connection with the approach of the Moon’s
shadow, it is to be noted that at totality the
heavens appear in a certain sense to descend
upon the Earth. If an observer is looking upwards
towards the zenith over his head, he
will see the clouds appear to drop towards
the Earth, and the surrounding gloom seems
also to have the effect of vitiating one’s estimate
of distances. To an observer upon a high hill,
a plain below him appears to become more
distant. Although what has been called the[52]
descent of the clouds (that is to say their
appearance of growing proximity) is most manifest
immediately before the totality, yet a
sense of growing nearness may sometimes be
noticed a very considerable time before the
total phase is reached.

Whilst on the subject of clouds, it may be
mentioned that although there is in the vault
of heaven generally during the total phase an
appreciable sensation of black darkness, more
or less absolute, that is to say, either blackish
or greyish, yet in certain regions of the sky,
(generally in the direction of the horizon) the
clouds, when there are any, often exhibit colours
in strata, orange hue below and red above, with
indigo or grey or black higher up still, right
away to the Sun’s place. The cause of these
differences is to be found in the fact that the
lower part of the atmosphere within the area of
the Moon’s shadow is, under the circumstances
in question, illuminated by light which having
passed through many miles of atmosphere near
to the Earth’s surface, has lost much from the
violet end of its spectrum, leaving an undue
proportion of the red end.

On certain occasions iridescent or rainbow-tinted
clouds may be seen in the vicinity of the
Sun, either before, or during, or after totality,
depending on circumstances unknown. Such
clouds have been observed at all these three
stages of a total eclipse. The effects of course
are atmospheric, and have no physical connection
with either Sun or Moon.

[53]THE DARKNESS OF TOTALITY.

With respect to the general darkness which
prevails during totality, great discrepancies appear
in the accounts, not only as between
different eclipses, but in respect of the same
eclipse observed by different people at different
places. Perhaps the commonest test applied
by most observers is that of the facility or
difficulty of reading the faces of chronometers
or watches. Sometimes this is done readily, at
other times with difficulty. In India in 1868,
one observer stated that it was impossible
to recognise a person’s face three yards off,
and lamplight was needed for reading his
chronometer. On the other hand in Spain
in 1860, it was noted that a thermometer, as
well as the finest hand-writing, could be read
easily. The foregoing remarks apply to the
state of things in the open air. In 1860,
it was stated that inside a house in Spain
the darkness was so great that people moving
about had to take great care lest they
should run violently against the household
furniture.

Perhaps on the whole it may be said that the
darkness of an ordinary totality is decidedly
greater than that of a full Moon night.

Many observers have noted during totality
that even when there has not been any very
extreme amount of absolute darkness, yet the
ruddy light already mentioned as prevailing towards
the horizon often gives rise to weird
unearthly effects, so that the faces of bystanders[54]
assume a sickly livid hue not unlike that which
results from the light of burning salt.

METEOROLOGICAL AND OTHER EFFECTS.

It is very generally noticed that great changes
take place in the meteorological conditions of the
atmosphere as an eclipse of the Sun runs its
course from partial phase to totality, and back
again to partial phase. It goes without saying
that the obstruction of the solar rays by the oncoming
Moon would necessarily lead to a steady
and considerable diminution in the general temperature
of the air. This has often been made
the matter of exact thermometric record, but it
is not equally obvious why marked changes in
the wind should take place. As the partial phase
proceeds it is very usual for the wind to rise or
blow in gusts and to die away during totality,
though there are many exceptions to this, and it
can hardly be called a rule.

The depression of temperature varies very
much indeed according to the locality where
the eclipse is being observed and the local
thermometric conditions which usually prevail.
The actual depression will often amount to 10°
or 20° and the deposit of dew is occasionally
noticed.

In addition to the general effects of a total
solar eclipse on men, animals, and plants as summarised
in the extract already made from Mrs.
Todd’s book a few additional particulars may be
given culled from many recorded observations.
Flowers and leaves which ordinarily close at
night begin long before totality to show signs[55]
of closing up. Thus we are told that in 1836
“the crocus, gentian and anemone partially
closed their flowers and reopened them as the
phenomenon passed off: and a delicate South
African mimosa which we had reared from a
seed entirely folded its pinnate leaves until the
Sun was uncovered.” In 1851 “the night violet,
which shortly before the beginning of the eclipse
had little of its agreeable scent about it, smelt
strongly during the totality.”

In the insect world ants have been noticed to
go on working during totality, whilst grasshoppers
are stilled by the darkness, and earth-worms
come to the surface. Birds of all kinds seem
always upset in their habits, almost invariably
going to roost as the darkness becomes intensified
before totality. In 1868 “a small cock which
had beforehand been actively employed in grubbing
about in the sand went to sleep with his
head under his wing and slept for about 10 minutes,
and on waking uttered an expression of
surprise, but did not crow.” In 1869 mention is
made of an unruly cow “accustomed to jump
into a corn-field at night” being found to have
trespassed into the said corn-field during the
total phase.

The thrilling descriptions of the effects of the
oncoming darkness of totality, derived from the
records of past total eclipses, are not likely to be
improved upon in the future, for we shall receive
them more and more from amateurs and less and
less from astronomical experts. Every additional
total eclipse which happens testifies to the fact
that the time and thoughts of these latter classes[56]
of people will be to an increasing degree dedicated
to instrumental work rather than to simple naked
eye or even telescopic observation. The spectroscope
and the camera are steadily ousting the
simple telescope of every sort and unassisted eye
observations from solar eclipse work.

Mrs. Todd has the following apt remarks by
way of summary of the results to an individual
of observing a total eclipse of the Sun:—“I
doubt if the effect of witnessing a total eclipse
ever quite passes away. The impression is
singularly vivid and quieting for days, and can
never be wholly lost. A startling nearness to
the gigantic forces of Nature and their inconceivable
operation seems to have been established.
Personalities and towns and cities, and hates and
jealousies, and even mundane hopes, grow very
small and very far away.”

CHAPTER VI.

WHAT IS OBSERVED DURING THE TOTAL PHASE
OF AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

The central feature of every total eclipse of the
Sun is undoubtedly the Corona[16] and the phenomena
connected with it; but immediately before
the extinction of the Sun’s light and incidental[57]
thereto there are some minor features which
must be briefly noticed.

Fig. 8.—BRUSHES OF LIGHT.

The Corona first makes its appearance on
the side of the
dark Moon opposite
to the disappearing
crescent, but brushes
of light are sometimes
observed on
the same side, along
the convex limb
of the disappearing
crescent. The appearance
of the
brushes will be sufficiently
realised by
an inspection of the annexed engraving without
the necessity of any further verbal description.
These brushes are little, if at all, coloured, and
must not be confused with the “Red Flames”
or “Prominences” hereafter to be described.

BAILY’S BEADS.

When the disc of the Moon has advanced so
much over that of the Sun as to have reduced
the Sun almost to the narrowest possible crescent
of light, it is generally noticed that at a certain
stage the crescent suddenly breaks up into a succession
of spots of light. These spots are sometimes
spoken of as “rounded” spots, but it is
very doubtful whether (certainly in view of their
supposed cause) they could possibly be deemed
ever to possess an outline, which by any stretch,
could be called “rounded.” Collating the recorded[58]
descriptions, some such phrase as “shapeless
beads” of light would seem to be the most
suitable designation. These are observed to form
before the total phase, and often also after the
total phase has passed. Under the latter circumstances,
the beads of light eventually run one
into another, like so many small drops of water
merging into one big one. The commonly received
explanation of “Baily’s Beads” is that
they are no more than portions of the Sun’s disc,
seen through valleys between mountains of the
Moon, the said mountains being the cause why
the bright patches are discontinuous. It is exceedingly
doubtful whether this is the true
explanation. The whole question is involved in
great uncertainty, and well deserves careful[59]
study during future eclipses; but this it is not
likely to get, in view of the current fashion of
every sufficiently skilled observer concentrating
his attention on matters connected with the solar
Corona (observed spectroscopically or otherwise),
to the exclusion of what may be called older subjects
of study. I will dismiss Baily’s Beads
from our consideration with the remark that the
first photograph of them was obtained at Ottumwa,
Illinois, U.S., during the eclipse of 1869.

Fig. 9.—“BAILY’S BEADS,” FOUR STAGES, AT BRIEF INTERVALS. MAY 15, 1836.

“Baily’s Beads” received their name from Mr.
Francis Baily, who, in 1836, for the first time
exhaustively described them; but they were probably
seen and even mentioned long before his
time. At the total eclipse of the Sun, seen at
Penobscot in North America, on October 27,
1780, they would seem to have been noticed, and
perhaps even earlier than that date.

Almost coincident with the appearance of
Baily’s Beads, that is, either just before or just
after, and also just before or just after the
absolute totality (there seems no certain rule
of time) jets of red flame are seen to dart out
from behind the disc of the Moon. It is now
quite recognised as a certain fact that these “Red
Flames” belong to the Sun and are outbursts of
hydrogen gas. Moreover, they are now commonly
called “Prominences,” and with the improved
methods of modern science may be seen
almost at any time when the Sun is suitably
approached; and they are not restricted in their
appearance to the time when the Sun is totally
eclipsed as was long supposed.

I may have more to say about these Red[60]
Flames later on; but am at present dealing
only with the outward appearances of things.
Carrington’s description has been considered
very apt. One which he saw in 1851 he likened
to “a mighty flame bursting through the roof
of a house and blown by a strong wind.”

Certain ambiguous phrases made use of in
connection with eclipses of ancient date may
perhaps in reality have been allusions to the
Red Flames; otherwise the first account of them
given with anything like scientific precision
seems to be due to a Captain Stannyan, who
observed them at Berne during the eclipse of
1706. His words are that the Sun at “his
getting out of his eclipse was preceded by a
blood-red streak from its left limb which continued
not longer than six or seven seconds of
time; then part of the Sun’s disc appeared all
of a sudden.”

Some subsequent observers spoke of the Red
Flames as isolated jets of red light appearing
here and there; whilst others seem to have
thought they had seen an almost or quite continuous
ring of red light around the Sun. The
last-named idea is now recognised as the more
accurate representation of the actual facts, the
Red Flames being emanations proceeding from
a sort of shell enveloping the Sun, to which
shell the name of “Chromosphere” has now
come to be applied.

As regards the Moon itself during the continuance
of the total phase, all that need be said
is that our satellite usually exhibits a disc which
is simply black; but on occasions observers have[61]
called it purple or purplish. Although during
totality the Moon is illuminated by a full
allowance of Earth-shine (light reflected by the
Earth into space), yet from all accounts this is
always insufficient to reveal any traces of the
irregularities of mountains and valleys, etc.,
which exist on the Moon.

When during totality any of the brighter
planets, such as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter,
or Saturn, happen to be in the vicinity of the
Sun they are generally recognised; but the stars
seen are usually very few, and they are only
very bright ones of the 1st or 2nd magnitudes.
Perhaps an explanation of the paucity of stars
noticed is to be found in the fact that the minds
of observers are usually too much concentrated
on the Sun and Moon for any thought to be given
to other things or other parts of the sky.

Perhaps this is a convenient place in which to
recall the fact that there has been much controversy
in the astronomical world during the last
50 years as to whether there exist any undiscovered
planets revolving round the Sun within
the orbit of Mercury. Whilst there is some
evidence, though slight, that one or more such
planets have been seen, opponents of the idea
base their scepticism on the fact that with so
many total eclipses as there have been since 1859
(when Lescarbault claimed to have found a planet
which has been called “Vulcan”), no certain
proof has been obtained of the existence of such
a planet; and what better occasion for finding
one (if one exists of any size) than the darkness
of a total solar eclipse? At present it must[62]
be confessed that the sceptics have the best
of it.

THE CORONA.

We have now to consider what I have already
called the central feature of every total eclipse.
It was long ago compared to the nimbus often
placed by painters around the heads of the
Virgin Mary and other saints of old; and as
conveying a rough general idea the comparison
may still stand. It has been suggested that not
a bad idea of it may be obtained by looking at a
Full Moon through a wire-gauze window-screen.
The Corona comes into view a short time (usually
to be measured by seconds) before the total extinction
of the Sun’s rays, lasts during totality
and endures for a brief interval of seconds (or
it might be a minute) after the Sun has reappeared.
It was long a matter of discussion
whether the Corona belonged to the Sun or the
Moon. In the early days of telescopic astronomy
there was something to be said perhaps on both
sides, but it is now a matter of absolute certainty
that it belongs to the Sun, and that the Moon
contributes nothing to the spectacle of a total
eclipse of the Sun, except its own solid body,
which blocks out the Sun’s light, and its shadow,
which passes across the Earth.

Of the general appearance of the Corona some
idea may be obtained from Fig. 1 (see Frontispiece)
which so far as it goes needs little or no
verbal description. Stress must however be laid
on the word “general” because every Corona may
be said to differ from its immediate predecessor[63]
and successor, although, as we shall see presently,
there is strong reason to believe that there is a
periodicity in connection with Coronas as with
so many other things in the world of Astronomy.
A curious point may here be mentioned as
apparently well established, namely, that when
long rays are noticed in the Corona they do not
seem to radiate from the Sun’s centre as the short
rays more or less seem to do. Though the aggregate
brilliancy of the Corona varies somewhat yet
it may be taken to be much about equal on the
whole to the Moon at its full. The Corona is
quite unlike the Moon as regards heat for its
radiant heat has been found to be very well
marked.

There is another thing connected with the
Sun’s Corona which needs to be mentioned at
the outset and which also furnishes a reason for
treating it in a somewhat special manner. The
usual practice in writing about science is to deal
with it in the first instance descriptively, and
then if any historical information is to be given
to exhibit that separately and subsequently.
But our knowledge of the Sun’s Corona has
developed so entirely by steps from a small
beginning that it is neither easy nor advantageous
to keep the history separate or in the
background and I shall therefore not attempt to
do so.

Astronomers are not agreed as to what is
the first record of the Corona. It is commonly
associated with a total eclipse which occurred in
the 1st century A.D. and possibly in the year 96
A.D. Some details of the discussion will be found[64]
in a later chapter,[17] and I will make no further
allusion to the matter here. Passing over the
eclipses of 968 A.D. and 1030 A.D. the records of
both of which possibly imply that the Corona
was noticed, we may find ourselves on thoroughly
firm ground in considering the eclipse of April
9, 1567. Clavius, a well-known writer on chronology,
undoubtedly saw then the Corona in the
modern acceptation of the word but thought it
merely the uncovered rim of the Sun. In reply
to this Kepler showed by some computations of
his own, based on the relative apparent sizes of
the Sun and Moon, that Clavius’s theory was
untenable. Kepler, however, put forth a theory
of his own which was no better, namely, that the
Corona was due to the existence of an atmosphere
round the Moon and proved its existence. From
this time forwards we have statements, by various
observers, applying to various eclipses, of the
Corona seeming to be endued with a rotatory
motion. The Spanish observer, Don A. Ulloa,
in 1778, wrote thus respecting the Corona seen
in that year:—“After the immersion we began
to observe round the Moon a very brilliant
circle of light which seemed to have a rapid
circular motion something similar to that of
a rocket turning about its centre.” Modern observations
furnish no counterpart of these ideas
of motion in the Corona. Passing over many
intervening eclipses we must note that of 1836
(which gave us “Baily’s Beads”) as the first
which set men thinking that total eclipses of
the Sun exhibited subsidiary phenomena deserving[65]
of careful and patient attention. Such attention
was given on the occasion of the eclipses of
1842 and 1851, still however without the Corona
attracting that interest which it has gained for
itself more recently. It was noticed indeed that
the Corona always first showed itself on the side
of the Moon farthest from the vanishing crescent
but the full significance of this fact was not at
first realised. Mrs. Todd well remarks:—“In the
early observations of the Corona it was regarded
as a halo merely and so drawn. Its real structure
was neither known, depicted, nor investigated.
The earliest pictures all show this. Preconceived
ideas prejudiced the observers, and their sketches
were mostly structureless…. It should not be
forgotten that the Coronal rays project outward
into space from a spherical Sun and do not lie in
a plane as they appear to the eye in photographs
and drawings.” After remarking on the value of
photographs of the Corona up to a certain point
because of their automatic accuracy Mrs. Todd
very sensibly says, “but pencil drawings, while
ordinarily less trustworthy because involving the
uncertain element of personal equation are more
valuable in delineating the finest and faintest
detail of which the sensitive plate rarely takes
note; the vast array of both, however, shows
marked differences in the structure and form of
the Corona from one eclipse to another though it
has not yet revealed rapid changes during any
one observation. This last interesting feature
can be studied only by comparison of photographs
near the beginning of an eclipse track and its
end, two or three hours of absolute time apart.”[66]
Concerted efforts to accomplish this were made
in 1871, 1887, and 1889, but they broke down
because the weather failed at one or other end of
the chain of observing stations and a succession
of photographs not simultaneous but separated by
sufficient intervals of time could not be had. The
eclipse of 1893, however, yielded successful though
negative results. Photographs in South America
compared with photographs in Africa two hours
later in time disclosed no appreciable difference
in the structure of the Corona and its streamers.
The eclipse of May 28, 1900, will furnish the next
favourable opportunity for a repetition of this
experiment by reason of the fact that the line
of totality begins in North America, crosses
Portugal and Spain and ceases in Africa. In
other words, traverses countries eminently calculated
to facilitate the establishment of photographic
observing stations where observations can
be made not simultaneously but at successive
intervals spread over several hours.

Although of course the Corona had been
observed long before the year 1851, as indeed
we have already seen, yet the eclipse of 1851
is the farthest back which we can safely take
as a starting-point for gathering up thoroughly
precise details, because it was the first at which
photography was brought into use. Starting,
therefore, with that eclipse I want to lay before
the reader some of the very interesting and
remarkable generalisations which (thanks especially
to Mr. W. H. Wesley’s skilful review of
many of the photographic results) are now
gradually unfolding themselves to astronomers.[67]
To put the matter in the fewest possible words
there seems little or no doubt that according as
spots on the Sun are abundant or scarce so the
Corona when visible during an eclipse varies in
appearance from one period of eleven years to
another like period. Or, to put it in another
way, given the date of a coming total eclipse we
can predict to a certain extent the probable shape
and character of the Corona if we know how the
forthcoming date stands as regards a Sun-spot
maximum or minimum.

The most recent important eclipses up to date
which have been observed, namely those of April
16, 1893, Aug. 9, 1896, and Jan. 21, 1898,
do not add much to our useful records of the
outward appearances presented by the Corona.
The 1896 Corona is described as intermediate
between the two Types respectively associated
with years of maximum and minimum Sun-spots,
and this is as it should have been, albeit there
was one extension which reached to about two
diameters of the Sun. The 1898 Corona yielded
four long Coronal streamers reaching much farther
from the Sun than any previously seen, the two
longest reaching to 4½ and 6 diameters of the
Sun respectively. These dimensions are quite
unprecedented.

Fig. 10.—CORONA OF 1882. (SUN-SPOT MAXIMUM.)

The application of the spectroscope to observations
of eclipses of the Sun demands a few words
of notice in this place, but it would not be consistent
with the plan of this work to go into
details. Though the spectroscope has been
applied under many different circumstances to
different parts of the Sun’s surroundings in connection[69]
with total eclipses yet it is in regard to
the Corona that most has been done and most
has been discovered. The substance of the
discoveries made is that the Corona shines with
an intrinsic light of its own, that is to say, that
it is composed of constituents whose temperature
is sufficiently elevated to be self-luminous. These
constituents are chiefly hydrogen; the body which
corresponds to the line D3 (of Fraunhofer’s scale),
and which has been named “Helium”; and the
body which corresponds to the bright green line
1474 of Kirchoff’s scale and which, since its existence
was first suspected and then assured, has
been named “Coronium.”

The reader will not be surprised to learn, from
what has gone before, that an immense mass of
records have accumulated respecting the appearance
of the Corona. Correspondingly numerous
and divergent are the theories which have been
launched to explain the observations made. One
thing is in the highest degree probable, namely,
that electricity is largely concerned.

Going back to the question of Sun-spots regarded
in their possible or probable association
with the Corona, the present position of matters
appears to be this: that there is a real connection
between the general form of the Corona and disturbances
on the Sun, taking Sun-spots as an
indication of solar activity. When Sun-spots
are at or near their maximum, the Corona has
generally been somewhat symmetrical, with
synclinal groups of rays making angles of 45°
with its general axis. On the other hand, at
the epochs of minimum Sun-spots, the Corona[71]
shows polar rifts much more widely open, with
synclinal zones making larger angles with the
axis, and being, therefore, more depressed towards
the equatorial regions, in which, moreover,
there is usually a very marked extension of
Coronal matter in the form of elongated streamers
reaching to several diameters of the Sun.

Fig. 11.—CORONA OF 1867. (SUN-SPOT MINIMUM.)

This generalisation is well borne out by the
maximum-epoch Coronas of 1870 and 1871, and
the minimum-epoch Coronas of 1867, 1874, 1875,
1878, and perhaps 1887, and certainly 1889.
On the other hand, the eclipses of 1883, 1885
and 1886 do not strikingly confirm this theory.
The eclipse of 1883 was at a time of rapidly
decreasing solar activity, yet the Corona had the
features of a Sun-spot maximum. The same,
though in a somewhat less degree, may be said
of the eclipses of 1885 and 1886. At the times
of both of these eclipses the solar activity was
decreasing.

The forthcoming eclipse of 1900 will nearly
coincide with a Sun-spot minimum, and if the
above conclusions are well founded the Corona
in 1900 should resemble that of 1889, and be
characterised by, amongst other things, some very
elongated groups of rays extending in nearly
opposite directions.

We are still a long way off from being able to
state with perfect confidence what the Corona is.
It is certainly a complex phenomenon, and the
various streamers which we see are not, as was at
one time imagined, a simple manifestation of one
radiant light. Mrs. Todd thus conveniently summarises
the present state of our knowledge:—“The[72]
true corona appears to be a triple phenomenon.
First, there are the polar rays, nearly
straight throughout their visible extent. Gradually,
as these rays start out from points on the
solar disc farther and farther removed from the
poles, they acquire increasing curvature, and very
probably extend into the equatorial regions, but
are with great difficulty traceable there, because
projected upon and confused with the filaments
having their origin remote from the poles. Then
there is the inner equatorial corona, apparently
connected intimately with truly solar phenomena,
quite like the polar rays; while the third element
in the composite is the outer equatorial corona,
made up of the long ecliptic streamers, for the
most part visible only to the naked eye, also existing
as a solar appendage, and possibly merging
into the zodiacal light. The total eclipses of a half
century have cleared up a few obscurities, and
added many perplexities. There is little or no
doubt about the substantial, if not entire, reality
of the corona as a truly solar phenomenon. The
Moon, if it has anything at all to do with the
corona, aside from the fact of its coming in conveniently
between Sun and Earth, so as to allow
a brief glimpse of something startlingly beautiful
which otherwise could never have been known, is
probably responsible for only a very narrow ring
of the inner radiance of pretty even breadth all
round. This diffraction effect is accepted; but
the problem still remains how wide this annulus
may be, and whether it may vary in width from
one eclipse to another. These questions once
settled, the spurious structure may then be excerpted[73]
from the true. Indeed the coronal
streamers, delicately curving and interlacing,
may tell the whole story of the Sun’s radiant
energy.”

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT IS OBSERVED AFTER THE TOTAL PHASE
OF AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN IS AT AN END.

In a certain sense, a description of the incidents
which precede the total disappearance of the Sun
in connection with a total Eclipse will apply more
or less to the second half of the phenomenon;
only, of course, in the reverse order and on the
opposite side of the compass. The Corona having
appeared first of all on the W. side of the Sun,
then having shown itself complete as surrounding
the Sun, will begin to disappear on the W. side,
and will be last seen on the E. side. Baily’s
Beads may or may not come into view; the Sun
will reappear first as a very thin crescent, gradually
widening; the quasi-nocturnal darkness visible
on the Earth will cease, and eventually the Moon
will completely pass away from off the Sun, and
the Sun once again will exhibit a perfect circle of
light.

Whilst there is so much to look for and look
at and think about, one thing must be sought
for instantly after totality, or it will be gone for
ever, and that is the Moon’s shadow on the
Earth. We have already seen in the last chapter
the startling rapidity and solemnity with which[74]
the shadow seems to rush forward to the observer
from the horizon on the western side
of the Meridian. Passing over him, or even, so
to speak, through him, it travels onwards in an
easterly direction and very soon vanishes. Its
visibility at all depends a good deal upon whether
the observer, who is looking for it, is sufficiently
raised above the adjacent country to be able to
command at least a mile or two of ground. If
he is in a hollow, he will have but little chance
of seeing the shadow at all: on the other hand,
if he is on the top of a considerable hill (or high
up on the side of a hill), commanding the horizon
for a distance of 10 or 20 miles, he will have a
fair chance of seeing the shadow. Sir G. B.
Airy states, in 1851, “My eye was caught
by a duskiness in the S.E., and I immediately
perceived that it was the Eclipse-shadow in the
air, travelling away in the direction of the
shadow’s path. For at least six seconds, this
shadow remained in sight, far more conspicuous
to the eye than I had anticipated. I was once
caught in a very violent hail and thunder-storm
on the Table-land of the County of Sutherland
called the “Moin,” and I at length saw the storm
travel away over the North Sea; and this view
of the receding Eclipse-shadow, though by no
means so dark, reminded me strongly of the
receding storm. In ten or twelve seconds all
appearance of the shadow had passed away.”

Perhaps this may be a convenient place to
make a note of what seems to be a fact, partly
established at any rate, even if not wholly established,
namely—that there seems some connection[75]
between eclipses of the Sun and Earthquakes. A
German physicist named Ginzel[18] has found a
score of coincidences between solar eclipses and
earthquakes in California in the years between
1850 and 1888 inclusive. Of course there were
eclipses without earthquakes and earthquakes
without eclipses, but twenty coincidences in
thirty-eight years seems suggestive of something.

CHAPTER VIII.

ECLIPSES OF THE SUN MENTIONED IN HISTORY—CHINESE.

This is the first of several chapters which will
be devoted to historical eclipses. Of course
the total eclipse of the Sun of August 9, 1896,
observed in Norway and elsewhere, is, in a
certain sense, an eclipse mentioned in history,
but that is not what is intended by the title
prefixed to these chapters. By the term “historical
eclipses,” as used here, I mean eclipses
which have been recorded by ancient historians
and chroniclers who were not necessarily astronomers,
and who wrote before the invention of
the telescope. The date of this may be conveniently
taken as a dividing line, so that I
shall deal chiefly with eclipses which occurred
before, say, the year 1600. There is another
reason why some such date as this is a suitable
one from which to take a new departure. Without
at all avowing that superstition ceased on the[76]
Earth in the year 1600 (for there is far too large
a residuum still available now, 300 years later),
it may yet be said that the Revival of Letters
did do a good deal to divest celestial phenomena
of those alarming and panic-causing attributes
which undoubtedly attached to them during the
earlier ages of the world and during the “Dark
Ages” in Western Europe quite as much as
during any other period of the world’s history.
No one can examine the writings of the ancient
Greek and Roman historians, and the chronicles
kept in the monasteries of Western Europe by
their monkish occupiers, without being struck
by the influence of terror which such events as
eclipses of the Sun and Moon and such celestial
visitors as Comets and Shooting Stars exercised
far and wide. And this influence overspread,
not only the unlettered lower orders, but many
of those in far higher stations of life who, one
might have hoped, would have been exempt
from such feelings of mental distress as they
often exhibited. Illustrations of this fact will
be adduced in due course.

It has always been supposed that the earliest
recorded eclipse of the Sun is one thus mentioned
in an ancient Chinese classic—the Chou-King
(sometimes spelt Shou-Ching). The actual words
used may be translated:—“On the first day of
the last month of Autumn the Sun and Moon
did not meet harmoniously in Fang.” To say
the least of it, this is a moderately ambiguous
announcement, and Chinese scholars, both astronomers
and non-astronomers, have spent a
good deal of time in examining the various[77]
eclipses which might be thought to be represented
by the inharmonious meeting of the Sun
and the Moon as above recorded. To cut a long
story short, it is generally agreed that we are
here considering one or other of two eclipses of
the Sun which occurred in the years 2136 or
2128 B.C. respectively, the Sun being then in
the sidereal division “Fang,” a locality determined
by the stars β, δ, π, and ρ Scorpii,
and which includes a few small stars in Libra
and Ophiuchus to the N. and in Lupus to
the S. How this simple and neat conclusion,
which I have stated with such apparent dogmatism,
was arrived at is quite another question,
and it would hardly be consistent with the purpose
of this volume to attempt to work it out in
detail, but a few points presented in a summary
form may be interesting.

In the first place, be it understood, that though
it is fashionable to cast ridicule on John Chinaman,
especially by way of retaliation for his calling
us “Barbarians,” yet it is a sure and certain
fact that not only have the Chinese during many
centuries been very attentive students of Astronomy,
but that we Westerns owe a good deal
of our present knowledge in certain departments
to the information stored up by Chinese observers
during many centuries both before and after the
Christian Era.

This, however, is a digression. The circumstances
of this eclipse as regards its identification
having been carefully examined by Mr. R. W.
Rothman,[19] in 1839 were further reviewed by[78]
Professor S. M. Russell in a paper published in
the proceedings of the Pekin Oriental Society.[20]
The substance of the case is that in the reign of
Chung-K’ang, the fourth Emperor of the Hsia
Dynasty, there occurred an eclipse of the Sun,
which is interesting not only for its antiquity,
but also for the dread fate of the two Astronomers
Royal of the period, who were taken by surprise
at its occurrence, and were unprepared to perform
the customary rites. These rites were the shooting
of arrows and the beating of drums, gongs,
etc., with the object of delivering the Sun from
the monster which threatened to devour it. The
two astronomers by virtue of their office should
have superintended these rites. They were,
however, drunk and incapable of performing
their duties, so that great turmoil ensued, and it
was considered that the land was exposed to the
anger of the gods. By way of appeasing the
gods, and of suitably punishing the two State
officials for their neglect and personal misconduct,
they were forthwith put to death, a punishment
which may be said to have been somewhat excessive,
in view of the fact that the eclipse was not
a total but only a partial one. An anonymous
verse runs:—

It appears beyond all reasonable doubt that the
eclipse in question occurred on October 22, 2136[79]
B.C. The preliminary difficulties to be got over in
arriving at the date arose from the fact that there
was an uncertainty of 108 years in the date when
the Emperor Chung-K’ang ascended the throne;
and within these limits of time there were 14
possible years in which an eclipse of the Sun in
Fang could have occurred. Then the number
was further limited by the necessity of finding
an eclipse which could have been seen at the
place which was the Emperor’s capital. The
site of this, again, was a matter of some uncertainty.
However, step by step, by a judicious
process of exhaustion, the year 2136 B.C. was
arrived at as the alternative to the previously
received date of 2128 B.C. Considering that we
are dealing with a matter which happened full
4000 years ago, it may fairly be said that this
discrepancy is not perhaps much to be wondered
at, seeing what disputes often happen nowadays
as to the precise date of events which may have
occurred but a few years or even a few months
before the controversy springs up.

Professor Russell says that:—“Some admirers
of the Chinese cite this eclipse as a proof of the
early proficiency attained by the Chinese in astronomical
calculations. I find no ground for that
belief in the text. Indeed, for many centuries
later, the Chinese were unable to predict the
position of the Sun accurately among the stars.
They relied wholly on observation to settle their
calendar, year by year, and seem to have drawn
no conclusions or deductions from their observations.
Their calendar was continually falling
into confusion. Even at the beginning of this[80]
dynasty, when the Jesuits came to China, the
Chinese astronomers were unable to calculate
accurately the length of the shadow of the Sun
at the equinoxes and solstices. It seems to me
therefore very improbable that they could have
been able to calculate and predict eclipses.”

I am not at all sure that this is quite a fair
presentation of the case. I do not remember
ever to have seen the power to predict eclipses
ascribed to the Chinese, but it is a simple matter of
fact that we owe to them during many centuries
unique records of a vast number of celestial phenomena.
Their observations of comets may be
singled out as having been of inestimable value to
various 19th-century computers, especially E. Biot
and J. R. Hind.

The second recorded eclipse of the Sun would
seem to be also due to the Chinese. Confucius
relates that during the reign of the Emperor
Yew-Wang an eclipse took place. This Emperor
reigned between 781 B.C. and 771 B.C., and it has
been generally thought that the eclipse of 775 B.C.
is the one referred to, but Johnson doubts this
on the ground that this eclipse was chiefly visible
in the circumpolar regions, and if seen at all in
China must have been of very small dimensions.
He leans to the eclipse of June 4, 780 B.C. as the
only large one which happened within the limits
of time stated above.

An ancient Chinese historical work, known as
the Chun-Tsew, written by Confucius, makes mention
of a large number of solar eclipses which
occurred before the Christian Era. This work
came under the notice of M. Gaubil, one of the[81]
French Jesuit missionaries who laboured in China
some century and a half ago, and he first gave an
account of it in his Traité de la Chronologie Chinoise,
published at Paris in 1770.[21]

The Chun-Tsew is said to be the only work
really written by Kung-Foo-Tze, commonly
known as Confucius, the other treatises attributed
to him having been compiled by disciples
of his either during his life-time or after his
decease. The German chronologist, Ideler, was
acquainted with this work, and in a paper of
his own, presented to the Berlin Academy, remarked:—“What
gives great interest to this
work is the account of 36 solar eclipses observed
in China, the first of which was on Feb.
22, 720 B.C., and the last on July 22, 495 B.C.”

In 1863 Mr. John Williams, then Assistant
Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society,
communicated to the Society in a condensed
form the particulars of these eclipses as related
in Confucius’s book, together with some remarks
on the book itself. The Chun-Tsew treats of a part
of the history of the confederated nations into
which China was divided during the Chow
Dynasty, that is between 1122 B.C. and 255 B.C.
The particular period dealt with is that which
extended from 722 B.C. to 479 B.C. It was during
the latter part of this interval of about 242
years that Confucius flourished. But the book
is not quite a general history for it is more particularly[82]
devoted to the small State of Loo of
which Confucius was a native, where he passed a
great portion of his life, and where he was advanced
to the highest honours. It contains the
history of twelve princes of this State with incidental
notices of the other confederated nations.
The number of the years of each reign is accurately
determined, and the events are classed
under the years in which they occurred. Each
year is divided into sections according to the
four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter,
and the sections are subdivided into months, and
often the days are distinguished. The name
Chun-Tsew is said to have been given to this
work from its having been commenced in Spring
and finished in Autumn, but Williams thinks
that the name rather refers to the fact that its
contents are divided into seasons as stated. The
style in which it is written is very concise, being
a bare mention of facts without comment, and
although on this account it might appear to us
dry and uninteresting, it is much valued by the
Chinese as a model of the ancient style of writing.
It forms one of the Woo-King or Five Classical
Books, without a thorough knowledge of which,
and of the Sze-Shoo or Four Books, no man can
attain to any post of importance in the Chinese
Empire.

The account of each eclipse is but little more
than a brief mention of its occurrence at a certain
time. The following is an example of the entries:—“In
the 58th year of the 32nd cycle in the 51st
year of the Emperor King-Wang, of the Chow
Dynasty, the 3rd year of Yin-Kung, Prince of[83]
Loo, in the spring, the second moon, on the
day called Kea-Tsze, there was an eclipse of
the Sun.” This 58th year of the 32nd cycle
answers to 720 B.C. Mr. Williams in the year
1863 presented to the Royal Astronomical
Society a paper setting out the whole of the
eclipses of which I have cited but one example,
converting, of course, the very complicated
Chinese dates into European dates.

These Chinese records of eclipses were in
1864 subjected to examination by the late Sir
G. B. Airy,[22] with results which were highly
noteworthy, and justify us in reposing much
confidence in Chinese astronomical work. Airy
remarks:—“The period through which these
eclipses extend is included in the time through
which calculations of eclipses have been made
in the French work entitled L’Art de vérifier les
Dates. I have several times had occasion to
recalculate with great accuracy eclipses which
are noted in that work (edition of 1820), and I
have found that, to the limits of accuracy to
which it pretends, and which are abundantly
sufficient for the present purpose, it is perfectly
trustworthy. I have therefore made a comparison
of the Chun-Tsew eclipses with those of L’Art de
vérifier les Dates. The result is interesting. Of
the 36 eclipses, 32 agree with those of the Art
de vérifier les Dates, not only in the day, but
also in the general track of the eclipse as given
in the Art de vérifier, which appears to show
sufficiently that the eclipse would be visible in
that province of China to which the Chun-Tsew[84]
is referred.” Airy then proceeds to point out
that, with regard to the four eclipses which he
could not confirm, there cannot have been eclipses
in April 645 B.C. or in June 592 B.C. It appears,
however, from a note by Williams, that the
date attached to the eclipse of 645 B.C. is, in
reality, an erroneous repetition (in the Chinese
mode of expressing it) of that attached to the
next following one, and in the absence of correct
date it must be rejected. In the record of
592 B.C., June 16, no clerical error is found,
and there must be an error of a different class.
The eclipses of 552 B.C., September 19, and
549 B.C., July 18, to which there is nothing
corresponding in the Art de vérifier, are in a
different category. These occur in the lunations
immediately succeeding 552 B.C., August 20, and
549 B.C., June 19, respectively, and there is
no doubt that those which agree with the Art
de vérifier were real eclipses. Now there cannot
be eclipses visible at the same place in successive
lunations, because the difference of the Moon’s
longitudes is about 29°, and the difference of
latitudes is therefore nearly 3°, which is greater
than the sum of the diameters of the Sun and
Moon increased by any possible change of parallax
for the same place. These, therefore, were
not real eclipses. It seems probable that the
nominal days were set down by the observer
in his memorandum book as days on which
eclipses were to be looked for. Airy conjectured
that the eclipses of 552 B.C., August 20, and 549
B.C., June 19, were observed by one and the same
person, and that he possessed science enough[85]
to make him connect the solar eclipses with
the change of the Moon, but not enough to
give him any idea of the limitations to the
visibility of an eclipse.

On a subsequent occasion Mr. Williams laid
before the Society a further list of solar eclipses
observed in China, and extending from 481 B.C.
to the Christian Era. He collected these from
a Chinese historical work, entitled Tung-Keen-Kang-Muh.
This work, which runs to 101
volumes, contains a summary of Chinese history
from the earliest times to the end of the Yuen
Dynasty, A.D. 1368, and was first published about
1473. The copy in Mr. Williams’s possession
was published in 1808. The text is very briefly
worded, and consists merely of an account of
the accessions and deaths of the emperors and
of the rulers of the minor states, with some of
the more remarkable occurrences in each reign.
The appointments and deaths of various eminent
personages are also noticed, together with special
calamities such as earthquakes, inundations,
storms, etc. The astronomical allusions include
eclipses and comets. Amongst the eclipses are
also all, or most of those which are recorded in
the Chun-Tsew as having occurred prior to 479
B.C. Though no particular expressions are used
to define the exact character of the eclipses, it
is to be presumed that some of them must have
been total, because it is stated that the stars
were visible, albeit that seemingly in only one
instance is a word attached which specifically
expresses the idea of totality. Here again all
the dates were expressed in Chinese style, but,[86]
as published by Williams, were rendered, as
before, in European style by aid of chronological
tables, published about 1860 in Japan. Mr.
Williams, in his second paper, from which I
have been quoting, states that he brought his
published account down to the Christian Era
only as a matter of convenience, but that he
had in hand a further selection of eclipses from
the Tung-Keen-Kang-Muh, the interval from the
Christian Era to the 4th century A.D. yielding
nearly 100 additional eclipses. This further
transcript has not yet been published, but remains
in MS. in the Library of the Royal Astronomical
Society. Mr. Williams died in 1874 at the age
of 77, one of the most experienced Chinese
scholars of the century.

It is remarkable that none of the Chinese
annals to which reference has been made include
any mention of eclipses of the Moon; but the
records of Comets are exceedingly numerous
and, as I have already stated, have proved of
the highest value to astronomers who have been
called upon to investigate the ancient history of
Comets.

CHAPTER IX.

ARE ECLIPSES ALLUDED TO IN THE BIBLE?

An interesting question has been suggested:
Are there any allusions to eclipses to be found
in Holy Scripture? It seems safe to assert that[87]
there is at least one, and that there may be three
or four.

In Amos viii. 9 we read:—“I will cause the
Sun to go down at noon, and I will darken
the Earth in the clear day.” This language is
so very explicit and applies so precisely to
the circumstances of a solar eclipse that commentators
are generally agreed that it can have
but one meaning;[23] and accordingly it is considered
to refer without doubt to one or other
of the following eclipses:—791 B.C., 771 B.C., 770
B.C., or 763 B.C. Archbishop Usher,[24] the well-known
chronologist, suggested the first three
more than two centuries ago, whilst the eclipse of
763 B.C. was suggested in recent times and is
now generally accepted as the one referred to.
The circumstances connected with the discovery
and identification of the eclipse of 763 B.C. are
very interesting.

The date when Amos wrote is set down in the
margin of our Bibles as 787 B.C. and if this date
is correct it follows that for his statement to
have been a prediction he must be alluding to
some eclipse of later date than 787 B.C. This
obvious assumption not only shuts out the
eclipse of 791 B.C., but opens the door to the
acceptance of the eclipse of 763 B.C.

Apparently the first modern writer who looked
into the matter after Archbishop Usher was the
German commentator Hitzig who suggested the
eclipse of Feb. 9, 784 B.C. Dr. Pusey was so far[88]
taken with this idea that he thought it worth
while to secure the co-operation of the Rev. R.
Main, F.R.A.S., the Radcliffe Observer at Oxford,
for the purpose of a full investigation. Mr. Main
had the circumstances of that eclipse calculated,
with the result that though the eclipse was
indeed total in Africa and Hindostan, yet at
Samaria it was only partial and of no considerable
magnitude. Dr. Pusey’s words, summing up
the situation are:—“The eclipse then would
hardly have been noticeable at Samaria, certainly
very far indeed from being an eclipse of such
magnitude, as could in any degree correspond
with the expression, ‘I will cause the Sun to
go down at noon.’” … “Beforehand, one should
not have expected that an eclipse of the Sun,
being itself a regular natural phenomenon, and
having no connection with the moral government
of God, should have been the subject of the prophet’s
prediction. Still it had a religious impressiveness
then, above what it has now, on account
of that wide-prevailing idolatry of the Sun. It
exhibited the object of their false worship, shorn
of its light, and passive.”

Dr. Pusey’s Commentary from which the above
quotation is made[25] bears the date 1873, but he
appears not to have been acquainted with the
important discovery announced no less than six
years previously by the distinguished Oriental
scholar, Sir H. C. Rawlinson. The discovery to
which I allude is a contemporary record on an
Assyrian tablet of a solar eclipse which was
seen at Nineveh about 24 years after the[89]
reputed date of Amos’s prophecy. This tablet
had been described by Dr. Hinckes in the British
Museum Report for 1854 but its chronological
importance had not then been realised. Sir H.
Rawlinson[26] speaks of the tablet as a record of or
register of the annual archons at Nineveh. He
says:—“In the eighteenth year before the accession
of Tiglath-Pileser there is a notice to the
following effect—‘In the month Sivan an eclipse
of the Sun took place’ and to mark the great
importance of the event a line is drawn across the
tablet although no interruption takes place in the
official order of the Eponymes. Here then we
have notice of a solar eclipse which was visible
at Nineveh which occurred within 90 days of
the (vernal) equinox (taking that as the normal
commencement of the year) and which we may
presume to have been total from the prominence
given to the record, and these are conditions
which during a century before and after the era
of Nabonassar are alone fulfilled by the eclipse
which took place on June 15, 763.”

This record was submitted to Sir G. B. Airy
and Mr. J. R. Hind, and the circumstances of the
eclipse were computed by the latter, by the aid
of Hansen’s Lunar Tables and Le Verrier’s Solar
Tables. The result, when plotted on a map,
showed that the shadow line just missed the site
of Nineveh, but that a very slight and unimportant
deviation from the result of the Tables
would bring the shadow over the city of Nineveh
where the eclipse was observed, and over Samaria
where it was predicted. The identification of[90]
this eclipse, both as regards its time and place,
has also proved a matter of importance in the
revision of Scripture chronology, by lowering, to
the extent of 25 years, the reigns of the kings
of the Jewish monarchy. The need for this
revision is further confirmed, if we assume that
the celebrated incident in the life of King Hezekiah,
described as the retrogradation of the Sun’s
shadow on the dial of Ahaz, is to be interpreted
as connected with a partial eclipse of the Sun.

We will now consider this event, and see what
can be made out of it. One Scripture record
(2 Kings xx. 11) is as follows:—“And Isaiah the
prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the
shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had
gone down in the dial of Ahaz.” This passage
has greatly exercised commentators of all creeds
in different ages of the Church; and the most
divergent opinions have been expressed as to
what happened. This has been due to two causes
jointly. Not only is the occurrence incomprehensible,
looked at on the surface of the words,
but we are entirely ignorant of the construction
of the so-called “dial” of Ahaz, and have little
or no material directly available from outside
sources to enable us to come to a clear and safe
conclusion. No doubt, however, it was a sun-dial,
or gnomon of some kind. Bishop Wordsworth
lays stress on the apparent assertion that
the miracle was not wrought on any other dial
at Jerusalem except that of Ahaz, the father of
Hezekiah, and he treats as a confirmation of this
the statement in 2 Chron. xxxii. 31, that ambassadors
came from Babylon to Jerusalem, being[91]
curious to learn all about “the wonder that had
been done in the land” (i.e. in the land of Judah).
But there is more taken for granted here than is
necessary, or, as we shall presently see, is justifiable.
To begin with, how do we know that there
was any other dial at Jerusalem like that of
Ahaz? But, in point of fact, we must make a
new departure altogether, for it has been suggested
(I know not exactly by whom, or when for
the first time) that an eclipse of the Sun, under
certain circumstances, would explain all that
happened, and reconcile all that has to be reconciled.
What happened to Hezekiah is thought
by many to imply clearly a miracle, and it may
be said that an eclipse of the Sun cannot be held
to be a miracle[27] by the ordinary definition of the
word. But, on the other hand, it certainly might
count as such in the eyes of ignorant spectators,
who know nothing of the theory or practice of
eclipses, and who would regard such a thing
as quite unforeseen, unexpected, and alarming.
Illustrations of this might be multiplied from all
parts of the world, in all ages of the world’s
history.

Let us see now what the argument is, as it
was worked out by the late Mr. J. W. Bosanquet,
F.R.A.S. Shortly before the invasion of Judæa
by Sennacherib—say in the beginning of the year
689 B.C.—Hezekiah was sick unto death. In
answer to his fervent prayer for recovery the[92]
prophet Isaiah was sent to him with this message:—“Thus
saith the Lord, the God of David
thy Father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen
thy tears; behold, I will add unto thy days
fifteen years … and I will defend this city, and
this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord, that
the Lord will do this thing that He hath spoken.
Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees,
which is gone down in the sun-dial of Ahaz
ten degrees backward. So the Sun returned ten
degrees, by which degrees it had gone down.”
(Isaiah xxxviii. 5-8).

In these words we evidently have mention of
some instrument erected in Hezekiah’s palace, in
the days of his father Ahaz, for showing the
change in the position of the shadow cast by the
Sun from day to day. This statement is confirmed
by a profane writer, Glycas, who states:
“They say that Ahaz, by some contrivance, had
erected in his palace certain steps, which showed
the hours of the day, and also measured the
course of the Sun.”

The idea involved in “bringing again,” through
“ten degrees backward,” “the shadow of the degrees”
which had gone down, is very noteworthy.
We seem intended to learn from these words
several things. For one thing (to begin with)
that the steps (as we must consider them
to have been) on this sun-dial of Ahaz, were
turned away from the Sun. For only in that
position could they cast their shadow, or could
the number of the illuminated steps be varied,
upwards or downwards, according to the varying
altitude of the sun. The only conceivable use of[93]
a fixed instrument so placed would be to show
the rise and fall of the shadow from day to day,
as the Sun on the meridian gradually rose higher
between mid-winter and mid-summer, or descended
lower between mid-summer and mid-winter, in
passing of course through the winter and summer
solstices in turn. No simple motion of the Sun
in its ordinary diurnal progress would produce
the effect described. On the other hand, it is
equally clear that the shadow cast by a gnomon
properly adjusted at the head of such a series of
steps would travel upwards and downwards upon
the steps “with the Sun,” from winter to summer
and from summer to winter, indicating at each
noon the meridian altitude of the Sun from day
to day, the latitude of Jerusalem being 31° 47′,
and the Sun’s altitude there on the shortest
day being 34° 41′. If the gnomon were raised
above the topmost step so as to bring the tip
of the gnomon or any aperture in it so much
above the step as would be the equivalent of
2° 54′ or slightly more, then the top of the
shadow of the gnomon (or a spot of light passing
through a hole in it) would, on the shortest day
of the year, fall just beyond the lowermost step.
An instrument constructed on the principle just
set forth was known to and used by the Greek
astronomers of antiquity under the name of a
Sciotheron or shadow-taker. Sometimes, and perhaps
more properly, it was called a Heliotropion,
that is, an instrument designed to indicate the
turning of the Sun at the Tropics.[28] This, be
it remembered, was information needed by the[94]
ancients for the correct regulation of the seasons
of the year, and of special service to the Jews
whose greater festivals were fixed in connection
with the seasons. There is reason to believe
that instruments of this character were of early
invention, going back perhaps to the times of
Homer, for we find a passage in the Odyssey,
(xv. 403) as follows:—

Pope’s rendering of this passage fails, however,
to bring out the salient idea involved. Butcher
and Lang translate the passage thus:—“There
is a certain isle called Syria, if haply thou hast
heard tell of it, over above Ortygia, and there
are the turning-places of the Sun.” Merry[29] calls
these island names mere “inventions of the
poet.” It seems to me a great question whether
Homer’s words really support the statement I
have made just before quoting it.

Diogenes Laërtius refers to this same instrument
when he speaks of the Heliotropion preserved
in the Island of Syra.[30]

According to Laërtius, Anaximander[31] was the
first Greek to use gnomons, which he placed
on the Sciothera of Lacedæmon, for the express
purpose of indicating the Tropics and Equinoxes.
These Sciothera were pyramidal in form.

An obelisk was the simplest, though an imperfect[95]
form of Heliotropion, marking indistinctly
the length of a shadow at different times of the
year, especially the extremes of length and
shortness at mid-winter and mid-summer. It
is perhaps interesting to mention that travellers
have recorded, in various places, various devices
for furnishing information respecting these
matters. For instance, in Milan Cathedral the
meridian line is marked on the pavement, and
along this line, an image of the Sun coming
through an aperture in the southern wall travels
backwards and forwards during the year according
to the seasons. Some Jesuit missionaries
who visited China about the middle of the last
century, noticed a device of this character in
operation at the Observatory at Pekin. A
gnomon had been set up in a low room and
one of the missionaries, M. Le Comte, describes
in the following words what they saw in connection
with this gnomon:—“The aperture
through which the rays of the Sun came was
about 8 ft. above the floor; it is horizontal and
formed of two pieces of copper, which may be
turned so as to be farther from, or closer to,
each other to enlarge or contract the aperture.
Lower was a table with a brass plate in the
middle on which was traced a meridian line
15 ft. long, divided by transverse lines which
are neither finished nor exact. All round the
table there are small channels to receive the
water, whereby it is to be levelled.”[32]

All this may seem rather a digression, and so
it is, but I am following Mr. Bosanquet herein[96]
in order the better to justify the argument that
it was an eclipse of the Sun which marked the
important incident in Hezekiah’s life which has
been handed down to us by the sacred writer.
It is evident that if a flight of steps were erected
on the principles which were set forth above, the
steps sloping upwards and southwards (for the
Northern Hemisphere) from the lowest step to
within a few inches below an aperture in the
gnomon suitably arranged, the ray or image of
the Sun, whichever it was, would travel day by
day up and down such steps between solstice
and solstice. We may conclude, therefore, that
the instrument which Hezekiah gazed at, and
which is called in Scripture, the “Dial” of
Ahaz, was what the Greeks would have termed
a Heliotropion.

The historian’s record is to the effect that on
the day of Hezekiah’s recovery an extraordinary
motion of the shadow was observed on the
“Steps of Ahaz” by the rising of the shadow
“ten steps” from the point to which it had
“gone down with the Sun.” This effect is
spoken of not as a miracle but as “a sign.” It
should also be remembered that the cure of
Hezekiah was effected not by a miracle but by
a simple application of a lump of figs. The
promise of his recovery was confirmed by the
motion of the shadow as already stated. We
are justified, therefore, in looking for some
ordinary natural phenomenon by which to account
for this peculiar motion on the dial, and
something miraculous is not essential. Dean
Milman once suggested that the effect might[97]
have been produced “by a cloud refracting the
light.” No doubt a dark cloud might produce
an apparent interference with the shadow, but
it is well pointed out by Bosanquet that such a
cause as a cloud would have been so manifest
to everyone, and the effect so transient, that
the phenomenon could hardly have been referred
to afterwards as it was in another place as “a
wonder that was done in the land.” (2 Chron.
xxxii. 31).

It becomes, therefore, alike an obvious and
a simple explanation that a shadow caused by
the Sun might be deflected downwards on such
an instrument with a regular and steady motion
by the Moon passing slowly over the upper part
of the Sun’s disc, as Sun and Moon both approached
the meridian.

The critical question has now to be raised:
“Can astronomers inform us whether a considerable
eclipse of the Sun occurred at the
beginning of the year 689 B.C. anywhere near
noon and which was visible at Jerusalem?”
And the answer to this it is interesting to be
able to say is a plain and distinct affirmative.
There was a large partial eclipse of the Sun on
January 11, 689 B.C., about 11.30 A.M., and it
was the upper limb which underwent eclipse.

This eclipse fulfils all the requirements of the
case, both from the historian’s and the astronomer’s
point of view. It occurred about the
year fixed by Demetrius as that of Hezekiah’s
illness: it occurred while the Sun was approaching
and actually passing the meridian; the obscuration
was on that part of the Sun’s disc[98]
(namely the upper part) which would have had
the effect of causing the point of light, which
would seem to emanate from the Sun, to appear
to be depressed downwards; and it was visible
at Jerusalem. But there still remains for consideration
the final and most important question,
“Would a deflection of light proceeding from
the Sun, regarded as a moving body, be capable
of affecting, to the extent of ‘ten steps,’ the
shadow on such an instrument as has been
described?” And arising out of this, there is
the subordinate question, “Would January,
being the month when this eclipse certainly
occurred, also be a month suitable for the exhibition
of such a phenomenon?”

It is ascertainable by calculation that the time
occupied by the Moon in passing over the Sun,
in the way it did during this eclipse, was about
2½ hours. But from the time of central conjunction,
when the obscuration was the greatest and
the point of light depressed the most, to the time
when the uppermost portion of the Sun’s disc was
released by the eastward motion of the Moon, and
the light from that uppermost portion was again
manifest, was about 20 minutes, and this, therefore,
was the time during which the phenomenon
of retrogression on the “steps” would have been
exhibited to the King’s eyes. Assuming then
that the time when the ascending shadow had
travelled upwards to the tenth step coincided, or
nearly so, with the time when the Sun had reached
its highest altitude for the day, at noon, we infer
that the time of central conjunction during this
eclipse was not later than from 20 to 15 minutes[99]
before noon. It could not have been much
earlier, because the phenomenon of the resting
of the shadow for a time at its apparently highest
point for the day (which preceded the promise
that it should rise ten steps) has also to be accounted
for, and this cessation of its motion
upwards could not have taken place till about
25 minutes before noon, when the decreasing
motion of the Sun in altitude (or its slackening
motion upwards as it approached mid-day) would
have become counteracted by the coming on of
the eclipse. Now at 11.35 A.M. the sun’s disc
would have risen to the altitude of 35° 8′; and
the highest visible point of light would, owing to
the eclipse, then have been about 35° 4′; and at
11.40 A.M., being the time of greatest obscuration,
the extreme cusps of light produced by the intervention
of the Moon would still have stood at
about 35° 4′, just 23′ below the highest point of
light at noon (Fig. 12). The whole disc of the sun
had now risen above the gnomon, yet no motion of the
shadow on the steps had been observed for fully five
minutes. The time shown by the dial was seemingly
mid-day.

Fig. 12.—ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, JANUARY 11, 689 B.C., AT JERUSALEM.

We have now to consider “to what extent
would a staircase rising at an angle of 31° 47′
towards the Sun, with a gnomon so placed at
the top as to cast a shadow to the foot of the
lower step on the shortest day of the year be
affected by a movement in a perpendicular
direction of the point of light to the extent of
23′, or ⅓ of a degree”? The effect would be
widely different at different times of the year,
being greatest at mid-winter when the shadows[101]
are longest, and least at mid-summer when the
shadows are shortest. It follows from this that
January 13 being a day but three weeks removed
from mid-winter day the normal shadow would
be not far from its longest possible length, and
the effect of a displacement of 23′ would be
neither more nor less than 1⁄12th of the whole range
of the steps whatever that range might have been.
This extent of motion, then, is fully sufficient to
satisfy the condition prescribed by the Biblical
narrative of there being such a deflection of the
Sun’s light as would affect the shadow to the extent
implied by the words “ten steps” or “ten degrees,”
which is virtually the same idea. The same
extent of motion could not have been produced
under the same conditions either a few days
earlier or a few days later; that may certainly
be taken for granted. And the only point in
which we are necessarily in doubt arises from
the fact that we are ignorant of the actual number
and nature of the graduations of Ahaz’s so-called
“Dial.” If it were permissible to assume
that there were 120 graduations on the instrument,
be they steps properly so-called on a
structure erected in the open air or be they lines
on a flat surface on some instrument standing in
a room, or what not, then the problem is solved,
for 1⁄12 (as above) of 120 is ten—the “ten degrees”
stated in the history.

As to whether the “dial” of Ahaz was a device
built up of masonry in the open air or was an
instrument for indoor use we know absolutely
nothing, and speculation is useless. There is
something to be said on both sides. Bosanquet,[102]
on abstract grounds, leans to the latter view; on
the other hand he calls attention to the present
existence in India, at Delhi and Benares, of
ruined Hindoo observatories in the form of huge
masonry sun-dials many yards in length and
breadth and height.[33]

Finally it may be pointed out that there is
some incidental confirmation to be found for this
Hezekiah incident having happened in winter.
That the season of the year was winter seems to
be suggested by the word used in the original
Hebrew in connection with the return of the
shadow.

“Backward” in Isaiah xxxviii. 8 might also be
translated, “From the end.” It would be very
natural to hold that this implied that the motion
of the shadow was upwards from the lower end
of the group of steps towards which the shadow
had gone down. Now the lower end of the steps
could only have been the place of the shadow
in December or January at or near the time of
the winter solstice. Moreover the mention of
the “lump of figs” seems to suggest the winter
season. A cake of figs means dried figs, not
newly gathered summer figs.

Putting all the facts together we may fairly
conclude that the astronomical event which happened
in connection with Hezekiah’s illness was
an eclipse of the Sun, and that its date was
January 11, 689 B.C.

A few other Scripture passages need a passing
mention. In Isaiah xiii. 10 we read:—

[103]“The Sun shall be darkened in his going forth,
and the Moon shall not cause her light to shine.”
It has been thought by Johnson that this passage
is an allusion to an eclipse of the Sun, and so it
might be; but on the other hand, it may be no
more than one of those highly figurative phrases
which abound in holy Scripture, and of which
the well-known passage, “The stars in their
courses fought against Sisera” (Judges v. 20), is
a familiar example.

In Jeremiah x. 2 we read:—

“Be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for
the heathen are dismayed at them.” This is cited
as an eclipse allusion by Johnson, who points out
that the utterance of this caution preceded by
about fifteen years the celebrated eclipse of
Thales (585 B.C.). But surely this is far-fetched.
I shall be inclined to attach the same criticism to
his next citation. Ezekiel employs these expressions:—“When
I shall put thee out, I will cover
the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I
will cover the Sun with a cloud, and the Moon
shall not give her light” (xxxii. 7). This language
resembles, in no small degree, Isaiah’s,
already quoted, and, like that, might apply to the
phenomenon of a solar eclipse, but whether that
was actually the prophet’s intention is another
matter. He may have witnessed the eclipse of
585 B.C. on the banks of the river Chebar, and
that spectacle may have put this imagery into his
head. Further than this it seems hardly safe to
go.

This seems an appropriate place to mention a
very interesting matter, to which attention has[104]
been called by Oriental scholars in recent times,
who have investigated Assyrian and Egyptian
monuments, and other monuments of the same
type. The story would be a long and interesting
one if presented in detail, and would far exceed
my limits of space. I must, therefore, be content
with such a summary as that which has been
worked out by Mr. E. W. Maunder. Briefly the
facts are these. There are to be found in many
places carvings in stone, symbolic of the Sun-god
once worshipped in the East. The general
design, with of course variations, is a circle with
striated wings extending right and left to two
diameters of the wing, more or less, with a lesser
extension in a downward direction. Allowing
for the roughness of the art, and for the fact
that the material was stone, it does not require
any very great stretch of imagination to see in
these carvings the disc of a totally-eclipsed Sun
with, right and left and below it, that form of
corona which we have come to associate with
total eclipses occurring at periods of Sun-spot
minima.[34] This idea should not seem far-fetched
if we bear in mind the fact that the ancient Orientals
worshipped the Sun, Moon, and Planets;
and one of the natural outcomes of this is submitted
for our consideration by Maunder in the
words following[35]:—

“There can be little doubt that the Sun was
regarded partly as a symbol, partly as a manifestation
of the unseen, unapproachable Divinity.
Its light and heat, its power of calling into active[105]
exercise the mysterious forces of germination and
ripening, the universality of its influence, all
seemed the fit expressions of the yet greater
powers which belonged to the Invisible. What
happened in a total solar eclipse? For a short
time that which seemed so perfect a divine
symbol was completely hidden. The light and
heat, the two great forms of solar energy, were
withdrawn, but something took their place. A
mysterious light of mysterious form, unlike any
other light, unlike any other single form, was
seen in its place. Could they fail to see in this a
closer, a more intimate revelation, a more exalted
symbolism of the Divine Nature and Presence?
Just as in the various Greek ‘mysteries’ the
student was gradually advanced from one set
of symbols to another even more abstruse and
esoteric, so here, on the broad face of heaven
itself, vouchsafed for a brief space of time and
at long intervals apart, the Deity revealed Himself
to the initiated by a higher and more difficult
symbol than ordinarily. The symbol would vary
in shape. We may take it for granted that the
old Chaldeans, as modern astronomers to-day,
had at one time or another presented to them
every type of Coronal structure. But there
would, no doubt, be a difficulty in grasping or
remembering the irregular details of the Corona
as seen in most eclipses. It occasionally happens,
however, that the Corona shows itself under a
form of grand and striking simplicity. It is now
widely recognised that the typical Corona of the
minimum of the Sun-spot cycle consists chiefly of
two great equatorial streamers.”

[106]Maunder then goes on to cite certain American
pictures by Trouvelot and others of the eclipse of
July 29, 1878, in which the great extension of
the Corona to the East and the West is specially
shown. One drawing in particular, by Miss
K. E. Wolcott, exhibits the Sun with a perfect
bright ring round it from which the Coronal
streamers emanate in the directions mentioned.
Maunder then remarks that he has a strong
conviction that it was a Corona of this type
which was the origin of the “Ring with Wings,”
the symbol which on Assyrian monuments is
always shown as floating over the head of the
ring which is designed to indicate the presence
and protection of the Deity. In the article cited
he gives illustrations of two forms under which
the “Ring with Wings” appears on Assyrian
and Egyptian monuments respectively, remarking
that “Egyptians too were Astronomers and
Sun-worshippers and were experts in the language
of symbols. Equally with the Chaldeans
the Egyptian priests should have regarded the
Corona as a symbolical revelation of the Deity
whose usual manifestation they recognised in the
Sun, and accordingly we find them employing a
symbol which is almost as perfect a representation
of the Corona of minimum as that which the
Assyrians adopted.” Another curious point commented
upon by Maunder is that the Assyrians
frequently insert the figure of their Deity within
the ring, and attach thereto a kilt-like dress.
Even when they show the ring without the figure
the “kilt,” as it may be called, is still there, indicating
that it is not simply a garment worn by[107]
the figure, but an integral part of the symbol.
This “kilt” is represented as pleated, and the
resemblance of the pleatings to the polar rays
shown in Trouvelot’s drawing of the Corona, is
“practically perfect.” On this point Maunder
adds:—“If this be a mere chance coincidence,
it seems to me a most extraordinary one.” He
concludes by saying that these symbols, so frequently
met with, and so clearly designed to
indicate the presence of the Deity, “are, in their
origin, drawings of the solar Corona, as seen at
the Sun-spot minimum, and as such are the
earliest eclipse representations which have been
preserved to us.”

I give these ideas for what they are worth;
they are very ingeniously worked out, and though
the argument is not conclusive, yet I do think
that there is enough in it to be worth attention.

CHAPTER X.

ECLIPSES OF THE SUN MENTIONED IN HISTORY—CLASSICAL.

In this chapter we shall, for the most part, be on
firmer ground than hitherto, because several of
the most eminent Greek and Latin historians
have left on record full and circumstantial
accounts of eclipses which have come under their
notice, and which have been more or less completely
verified by the computations and researches
of astronomers in modern times. But these remarks[108]
do not, however, quite apply to the first
eclipse which will be mentioned.

Plutarch, in his Life of Romulus, refers to some
remarkable incident connected, in point of time
at any rate, with his death:—“The air on that
occasion was suddenly convulsed and altered in
a wonderful manner, for the light of the Sun
failed, and they were involved in an astonishing
darkness, attended on every side with dreadful
thunderings and tempestuous winds.” This so-called
darkness is considered to have been the
same as that mentioned by Cicero.[36] There is
so much myth about Romulus that it is not safe
to write in confident language. Nevertheless it is
a fact, according to Johnson, that there was a
very large eclipse of the Sun visible at Rome in
the afternoon of May 26, 715 B.C., and 715 B.C.
is supposed to have been the year, or about
the year, of the death of Romulus. Plutarch is
also responsible for the statement that a great
eclipse of the Sun took place sometime before the
birth of Romulus; and if there is anything in
this statement Johnson thinks that the annular
eclipse of November 28, 771 B.C., might meet the
circumstances of the case, but too much romance
attaches to the history of Romulus for anyone to
write with assurance respecting the circumstances
of his career. Much of it is generally considered
to be fabulous.

In one of the extant fragments of the Greek
poet Archilochus (said to be the first who introduced
iambics into his verses), the following
sentence occurs:—“Zeus the father of the[109]
Olympic Gods turned mid-day into night hiding
the light of the dazzling sun; an overwhelming
dread fell upon men.” The poet’s language may
evidently apply to a total eclipse of the Sun; and
investigations by Oppolzer and Millosevich make
it probable that the reference is to the total
eclipse of the Sun which happened on April 6,
648 B.C. This was total at about 10 a.m. at
Thasos and in the northern part of the Ægean
Sea. The acceptance of this date displaces by
about half a century the date commonly assigned
for the poet’s career, but this is not thought to be
of much account having regard to the hazy character
of Grecian chronology before the Persian
wars.[37]

On May 28, 585 B.C. there occurred an eclipse
the surrounding circumstances of which present
several features of particular interest. One of
the most celebrated of the astronomers of antiquity
was Thales of Miletus, and his astronomical
labours were said to have included a prediction
of this eclipse, which moreover has the further
interest to us that it has assisted chronologists
and historians in fixing the precise date of an
important event in ancient history. Herodotus[38]
describing a war which had been going on for
some years between the Lydians and the Medes
gives the following account of the circumstances
which led to its premature termination:—“As
the balance had not inclined in favour of either[110]
nation, another engagement took place in the
sixth year of the war, in the course of which, just
as the battle was growing warm, day was suddenly
turned into night. This event had been foretold
to the Ionians by Thales of Miletus, who predicted
for it the very year in which it actually took
place. When the Lydians and Medes observed
the change they ceased fighting, and were alike
anxious to conclude peace.” Peace was accordingly
agreed upon and cemented by a twofold
marriage. “For (says the historian) without
some strong bond, there is little security to be
found in men’s covenants.” The exact date of
this eclipse was long a matter of discussion, and
eclipses which occurred in 610 B.C. and 593 B.C.
were each thought at one time or another to have
been the one referred to. The question was
finally settled by the late Sir G. B. Airy, after an
exhaustive inquiry, in favour of the eclipse of 585
B.C. This date has the further advantage of
harmonising certain statements made by Cicero
and Pliny as to its having happened in the 4th
year of the 48th Olympiad.

Another word or two may be interesting as
regards the share which Thales is supposed to
have had in predicting this eclipse, the more so,
that very high authorities in the domains of
astronomy, and chronology, and antiquities take
opposite sides in the matter. Sir G. C. Lewis,
Bart., M.P., may be cited first as one of the
unbelievers. He says[39] that Thales is “reported
to have predicted it to the Ionians. If he had
predicted it to the Lydians, in whose country[111]
the eclipse was to be total, his conduct would
be intelligible, but it seems strange that he
should have predicted it to the Ionians who
had no direct interest in the event.” Bosanquet
replies to this by pointing out that Miletus, in
Ionia, was the birthplace of Thales, and also
that a shadow, covering two degrees of latitude,
passing through Ionia, would also necessarily
cover Lydia.

Another dissentient is Sir H. C. Rawlinson,[40]
who, remembering that Thales is said to have
predicted a good olive crop, and Anaxagoras the
fall of an aërolite, says:—“The prediction of
this eclipse by Thales may fairly be classed with
the prediction of a good olive crop, or the fall
of an aërolite. Thales, indeed, could only have
obtained the requisite knowledge for predicting
eclipses from the Chaldeans; and that the science
of these astronomers, although sufficient for the
investigation of lunar eclipses, did not enable
them to calculate solar eclipses—dependent as
such a calculation is, not only on the determination
of the period of recurrence, but on the
true projection also of the track of the Sun’s
shadow along a particular line over the surface
of the earth—may be inferred from our finding
that in the astronomical canon of Ptolemy, which
was compiled from the Chaldean registers, the
observations of the Moon’s eclipse are alone
entered.”

Airy[41] replied to these observations as follows:—“I
think it not at all improbable that the[112]
eclipse was so predicted, and there is one easy
way, and only one of predicting it—namely, by
the Saros, or period of 18 years, 10 days, 8 hours
nearly. By use of this period an evening eclipse
may be predicted from a morning eclipse but
a morning eclipse can rarely be predicted from
an evening eclipse (as the interval of eight hours
after an evening eclipse will generally throw the
eclipse at the end of the Saros into the hours of
night). The evening eclipse, therefore, of B.C.
585, May 28, which I adopt as being most
certainly the eclipse of Thales, might be predicted
from the morning eclipse of B.C. 603,
May 17…. No other of the eclipses discussed
by Baily and Oltmanns present the same facility
for prediction.”

Xenophon[42] mentions an eclipse as having led
to the capture by the Persians of the Median
city Larissa. In the retreat of the Greeks on
the eastern side of the Tigris, they crossed the
river Zapetes and also a ravine, and then reached
the Tigris. According to Xenophon, they found
at this place a large deserted city formerly inhabited
by the Medes. Its wall was 25 feet
thick and 100 feet high; its circumference 2
parasangs [= 7½ miles]. It was built of burnt
brick on an under structure of stone 20 feet
in height. Xenophon then proceeds to say that
“when the Persians obtained the Empire from
the Medes, the King of the Persians besieged
the city but was unable by any means to take
it till a cloud having covered the Sun and caused
it to disappear completely, the inhabitants withdrew[113]
in alarm, and thus the city was captured.
Close to this city was a pyramid of stone, one
plethrum in breadth, two plethra in height….
Thence the Greeks proceeded six parasangs to
a great deserted castle by a city called Mespila
formerly inhabited by the Medes; the substructure
of its wall was of squared stone
abounding in shells … the King of the Persians
besieged it but could not take it; Zeus terrified
the inhabitants with thunderbolts, and so the
city was taken.”

The minute description here given by Xenophon
enabled Sir A. H. Layard, Captain Felix Jones,
and others, to identify Larissa with the modern
Nimrud and Mespila with Mosul. A suspicion
is thrown out in some editions of the Anabasis
that the language cited might refer to an eclipse
of the Sun. It is to be noted, however, that it
is not included by Ricciolus in the list of eclipses
mentioned in ancient writers which he gives in
his Almagestum Novum. Sir G. B. Airy, having
had his attention called to the matter, examined
roughly all the eclipses which occurred during
a period of 40 years, covering the supposed
date implied by Xenophon. Having selected
two, he computed them accurately but found
them inapplicable. He then tried another
(May 19, 557 B.C.) which he had previously
passed over because he doubted its totality, and
he had the great satisfaction of finding that the
eclipse, though giving a small shadow, had been
total, and that it had passed so near to Nimrud
that there could be no doubt of its being the
eclipse sought.

[114]Sir G. B. Airy was such a very careful worker
and investigator of eclipses that his conclusions
in this matter have met with general acceptance.
It must, however, in fairness be stated that a
very competent American astronomer, Professor
Newcomb, has expressed doubts as to whether
after all Xenophon’s allusion is to an eclipse,
but, judging by his closing words, the learned
American does not seem quite satisfied with his
own scepticism, for he says—“Notwithstanding
my want of confidence, I conceive the possibility
of a real eclipse to be greater than in the eclipse
of Thales, while we have the great advantages
that the point of occurrence is well defined, the
shadow narrow, and, if it was an eclipse at all,
the circumstance of totality placed beyond serious
doubt.”[43]

In the same year as that in which, according
to the common account, the battle of Salamis
was fought (480 B.C.), there occurred a phenomenon
which is thus adverted to by Herodotus[44]—“At
the first approach of Spring the army
quitted Sardis and marched towards Abydos;
at the moment of its departure the Sun suddenly
quitted its place in the heavens and disappeared
though there were no clouds in sight and the
day was quite clear; day was thus turned into
night.” We are told[45] that “As the king was
going against Greece, and had come into the
region of the Hellespont, there happened an[115]
eclipse of the Sun in the East; this sign portended
to him his defeat, for the Sun was
eclipsed in the region of its rising, and Xerxes
was also marching from that quarter.” So far
as words go these accounts admirably befit a
total eclipse of the Sun, but regarded as such
it has given great trouble to chronologers, and
the identification of the eclipse is still uncertain.
Hind’s theory is that the allusion is to an eclipse
and in particular to the eclipse of February 17,
478 B.C. Though not total at Sardis yet the
eclipse was very large, 94⁄100ths of the Sun being
covered. If we accept this, it follows that the
usually recognised date for the battle of Salamis
must be altered by two years. Airy thought
it “extremely probable” that the narrative related
to the total eclipse of the Moon, which
happened on March 13, 479 B.C., but this is
difficult to accept, especially as Plutarch, in his
Life of Pelopidas, says—“An army was soon got
ready, but as the general was on the point of
marching, the Sun began to be eclipsed, and the
city was covered with darkness in the daytime.”
This seems explicit enough, assuming the record
to be true and that the same incident is referred
to by Plutarch as by Herodotus and Aristides.

Since the time when Airy and Hind examined
this question, all the known facts have been
again reviewed by Mr. W. T. Lynn, who pronounces,
but with some hesitation, in favour of
the eclipse of October 2, 480 B.C., as the one
associated with the battle of Salamis. He does
this by refusing to see in the above quotations
from Herodotus any allusion to a solar eclipse[116]
at all, but invites us to consider a later statement
in Herodotus[46] as relating to an eclipse
though the historian only calls it a prodigy.

After the battle of Thermopylæ the Peloponnesian
Greeks commenced to fortify the isthmus
of Corinth with the view of defending it with
their small army against the invading host
of Xerxes. The Spartan troops were under
the command of Cleombrotus, the brother of
Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylæ. He had
been consulting the oracles at Sparta, and
Herodotus states that “while he was offering
sacrifice to know if he should march out
against the Persian, the Sun was suddenly
darkened in mid-sky.” This occurrence so
frightened Cleombrotus that he drew off his
forces and returned home. It is uncertain from
the narrative of Herodotus whether Cleombrotus
returned to Sparta in the autumn of the year
of the battle of Salamis, or in the spring of the
next following year which was that in which the
battle of Platæa was fought. Bishop Thirlwall[47]
thinks that it was the latter, but Lynn pronounces
for the former, adding that the date
may well have been in October, and the solar
eclipse of October 2, 480 B.C. may have been
the phenomenon which attracted notice, particularly
as the Sun would have been high in
the heavens, the greatest phase (6⁄10ths) occurring,
according to Hind, at 50 minutes past noon.
Here I must leave the matter, merely remarking[117]
that this alternative explanation obviates the
necessity for disturbing the commonly received
date of the battle of Salamis.

Thucydides states that during the Peloponnesian
war “things formerly repeated on hearsay,
but very rarely confirmed by facts, became not
incredible, both about earthquakes and eclipses
of the Sun which came to pass more frequently
than had been remembered in former times.”
One such eclipse he assigns to the first year of
the war and says[48] that “in the same summer,
at the beginning of a new lunar month (at which
time alone the phenomenon seems possible) the
Sun was eclipsed after mid-day, and became full
again after it had assumed a crescent form and
after some of the stars had shone out.” Aug. 3,
431 B.C. is generally recognised as the date of this
event. The eclipse was not total only three-fourths
of the Sun’s disc being obscured. Venus was 20°
and Jupiter 43° distant from the Sun, so probably
these were the “stars” that were seen. This
eclipse nearly prevented the Athenian expedition
against the Lacedæmonians. The sailors were
frightened by it, but a happy thought occurred
to Pericles, the commander of the Athenian
forces. Plutarch, in his Life of Pericles, says:—“The
whole fleet was in readiness, and Pericles
on board his own galley, when there happened
an eclipse of the Sun. The sudden darkness
was looked upon as an unfavourable omen, and
threw the sailors into the greatest consternation.
Pericles observing that the pilot was much
astonished and perplexed, took his cloak, and[118]
having covered his eyes with it, asked him if
he found anything terrible in that, or considered
it as a bad presage? Upon his answering in the
negative, he said, ‘Where is the difference, then
between this and the other, except that something
bigger than my cloak causes the eclipse?’”

Another eclipse is mentioned by Thucydides[49]
in connection with an expedition of the Athenians
against Cythera. He says:—“At the very commencement
of the following summer there was
an eclipse of the Sun at the time of a new moon,
and in the early part of the same month an
earthquake.” This has been identified with the
annular eclipse of March 21, 424 B.C., the central
line of which passed across Northern Europe.
It is not quite clear whether the historian wishes
to insinuate that the eclipse caused the earthquake
or the earthquake the eclipse.

An eclipse known as that of Ennius is another
of the eclipses antecedent to the Christian Era
which has been the subject of full modern investigation,
and the circumstances of which are
such that, in the language of Professor Hansen,
“it may be reckoned as one of the most certain
and well-established eclipses of antiquity.” The
record of it has only been brought to light in
modern times by the discovery of Cicero’s
Treatise, De Republicâ. According to Cicero,[50]
Ennius the great Roman poet, who lived in the
second century B.C., and who died of gout contracted,
it is said, by frequent intoxication, recorded
an interesting event in the following[119]
words:—Nonis Junii soli luna obstetit et nox, “On
the Nones of June the Moon was in opposition
to the Sun and night.” This singular phrase has
long been assumed to allude to an eclipse of
the Sun, but the precise interpretation of the
words was not for a long time realised. In
Cicero’s time the Nones of June fell on the 5th,
but in the time of Ennius, who lived a century
and a half before Cicero, the Nones of June
fell between June 5 and July 4 on account
of the lunar years and the intercalary month
of the Roman Calendar. The date of this eclipse
is distinctly known to be June 21, 400 B.C., but
the hour was long in dispute. Professor Zech
found that the Sun set at Rome eclipsed, and
that the maximum phase took place after sun-set.
Hansen, however, with his better Tables, found
that the eclipse was total at Rome, and that the
totality ended at 7.33 p.m., the Sun setting almost
immediately afterwards at 7.36. This fact, Hansen
considers, explains the otherwise unintelligible
passage of Ennius quoted above: instead of
saying et nox, he should have said et simul nox,
“and immediately it was night.” Newcomb
questions the totality of this eclipse, but assigns
no clear reasons for his doubts.[51]

On August 14, 394 B.C., there was a large
eclipse of the Sun visible in the Mediterranean.
It occurred in the forenoon, and is mentioned by
Xenophon[52] in connection with a naval engagement
in which the Persians were defeated by
Conon.

[120]Plutarch, in his Life of Pelopidas, relates how
one, Alexander of Pheræ, had devastated several
cities of Thessaly, and that as soon as the oppressed
inhabitants had learned that Pelopidas
had come back from an embassy on which he
had been to the King of Persia, they sent deputies
to him to Thebes to beg the favour of armed
assistance, with Pelopidas as general. “The
Thebans willingly granted their request, and an
army was soon got ready, but as the general was
on the point of marching, the Sun began to be
eclipsed, and the city was covered with darkness
in the day-time.” This eclipse is generally identified
with that of July 13, 364 B.C. If this is
correct, Plutarch’s language must be incorrect, or
at least greatly exaggerated, for no more than
about three-fourths of the Sun was obscured.

On February 29, 357 B.C., there happened an
eclipse, also visible in or near the Mediterranean.
This is supposed to have been the eclipse for the
prediction of which Helicon, a friend of Plato,
received from Dionysius, King of Syracuse, payment
in the shape of a talent.

We have now to consider another ancient
eclipse which has a history of peculiar interest
as regards the investigations to which it has been
subjected. It is commonly known as the “Eclipse
of Agathocles,” and is recorded by two historians
of antiquity in the words following. Diodorus
Siculus[53] says:—

“Agathocles also, though closely pursued by
the enemy, by the advantage of the night coming
on (beyond all hope), got safe off from them.[121]
The next day there was such an eclipse of the
Sun, that the stars appeared everywhere in the
firmament, and the day was turned into night,
upon which Agathocles’s soldiers (conceiving that
God thereby did foretell their destruction) fell
into great perplexities and discontents concerning
what was like to befall them.”

Justin says[54]:—

“By the harangue the hearts of the soldiers
were somewhat elevated, but an eclipse of the
Sun that had happened during their voyage still
possessed them with superstitious fears of a bad
omen. The king was at no less pain to satisfy them
about this affair than about the war, and therefore
he told them that he should have thought this
sign an ill presage for them, if it had happened
before they set out, but having happened afterwards
he could not but think it presaged ill
to those against whom they marched. Besides,
eclipses of the luminaries always signify a change
of affairs, and therefore some change was certainly
signified, either to Carthage, which was in such
a flourishing condition, or to them whose affairs
were in a very ruinous state.”

The substance of these statements is that in the
year 310 B.C. Agathocles, Tyrant of Syracuse,
while conducting his fleet from Syracuse to the
Coast of Africa, found himself enveloped in the
shadow of an eclipse, which evidently, from the
accounts, was total. His fleet had been chased
by the Carthaginians on leaving Syracuse the
preceding day, but got away under the cover of
night. On the following morning about 8 or 9[122]
a.m. a sudden darkness came on which greatly
alarmed the sailors. So considerable was the
darkness, that numerous stars appeared. It is
not at the first easy to localise the position of the
fleet, except that we may infer that it could
hardly have got more than 80 or at the most 100
miles away from the harbour of Syracuse where
it had been closely blockaded by a Carthaginian
fleet. Agathocles would not have got away at
all but for the fact that a relieving fleet was
expected, and the Carthaginians were obliged to
relax their blockade in order to go in search of
the relieving fleet. Thus it came about not only
that Agathocles set himself free, but was able to
retaliate on his enemies by landing on the coast
of Africa at a point near the modern Cape Bon,
and devastating the Carthaginian territories.
The voyage thither occupied six days, and the
eclipse occurred on the second day. Though
we are not informed of the route followed by
Agathocles, that is to say whether he passed
round the North or the South side of the island
of Sicily, yet it has been made clear by astronomers
that the southern side was that taken.

Baily, who was the first modern astronomer
to investigate the circumstances of this eclipse,
found that there was an irreconcilable difference
between the path of the shadow found by himself
and the historical statement, a gap of about 180
geographical miles seeming to intervene between
the most southerly position which could be
assigned to the fleet of Agathocles, and the most
northerly possible limit of the path of the eclipse
shadow. This was the condition of the problem[123]
when Sir G. B. Airy took it up in 1853.[55] He,
however, was able to throw an entirely new light
upon the matter. The tables used by Baily
were distinctly inferior to those now in use, and
Sir G. B. Airy thought himself justified in saying
that to obviate the discordance of 180 miles just
referred to “it is only necessary to suppose an
error of 3′ in the computed distances of the Sun
and Moon at conjunction, a very inconsiderable
correction for a date anterior to the epoch of the
tables by more than twenty-one centuries.”

It deserves to be mentioned, though the point
cannot here be dwelt upon at much length, that
these ancient eclipses all hang together in such
a way that it is not sufficient for the man of
Astronomy and the man of Chronology to agree
on one eclipse, unless they can harmonise the
facts of several.

For instance, the eclipse of Thales, the date
of which was long and much disputed, has a
material bearing on the eclipse of Agathocles,
the date of which admits of no dispute; and
one of the problems which had to be solved
half a century ago was how best to use the
eclipse of Agathocles to determine the date of
that of Thales. If 610 B.C. were accepted for the
Thales eclipse, so as to throw the zone of total
darkness anywhere over Asia Minor (where for the
sake of history it was essential to put it) the consequence
would be that the shadow of the eclipse
of 310 B.C. would have been thrown so far on to
land, in Africa, as to make it out of the question
for Agathocles and his fleet to have been in it,[124]
yet we know for a certainty that he was in it
in that year, and no other year. Conversely,
if 603 B.C. were accepted for the Thales eclipse,
then to raise northwards the position of the
shadow in that year from the line of the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf, that it might pass
through Asia Minor, would so raise the position
of the shadow in 310 B.C. as to throw it far
too much to the N. of Sicily for Agathocles,
who we know must have gone southwards to
Africa, to have entered it. But if we assume
585 B.C. as the date of the eclipse of Thales,
we obtain a perfect reconciliation of everything
that needs to be reconciled; the shadow of the
eclipse of 585 B.C. will be found to have passed
where ancient history tells us it did pass—namely,
through Ionia, and therefore through
the centre of Asia Minor, and on the direct
route from Lydia to Media; whilst we also
find that the shadow of the 310 B.C. eclipse,
that is the one in the time of Agathocles, passed
within 100 miles of Syracuse, a fact which is
stated almost in those very words by the two
historians who have recorded the doings of
Agathocles and his fleet in those years.

This is where the matter was left by Airy
in 1853. Four years later the new solar and
lunar tables of the German astronomer Hansen
were published, and having been applied to the
eclipse of 585 B.C., the conclusions just stated
were amply confirmed. As if to make assurance
doubly sure, Airy went over his ground again,
testing his former conclusions with regard to
the eclipse of Thales by the eclipse of Larissa,[125]
in 557 B.C. already referred to, and bringing in
the eclipse of Stiklastad in 1030 A.D., to be
referred to presently. And as the final result,
it may be stated that all the foregoing dates
are now known to an absolute certainty, especially
confirmed as they were in all essential
points by a computer of the eminence of the
late Mr. J. R. Hind.

On a date which corresponds to February 11,
218 or 217 B.C., an eclipse of the Sun, which
was partial in Italy, is mentioned by Livy.[56]
Newcomb found that the central line passed a
long way from Italy, to wit, “far down in
Africa.”

An eclipse of the Sun is mentioned by Dion
Cassius[57] as having happened when Cæsar crossed
the Rubicon, a celebrated event made use of
by speakers, political and otherwise, on endless
occasions in modern history. There seems no
doubt that the passage of the Rubicon took place
in 51 B.C., and that the eclipse must have been
that of March 7, 51 B.C. The circumstances of
this eclipse have been investigated by Hind, who
found that the eclipse was an annular one, the
annular phase lasting 6½ minutes in Northern
Italy.

Arago associates the death of Julius Cæsar in
44 B.C. with an annular eclipse of the Sun, but
seemingly without sufficient warrant. The actual
record is to the effect that about the time of the
great warrior’s death there was an extraordinary
dimness of the Sun. Whatever it was that was[126]
noticed, clearly it could not have been an annular
eclipse, because no such eclipse then happened.
Johnson suggests that Arago confused the record
of some meteorological interference with the Sun’s
light with the annular eclipse that happened seven
years previously when Cæsar passed the Rubicon,
to which eclipse allusion has already been made.
That there was for a long while a great deficiency
of sunshine in Italy about the time of Cæsar’s
death seems clear from remarks made by Pliny,
Plutarch, and Tibullus, and the words of Suetonius
seem to imply something of a meteorological
character. I should not have mentioned this
matter at all, but for Arago’s high repute as an
astronomer. According to Seneca[58] during an
eclipse a comet was also seen.

It is an interesting question to inquire whether
any allusions to eclipses are to be found in Homer,
and no very certain answer can be given. In the
Iliad (book xvii., lines 366-8) the following passage
will be found:—“Nor would you say that
the Sun was safe, or the Moon, for they were
wrapt in dark haze in the course of the combat.”

In the Odyssey (book xx., lines 356-7) we
find:—“And the Sun has utterly perished from
heaven and an evil gloom is overspread.” This
was considered by old commentators to be an
allusion to an eclipse, and in the opinion of
W. W. Merry[59] “this is not impossible, as they
were celebrating the Festival of the New Moon.”

Certainly this language has somewhat the
savour of a total eclipse of the Sun, but it is[127]
difficult to say whether the allusion is historic, as
of a fact that had happened, or only a vague
generality. Perhaps the latter is the most justifiable
surmise.

I have in the many preceding pages been citing
ancient eclipses, for the reason, more or less
plainly expressed, that they are of value to astronomers
as assisting to define the theory of the
Moon’s motions in its orbit, and this they should
do; but it is not unreasonable to bring this
chapter to a close by giving the views of an
eminent American astronomer as to the objections
to placing too much reliance on ancient
accounts of eclipses. Says Prof. S. Newcomb[60]:—“The
first difficulty is to be reasonably sure that
a total eclipse was really the phenomenon observed.
Many of the statements supposed to
refer to total eclipses are so vague that they
may be referred to other less rare phenomena.
It must never be forgotten that we are dealing
with an age when accurate observations and descriptions
of natural phenomena were unknown,
and when mankind was subject to be imposed
upon by imaginary wonders and prodigies. The
circumstance which we should regard as most
unequivocally marking a total eclipse is the
visibility of the stars during the darkness. But
even this can scarcely be regarded as conclusive,
because Venus may be seen when there is no
eclipse, and may be quite conspicuous in an
annular or a considerable partial eclipse. The
exaggeration of a single object into a plural is in
general very easy. Another difficulty is to be[128]
sure of the locality where the eclipse was total.
It is commonly assumed that the description
necessarily refers to something seen where the
writer flourished, or where he locates his story.
It seems to me that this cannot be safely done
unless the statement is made in connection with
some battle or military movement, in which case
we may presume the phenomena to have been
seen by the army.”

CHAPTER XI.

ECLIPSES OF THE SUN MENTIONED IN HISTORY.—THE
CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

The Christian Era is, for several reasons, a suitable
point of time from which to take a new
departure in speaking of historical eclipses,
although the First Century, at least, might
obviously be regarded as belonging to classical
history—but let that pass.

Dion Cassius[61] relates that on a date corresponding
to March 28, A.D. 5, the Sun was partly
eclipsed. Johnston says that the central line
passed over Norway and Sweden. It seems,
perhaps, a little strange that a writer who lived
in Bithynia in the 3rd Century of the Christian
Era should have picked up any information about
something that happened in the extreme North of
Europe two centuries previously. But probably
the eclipse must have been seen in Italy.

[129]On November 24, A.D. 29, there happened an
eclipse of the Sun which is sometimes spoken
of as the “eclipse of Phlegon.” Eusebius, the
ecclesiastical historian, records Phlegon’s testimony.
Phlegon was a native of Tralles in
Lydia, and one of the Emperor Adrian’s freedmen.
The eclipse in question happened at noon,
and the stars were seen. It was total, and the
line of totality, according to Hind,[62] passed across
the Black Sea from near Odessa to Sinope, thence
near the site of Nineveh to the Persian Gulf.
A partial eclipse with four-fifths of the Sun’s
diameter covered was visible at Jerusalem.
This is the only solar eclipse which was visible
at Jerusalem during the period usually
fixed for Christ’s public ministry. This eclipse
was for a long time, and by various writers,
associated with the darkness which prevailed at
Jerusalem on the day of our Lord’s Crucifixion,
but there seems no warrant whatever for associating
the two events. The Crucifixion darkness
was assuredly a supernatural phenomenon, and
there is nothing supernatural in a total eclipse
of the Sun. To this it may be added that both
Tertullian at the beginning of the 3rd century
and Lucian, the martyr of Nicomedia, who died
in 312, appealed to the testimony of national
archives then in existence, as witnessing to the
fact that a supernatural darkness had prevailed
at the time of Christ’s death. Moreover, the
generally recorded date of the Crucifixion, namely,
April 3, A.D. 33, would coincide with a full Moon.
As it happened, that full Moon suffered eclipse,[130]
but she emerged from the Earth’s shadow about
a quarter of an hour before she rose at Jerusalem
(6 h. 36 m. p.m.): the penumbra continued upon
her disc for an hour afterwards.

Speaking of the Emperor Claudius, Dion
Cassius[63] says:—“There was going to be an
eclipse on his birthday. Claudius feared some
disturbance, as there had been other prodigies,
so he put forth a public notice, not only that the
obscuration would take place and about the time
and magnitude of it, but also about the causes
which produce such events.” This is an interesting
statement, especially in view of what I have
said on a previous page about the indifference of
the Romans to Astronomy. It would, likewise,
be interesting to know how Claudius acquired his
knowledge, and who coached him up in the matter.
This eclipse occurred on August 1, A.D. 45. Barely
half the Sun’s diameter was covered.

Philostratus[64] states that “about this time
while he was pursuing his studies in Greece such
an omen was observable in the heavens. A crown
resembling Iris surrounded the disc of the Sun
and darkened its rays.” “About this time” is to
be understood as referring to some date shortly
preceding the death of the Emperor Domitian
which occurred on September 18, A.D. 96. This
has usually been regarded as the earliest allusion
to what we now call the Sun’s “Corona”; or, as
an alternative idea, that the allusion is simply
to an annular eclipse of the Sun. But both
these theories have been called in question; by[131]
Johnston because he cannot find an eclipse which
in his view of things will respond as regards date
to the statement of Philostratus, and by Lynn
on the same ground and on other grounds, more
suo. The question of identification requires looking
into more fully. There was a total eclipse on
May 21, A.D. 95, but it was only visible as a
partial eclipse in Western Asia and not visible at
all in Greece. This is given as the conclusion
arrived at by the German astronomer Ginzel.
But it does not seem to me sufficient to overthrow,
without further investigation, the fairly
plain language of Philostratus, which is possibly
confirmed by a passage in Plutarch[65] in which
he discusses certain eclipse phenomena in the
light of a recent eclipse. The date of Plutarch’s
“recent” eclipse is somewhat uncertain, but that
fact does not necessarily militate against his testimony
respecting the Corona or what is regarded
to have been such. The statement of Philostratus,
treated as a mention of a total solar eclipse, is
accepted as sufficiently conclusive by Sir W.
Huggins and the late Professor R. Grant. Johnston,
to meet the supposed difficulty of finding an
eclipse to accord with the assertion of the historian,
suggests that “perhaps some peculiar solar
halo or mock Sun, or other meteorological formation”
is referred to. But Stockwell has advanced
very good reasons for the opinion that the eclipse
of Sept. 3, A.D. 118, fully meets the circumstances
of the case. Grant’s opinion is given in these
emphatic words:—“It appears to me that the[132]
words here quoted [from Apollonius] refer beyond
all doubt to a total eclipse of the Sun, and thus
the phenomenon seen encompassing the Sun’s
disc was, really as well as verbally, identical with
the modern Corona.”[66]

With the end of the first century of the Christian
Era we may be said to quit the realms of classical
history and to pass on to eclipse records of a
different character, and, so far as regards European
observations, of comparatively small scientific
value or usefulness. Our information is largely
derived from ecclesiastical historians and, later
on, from monkish chronicles, which as a rule are
meagre in a surprising degree. Perhaps I ought
not to say “surprising,” because after the times
of the Greek astronomers (who in their way may
almost be regarded as professionals), and after the
epoch of the famous Ptolemy, Astronomy well-nigh
ceased to exist for many centuries in Europe,
until, say, the 15th century, barring the labours
of the Arabians and their kinsmen the Moors in
Spain in the 9th and following centuries.

In examining therefore the records of eclipses
which have been handed down to us from A.D.
100 forwards through more than 1000 years, I
shall not offer my readers a long dry statement
of eclipse dates, but only pick out here and there
such particular eclipses as seem to present details
of interest for some or other reason.

On April 12, 237 A.D., there was, according to
Julius Capitolinus, an eclipse of the Sun, so great
“that people thought it was night, and nothing[133]
could be done without lights.” Ricciolus remarked
that this eclipse happened about the
time of the Sixth Persecution of the Christians,
and when the younger Gordian was proclaimed
Emperor, after his father had declined the
proffered dignity, being 80 years of age. The
line of totality crossed Italy about 5 p.m. in the
afternoon, to the N. of Rome, and embraced
Bologna.

Calvisius records, on the authority of Cedrenus,
an eclipse of the Sun on August 6, 324
A.D., which was sufficiently great for the stars to
be seen at mid-day. The eclipse was associated
with an earthquake, which shattered thirteen
cities in Campania. Johnston remarks that no
more than three-fourths of the Sun’s disc would
have been covered, as seen in Campania, but that
elsewhere in Italy, at about 3 p.m., the eclipse
was much larger, and perhaps one or two of the
planets might have been visible.

On July 17, 334 A.D., there was an eclipse,
which seems to have been total in Sicily, if we
may judge from the description given by Julius
Firmicus.[67]

Ammianus Marcellinus[68] describes an eclipse, to
which the date of August 28, 360 A.D., has been
assigned. Humboldt, quoting this historian,
says that the description is quite that of a solar
eclipse, but its stated long duration (daybreak to
noon), and the word caligo (fog or mist) are
awkward factors. Moreover, the historian associates
it with events which happened in the[134]
eastern provinces of the Roman Empire; but
Johnston seems in effect to challenge Marcellinus’s
statement when he says, “It is true that there
was an annular eclipse of the Sun in the early
morning on the above date, but it could only be
seen in countries E. of the Persian Gulf.”

About the time that Alaric, King of the
Visigoths appeared before Rome, there was a
gloom so great that the stars appeared in the
daytime. This narrative is considered to apply
to an eclipse of the Sun, which occurred on June
18, 410 A.D. The eclipse was an annular one,
but as the central line must have crossed far
S. of Rome, the stars must have been seen not
at Rome but somewhere else.

An eclipse occurred on July 19, 418 A.D.,
which is remarkable for a twofold reason. People
had an opportunity not only of seeing an eclipse,
but also a comet. We owe the account of the
circumstances to Philostorgius,[69] who tells us
that—“On July 19, towards the 8th hour of
the day, the Sun was so eclipsed, that even the
stars were visible. But at the same time that
the Sun was thus hid, a light, in the form of a
cone was seen in the sky; some ignorant people
called it a comet, but in this light we saw nothing
that announced a comet, for it was not terminated
by a tail; it resembled the flame of a
torch, subsisting by itself, without any star for
its base. Its movement too was very different
from that of a comet. It was first seen to the
E. of the equinoxes; after that, having passed
through the last star in the Bear’s tail, it continued[135]
slowly its journey towards the W. Having
thus traversed the heavens, it at length disappeared,
having lasted more than four months.
It first appeared about the middle of the summer,
and remained visible until nearly the end of
autumn.”

Boillot, a French writer, has suggested that
this description is that of the zodiacal light,
but this seems out of the question in view of
the details given by the Chinese of a comet
having been visible in the autumn of this
year for 11 weeks, and having passed through
the square of Ursa Major. Reverting to the
eclipse—Johnston finds that the greatest phase
at Constantinople, which was probably the place
of observation, occurred at about half an hour
after noon, when a thin crescent of light might
have been seen on the northern limb of the Sun.
From this it would appear that the central line
of eclipse must have passed somewhat to the
south of Constantinople. To the same effect
Hind, who found that 95⁄100ths of the Sun’s diameter
was covered at Constantinople.

An eclipse of the Sun seems to be referred to
by Gregorius Turonensis, when he says[70] that:—“Then
even the Sun appeared hideous, so that
scarcely a third part of it gave light, I believe
on account of such deeds of wickedness and
shedding of innocent blood.” This would seem to
have been the eclipse which occurred on February
24, 453 A.D., when Attila and the Huns were
ravaging Italy, and to them it was doubtless
that the writer alluded. At Rome three-fourths[136]
of the Sun’s disc would have been eclipsed at
sunset, a finding which tallies fairly with the
statement of Gregorius.

It is not till far into the 6th century that
we come upon a native English record of an
eclipse of the Sun as having been observed in
England. This deficiency in our national annals
is thus judiciously explained and commented on
by our clever and talented American authoress.[71]
Speaking of the eclipse of February 15, 538 A.D.,
she says:—“The accounts, however, are greatly
confused and uncertain, as would perhaps be
natural fully 60 years before the advent of
St. Augustine, and when Britain was helplessly
harassed with its continual struggle in the fierce
hands of West Saxons and East Saxons, of Picts
and conquering Angles. Men have little time
to record celestial happenings clearly, much less
to indulge in scientific comment and theorising
upon natural phenomena, when the history of a
nation sways to and fro with the tide of battle,
and what is gained to-day may be fatally lost
to-morrow. And so there is little said about
this eclipse, and that little is more vague and
uncertain even than the monotonous plaints of
Gildas—the one writer whom Britain has left
us, in his meagre accounts of the conquest of
Kent, and the forsaken walls and violated shrines
of this early epoch.”

The well-known Anglo-Saxon Chronicle[72] is our
authority for this eclipse having been noted in[137]
England, but the record is bare indeed:—“In
this year the Sun was eclipsed 14 days before
the Calends of March from early morning till
9 a.m.” Tycho Brahe, borrowing from Calvisius,
who borrowed from somebody else, says that the
eclipse happened “in the 5th year of Henry,
King of the West Saxons, at the 1st hour of
the day till nearly the 3rd, or immediately after
sunrise.” Johnson finds that at London nearly
three-fourths of the Sun’s disc was covered at
7.43 a.m.

The next eclipse recorded in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle is somewhat difficult to explain. It
is said that in 540 A.D. “The Sun was eclipsed
on the 12th of the Calends of July [= June 20],
and the stars appeared full nigh half an hour
after 9 a.m.” Johnson’s calculations make the
middle of the eclipse to have occurred at about
7.37 a.m. at London, two-thirds of the Sun’s
diameter being covered. He notes that the
Moon’s semi-diameter was nearly at its maximum
whilst the Sun’s semi-diameter was nearly at
its minimum—a favourable combination for a
long totality. The visibility of the stars seems
difficult to explain in connection with this eclipse,
and therefore he suggests that the annalist has
made a mistake of four years and meant to
refer to the eclipse of September 1, 536 A.D.,
but this does not seem a satisfactory theory.

The year after Pope Martin held a Synod
to condemn the Monothelite heresy, an eclipse
of the Sun took place. It is mentioned by
Tycho Brahe in his catalogue of eclipses as
having been seen in England. Johnson gives[138]
the date as February 6, 650 A.D., and finds that
the Sun was three-fourths obscured at London
at 3.30 p.m.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us under the
year A.D. 664 that, “In this year the Sun was
eclipsed on the 5th of the Nones of May; and
Earcenbryht, King of the Kentish people died
and Ecgbryht his son succeeded to the Kingdom.”
Kepler thought this eclipse had been total in
England, and Johnson calculating for London
found that on May 1, at 5 p.m., there would only
have been a very thin crescent of the Sun left
uncovered on the southern limb, so that the line
of totality would have passed across the country
some distance to the N. of London.

The eclipse of Dec. 7, A.D. 671, seems to be
associated with a comic tragedy. The Caliph
Moawiyah had a fancy to remove Mahomet’s
pulpit from Medina to his own residence at
Damascus. “He said that the walking-stick
and pulpit of the Apostle of God should not
remain in the hands of the murderers of Othman.
Great search was made for the walking-stick,
and at last they found it. Then they went in
obedience to his commands to remove the pulpit,
when immediately, to their great surprise and
astonishment, the Sun was eclipsed to that
degree that the stars appeared.”[73] Once again
the question of visible stars is in some sense a
source of difficulty. Hind found that the eclipse
was annular on the central line. At Medina
the greatest phase occurred at 10h. 43m. a.m.[139]
when 85⁄100ths of the Sun’s diameter was obscured.
Hind suggests that in the clear skies of that part
of the world such a degree of eclipse might be
sufficient to bring out the brighter planets or
stars. At any rate no larger eclipse visible at
Medina occurred about this epoch. Prof. Ockley
seems to refer to this eclipse in making, on the
authority of several Arabian writers, the mention
he does of an eclipse in the quotation just given.

Perhaps this will be a convenient place to
bring in some remarks on certain Arabian observations
of eclipses only made known to the
scientific world in modern times. That the
Arabians were very capable practical astronomers
has long been recognised as a well-established
fact, and if it had not been for them
there would have been a tremendous blank in
the history of astronomy during at least six
centuries from about the year A.D. 700 onwards.
In the year 1804 there was published at Paris
a French translation of an Arabian manuscript
preserved at the University of Leyden of which
little was known until near the end of the last
century. The manuscript was then sent to Paris
on loan to the French Government which caused
a translation to be made by “Citizen” Caussin,
and this was published under the title of Le
Livre de la grande Table Hakénate.[74] Caussin was
Professor of Arabic at the College of France.
Newcomb considers this to contain the earliest[140]
exact astronomical observations of eclipses which
have reached us. He remarks that some of the
data left us by Ptolemy, Theon, Albategnius and
others may be the results of actual observations,
but in no case, so far as is known, have the figures
of the actual observations been handed down. For
example, we cannot regard “midnight” nor “the
middle of an eclipse” as moments capable of
direct observation without instruments of precision;
but in the Arabian work under consideration
we find definite statements of the
altitudes of the heavenly bodies at the moments
of the beginning and ending of eclipses—data
not likely to be tampered with in order to agree
with the results of calculation. The eclipses
recorded are 28 in number and usually the
beginning and end of them were observed. The
altitudes are given sometimes only in whole
degrees, sometimes in coarse fractions of a degree.
The most serious source of error to be confronted
in turning these observations to account arises
from the uncertainty as to how long after the
first contact the eclipse was perceived and the
altitude taken; and how long before the true
end was the eclipse lost sight of. Making the
best use he could of the records available Newcomb
found that they could safely be employed
in his investigations into the theory of the Moon.

The observations were taken, some at Bagdad
and the remainder at Cairo. I do not propose
to occupy space by transcribing the accounts in
detail, but one extract may be offered as a sample
of the rest—“Eclipse of the Sun observed at
Bagdad, August 18, 928 A.D. The Sun rose about[141]
one-fourth eclipsed. We looked at the Sun on
a surface of water and saw it distinctly. At
the end when we found no part of the Sun was
any longer eclipsed, and that its disc appeared
in the water as a complete circle, its altitude was
12° in the E., less the one-third of a division
of the instrument, which itself was divided to
thirds of a degree. One must therefore reduce the
stated altitude by one-ninth of a degree, leaving,
therefore, the true altitude as 11° 53′ 20″.” The
skill and care shown in this record shows that
the Arab who observed this eclipse nearly a
thousand years ago must have been a man of
a different type from an ordinary resident at
Bagdad in the year 1899. No description is
given of the instrument used, but presumably
it was some kind of a quadrant. It does not
appear why some of the observations were made
at Bagdad and some at Cairo. The Bagdad
observations commence with an eclipse of the
Sun on November 30, 829, and end with an
eclipse of the Moon on November 5, 933. The
Cairo observations begin with an eclipse of the
Sun on December 12, 977, and end with an
eclipse of the Sun on January 24, 1004. These
statements apply to the 25 observations which
Newcomb considered were trustworthy enough
to be employed in his researches, but he rejected
three as imperfect.

I have broken away from the strict thread of
chronological sequence in order to keep together
the notes respecting Arabian observations of
eclipses. Let us now revert to the European
eclipses.

[142]Under the date of A.D. 733, the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle tells us that, “In this year Æthelbald
captured Somerton; and the Sun was eclipsed,
and all the Sun’s disc was like a black shield;
and Acca was driven from his bishopric.”
Johnston suggests that the reference is to an
annular eclipse which he finds occurred on
August 14, at about 8¼ h. in the morning. In
Schnurrer’s Chronik der Seuchen (pt. i., § 113,
p. 164), it is stated that, “One year after the
Arabs had been driven back across the Pyrenees
after the battle of Tours, the Sun was so much
darkened on the 19th of August as to excite
universal terror.” It may be that the English
eclipse is here referred to, and a date wrong by
five days assigned to it by Schnurrer. Humboldt
(Cosmos, vol. iv. p. 384, Bohn’s ed.) reports this
eclipse in an enumeration he gives of instances
of the Sun having been darkened.

On May 5, A.D. 840, there happened an eclipse
of the Sun which, amongst other effects, is said
to have so greatly frightened Louis Le Debonnaire
(Charlemagne’s son) that it contributed to his
death. The Emperor was taken ill at Worms,
and having been removed to Ingelheim, an island
in the Rhine, near Mayence, died there on June
20. Hind[75] found that this was a total eclipse,
and that the northern limit of totality passed
about 100 miles south of Worms. The middle of
the eclipse occurred at 1h. 15m. p.m. with the Sun
at an altitude of 57°. The duration of the eclipse
was unusually long, namely about 5½ minutes.
With the Sun so high and the obscuration lasting[143]
so long, this eclipse must have been an
unusually imposing one, and well calculated to
inspire special alarm.

On Oct. 29, 878, in the reign of King Alfred,
there was a total eclipse visible at London. The
mention of it in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is as
follows:—“The Sun was eclipsed at 1 hour of
the day.” No month is given, and the year is
said to have been 879, which is undoubtedly
wrong. Hind found that the central line of the
eclipse passed about 20 miles N. of London,
and that the totality lasted 1m. 51s. Tycho
Brahe in his Historia Cœlestis quotes from the
Annales Fuldenses a statement that the Sun
was so much darkened after the 9th hour that
the stars appeared in the heavens.

Thorpe in his edition of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle quotes from Mr. Richard Price a note
which assigns the date of March 14, 880, to this
eclipse, and cites in confirmation a passage from
the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, anno 879.
The 880 eclipse is mentioned by Asser in his De
Vitâ et Rebus gestis Alfredi in the words following:—“In
the same year [879] an eclipse of the Sun
took place between three o’clock and the evening,
but nearer three o’clock.” The confusion of dates
is remarkable.

In the Chronicon Scotorum, under the date of
885, we find:—“An eclipse of the Sun; and
stars were seen in the heavens.” The reference
appears to be to the total eclipse of June 16,
A.D. 885. The totality lasted more than four
minutes, and as the stars are said to have
been visible in the North of Ireland, doubtless[144]
that part of Ireland came within the eclipse
limits.

On Dec. 22, 968, there was an eclipse of the
Sun, which was almost total at London at about
8h. 33m. a.m., or soon after sunrise. The central
line passed across the S.-W. of England, and
thence through France to the Mediterranean.
One Leon, a deacon at Corfu, observed this
eclipse, and has left behind what probably is the
first perfectly explicit mention of the Corona.[76]

On Aug. 30, 1030, there happened an eclipse
visible in Norway, which has already been alluded
to on a previous page under the name of the
“eclipse of Stiklastad.” This was one of those
eclipses, the circumstances of which were examined
many years ago in detail by Sir G. B.
Airy,[77] because he thought that information of
value might be obtained therefrom with respect
to the motions of the Moon. Its availability for
that purpose has, however, been seriously questioned
by Professor Newcomb. Stiklastad is a
place where a battle was fought, at which Olav,
King of Norway, is said to have been killed.
While the battle was in progress the Sun was
totally eclipsed, and a red light appeared around
it. This is regarded as an early record of the
Corona, though not the first.[78] Johnston found
that the eclipse was nearly total at about 2h.
21m. p.m.

In 1033 there happened on June 29 an eclipse[145]
of the Sun, which evidently had many observers,
because it is mentioned by many contemporary
writers. For instance, the French historian,
Glaber,[79] says that “on the 3rd of the Calends of
July there was an eclipse from the sixth to the
eighth hour of the day exceedingly terrible.
For the Sun became of a sapphire colour; in its
upper part having the likeness of a fourth part
of the Moon.” This sufficiently harmonises with
Johnston’s calculations that about four-fifths of
the Sun on the lower side was covered at 10h.
50m. in the morning.

CHAPTER XII.

ECLIPSES OF THE SUN MENTIONED IN HISTORY.—MEDIÆVAL
AND MODERN.

One of the most celebrated eclipses of mediæval
times was that of August 2, 1133, visible as a
total eclipse in Scotland. It was considered a
presage of misfortune to Henry I. and was thus
referred to by William of Malmesbury[80]:—

“The elements manifested their sorrow at this
great man’s last departure from England. For
the Sun on that day at the 6th hour shrouded
his glorious face, as the poets say, in hideous
darkness agitating the hearts of men by an
eclipse; and on the 6th day of the week early
in the morning there was so great an earthquake
that the ground appeared absolutely to[146]
sink down; an horrid noise being first heard
beneath the surface.”

This eclipse is also alluded to in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle though the year is wrongly given
as 1135 instead of 1133 as it certainly was. The
Chronicle says:—“In this year King Henry went
over sea at Lammas, and the second day as he
lay and slept on the ship the day darkened over
all lands; and the Sun became as it were a three-night-old
Moon, and the stars about it at mid-day.
Men were greatly wonder-stricken and affrighted,
and said that a great thing should come hereafter.
So it did, for the same year the king died on the
following day after St. Andrew’s Mass day, Dec. 2,
in Normandy.” The king did die in 1135, but
there was no eclipse of the August new Moon,
and without doubt the writer has muddled up
the year of the eclipse and of the king’s departure
from England (to which he never returned) and
the year of his death. Calvisius states that this
eclipse was observed in Flanders and that the
stars appeared.

Respecting the above-mentioned discrepancy
Mrs. Todd aptly remarks:—“So Henry must
have died in 1133, which he did not; or else there
must have been an eclipse in 1135, which there
was not. But this is not the only labyrinth into
which chronology and old eclipses, imagination,
and computation, lead the unwary searcher.”
Professor Freeman’s explanation fairly clears up
the difficulty:—“The fact that he never came
back to England, together with the circumstances
of his voyage, seems to have made a deep impression
on men’s minds. In popular belief the[147]
signs and wonders which marked his last voyage
were transferred to the Lammas-tide before his
death two years later.”[81] The central line of this
eclipse traversed Scotland from Ross to Forfar
and the eclipse was of course large in every part
of the country. The totality lasted 4m. 20s.
in Forfarshire.

Hind has furnished some further information
respecting this eclipse. It appears that during
the existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
created by the Crusaders an eclipse occurred
which would appear to have been total at
Jerusalem or in its immediate neighbourhood.
No date is given and a date can only be guessed,
and Hind guessed that the eclipse of 1133 was
the one referred to. He found that after leaving
Scotland and crossing Europe the central
line of the 1133 eclipse entered Palestine near
Jaffa and passed over Jerusalem where the Sun
was hidden for 4¼ minutes at about 3h. p.m.
From Nablous on the N. to Ascalon on the S.
the country was in darkness for nearly the same
period of time. The alternative eclipses to this
one would be those of Sept. 4, 1187, magnitude
at Jerusalem 9⁄10ths of the Sun’s diameter; or
June 23, 1191, magnitude at the same place
about 7⁄10ths; but these do not seem to harmonise
so well with the accounts handed down to us as
does the eclipse of 1133.

In 1140, on March 20, there happened a total
eclipse of the Sun visible in England which is
thus referred to by William of Malmesbury[82]:—[148]“During
this year, in Lent, on the 13th of the
Calends of April, at the 9th hour of the 4th day
of the week, there was an eclipse, throughout
England, as I have heard. With us, indeed, and
with all our neighbours, the obscuration of the
Sun also was so remarkable, that persons sitting
at table, as it then happened almost everywhere,
for it was Lent, at first feared that Chaos was
come again: afterwards, learning the cause, they
went out and beheld the stars around the Sun.
It was thought and said by many, not untruly,
that the King [Stephen] would not continue a
year in the government.”

The same eclipse is also thus mentioned in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:—“Afterwards in Lent the
Sun and the day darkened about the noontide of
the day, when men were eating, and they lighted
candles to eat by; and that was the 13th of the
Calends of April, March 20. Men were greatly
wonder-stricken.” The greatest obscuration at
London took place at 2h. 36m. p.m., but it is
not quite clear whether the line of totality did
actually pass over London.

It was long supposed that this eclipse was total
at London, an idea which seems to have arisen
from Halley having told the Royal Society anent
the total eclipse of May 3, 1715, that he could
not find that any total eclipse had been visible at
London since March 20, 1140. In consequence
of this statement of Halley’s, Hind carefully investigated
the circumstances of this eclipse, and
found that it had not been total at London. The
central line entered our island at Aberystwith,
and passing near Shrewsbury, Stafford, Derby,[149]
Nottingham, and Lincoln, reached the German
Ocean, 10 miles S. of Saltfleet. The southern
limit of the zone of totality passed through the
South Midland counties, and the nearest point of
approach to London was a point on the borders
of Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire. For a
position on the central line near Stafford, Hind
found that the totality began at 2h. 36m. p.m.
local mean time, the duration being 3m. 26s., and
the Sun’s altitude being more than 30°. The stars
seen were probably the planets Mercury and
Venus, then within a degree of each other, and
10° W. of the Sun, and perhaps the stars forming
the well-known “Square of Pegasus.” Mars
and Saturn were also, at that time, within a
degree of each other, but very near the western
horizon. It is therefore necessary to look further
back than 1140 to find a total solar eclipse visible
in London.[83]

A solar eclipse seems to have been alluded to
by certain historians as having happened in
A.D. 1153. We have the obscure statement that
“something singular happened to the Sun the
day after the Conversion of St. Paul.” A somewhat
large eclipse having been visible at Augsburg
in Germany, on January 26, this may have
been the “something” referred to. It would
seem that about 11⁄12ths of the Sun’s diameter was
covered.

On May 14, A.D. 1230, there happened a great
eclipse of the Sun, thus described by Roger of
Wendover[84]:—“On the 14th of May, which was[150]
the Tuesday in Rogation Week, an unusual
eclipse of the Sun took place very early in the
morning, immediately after sunrise; and it became
so dark that the labourers, who had commenced
their morning’s work, were obliged to
leave it, and returned again to their beds to
sleep; but in about an hour’s time, to the astonishment
of many, the Sun regained its usual
brightness.” This eclipse, as regards its total
phase, is said by Johnston to have begun in the
horizon, a little to the N. of London, in the
early morning.

On June 3, A.D. 1239, and October 6, 1241,
there occurred total eclipses of the Sun, which
have been very carefully discussed by Professor
Celoria of Milan, with the view of using them
in investigations into the Moon’s mean motion.[85]
The second of these eclipses is mentioned by
Tycho Brahe.[86] He states that “a few stars appeared
about noonday, and the Sun was hidden
from sight in a clear sky.” The eclipse was total
in Eastern Europe.

Dr. Lingard,[87] the well-known Roman Catholic
historian, speaking of the battle of Cressy, which
was fought on August 26, 1346, says:—“Never,
perhaps, were preparations for battle made under
circumstances so truly awful. On that very day
the Sun suffered a partial eclipse: birds in clouds,
precursors of a storm, flew screaming over the
two armies; and the rain fell in torrents, accompanied[151]
with incessant thunder and lightning.
About 5 in the afternoon, the weather cleared
up, the Sun in full splendour darted his rays in
the eyes of the enemy; and the Genoese, setting
up their shouts, discharged their quarrels.” This
was not an eclipse, for none was due to take
place; and the phenomenon could only have
been meteorological—dense clouds or something
of that sort in the sky.

On June 16, 1406, there was a large eclipse of
the Sun, 9⁄10ths of its diameter being covered at
London; but on the Continent it seems to have
been total. It is stated that the darkness was such
that people could hardly recognise one another.

One of the most celebrated eclipses during the
Middle Ages was undoubtedly that of June 17,
1433. This was long remembered in Scotland
as the “Black Hour,” and its circumstances were
fully investigated some years ago by Hind. It
was a remarkable eclipse in that the Moon was
within 13° of perigee and the Sun only 2° from
apogee. The central line traversed Scotland in a
south-easterly direction from Ross to Forfar, passing
near Inverness and Dundee. Maclaurin[88] who
lived in the early part of the last century mentions
that in his time a manuscript account of
this eclipse was preserved in the library of the
University of Edinburgh wherein the darkness
is said to have come on at about 3 p.m., and to
have been very profound. The duration of the
totality at Inverness was 4m. 32s.; at Edinburgh
3m. 41s. The central line passed from Britain
to the N. of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, through[152]
Bavaria, to the Dardanelles, to the S. of Aleppo
and thence nearly parallel to the river Euphrates
to the N.-E. border of Arabia. In Turkey, according
to Calvisius, “near evening the light
of the Sun was so overpowered that darkness
covered the land.”

In 1544, on Jan. 24, there occurred an eclipse
of the Sun which was nearly but not quite total.
The chief interest arises from the fact that it was
one of the first observed by professed astronomers:
Gemma Frisius saw it at Louvain.

Kepler says[89] that the day became dark like the
twilight of evening and that the birds which from
the break of day had been singing became mute.
The middle of the eclipse was at about 9 a.m.

In 1560 an eclipse of the Sun took place which
was total in Spain and Portugal. Clavius who
observed it at Coimbra says[90] that “the Sun
remained obscured for no little time: there was
darkness greater than that of night, no one could
see where he trod and the stars shone very
brightly in the sky: the birds moreover, wonderful
to say, fell down to the ground in fright at
such startling darkness.” Kepler is responsible
for the statement that Tycho Brahe did not
believe this, and wrote to Clavius to that effect
40 years afterwards.

In 1567 there was an annular eclipse visible
at Rome on April 9. Clavius says[91] that “the[153]
whole Sun was not eclipsed but that there was
left a bright circle all round.” This in set terms
is a description of an annular eclipse, but Johnston
who calculated that at Rome the greatest
obscuration took place at 20m. past noon points
out that the augmentation of the Moon’s semi-diameter
would almost have produced totality.
Tycho tells us that he saw this eclipse on the
shores of the Baltic when a young man about
20 years of age.

The total eclipse of February 25, 1598, long
left a special mark on the memories of the
people of Scotland. The day was spoken of
as “Black Saturday.” Maclaurin states[92]:—“There
is a tradition that some persons in the
North lost their way in the time of this eclipse,
and perished in the snow”—a statement which
Hind discredits. The central line passed from
near Stranraer, over Dalkeith, and therefore
Edinburgh was within the zone of totality.
Totality came on at Edinburgh at 10h. 15m.
and lasted 1m. 30s. From the rapid motion
of the Moon in declination, the course of the
central line was a quickly ascending one in
latitude on the Earth’s surface, the totality
passing off within the Arctic circle.

Kepler in his account of the new star in
the constellation Ophiuchus[93] refers to the total
eclipse of the Sun of October 12, 1605, as
having been observed at Naples, and that the
“Red Flames” were visible as a rim of red[154]
light round the Sun’s disc: at least this seems
to be the construction which may fairly be put
upon the Latin of the original description.

The partial eclipse of the Sun of May 30,
1612, is recorded to have been seen “through
a tube.” No doubt this is an allusion to the
newly-invented instrument which we now call
the telescope. Seemingly this is the first eclipse
of the Sun so observed, but it is on record that
an eclipse of the Moon had been previously
observed through a telescope. This was the
lunar eclipse of July 6, 1610, though the observer’s
name has not been handed down to us.

The eclipse of April 8, 1652, is another of
those Scotch eclipses, as we may call them,
which left their mark on the people of that
country. Maclaurin[94] speaks of it in his time
(he died in 1746) as one of the two central
eclipses which are “still famous among the populace
in this country” [Scotland], and “known
amongst them by the appellation of Mirk Monday.”
The central line passed over the S.E. of
Ireland, near Wexford and Wicklow, and reaching
Scotland near Burrow Head in Wigtownshire,
and passing not far from Edinburgh, Montrose
and Aberdeen, quitted Scotland at Peterhead.
Greenock and Elgin were near the northern
limit of the zone of totality, and the Cheviots
and Berwick upon the southern limit. The
eclipse was observed at Carrickfergus by Dr.
Wyberd.[95] Hind found that its duration there
was but 44s. This short duration, he suggested,[155]
may partly explain the curious remark of Dr.
Wyberd that when the Sun was reduced to
“a very slender crescent of light, the Moon all
at once threw herself within the margin of the
solar disc with such agility that she seemed to
revolve like an upper millstone, affording a pleasant
spectacle of rotatory motion.” Wyberd’s
further description clearly applies to the Corona.
A Scotch account says that “the country people
tilling, loosed their ploughs. The birds dropped
to the ground.”

The eclipse of November 4, 1668, visible as
a partial one in England, was of no particular
interest in itself but deserves notice as having
been observed by Flamsteed,[96] who gives a few
diagrams of his observations at Derby. He
states that the eclipse came on much earlier
than had been predicted. It was well known
at this time that the tables of the Sun and
Moon then in use were very defective, and it
was a recognition of this fact which eventually
led to the foundation of the Greenwich Observatory
in 1675.

On September 23, 1699, an eclipse of the
Sun occurred which was total to the N. of
Caithness for the very brief space of 10-15 secs.
At Edinburgh, about 11⁄12ths of the Sun’s diameter
was obscured. In the Appendix to Pepys’s Diary[97]
there is a letter from Dr. Wallis mentioning that
his daughter’s attention was called to it by
noticing “the light of the Sun look somewhat[156]
dim” at about 9 a.m., whilst she was writing a
letter, she knowing nothing of the eclipse.

An eclipse of the Sun occurred on May 12,
1706, which was visible as a partial eclipse in
England and was total on the Continent, especially
in Switzerland. A certain Captain Stannyan
who made observations at Berne, writes thus to
Flamsteed[98]:—“That the Sun was totally darkened
there for four and a half minutes of time; that a
fixed star and a planet appeared very bright;
and that his getting out of his eclipse was preceded
by a blood-red streak of light from its left limb, which
continued not longer than six or seven seconds of time;
then part of the Sun’s disc appeared all of a
sudden as bright as Venus was ever seen in the
night; nay, brighter; and in that very instant
gave a light and shadow to things as strong as
the Moon uses to do.”

On this communication Flamsteed remarks:—“The
Captain is the first man I ever heard of
that took notice of a red streak preceding the
emersion of the Sun’s body from a total eclipse,
and I take notice of it to you [the Royal Society],
because it infers that the Moon has an
atmosphere; and its short continuance, if only
six or seven seconds’ time, tells us that its height
was not more than five or six hundredths part of
her diameter.”

On the whole, perhaps, the most celebrated
eclipse of the Sun ever recorded in England was
that of May 3, 1715. The line of totality passed
right across England from Cornwall to Norfolk,
and the phenomenon was carefully observed and[157]
described by the most experienced astronomer of
the time, Dr. Edmund Halley. The line of totality
passed over London amongst other places, and as
the maximum phase took place soon after 9 a.m.
on a fine spring morning, the inhabitants of the
Metropolis saw a sight which their successors will
not see again till many generations have come
and gone. Halley has left behind him an exceedingly
interesting account of this event, some
allusions to which have already been made.

He seems to have seen what we call the Corona,
described by him however as a “luminous ring,”
“of a pale whiteness, or rather pearl colour, a
little tinged with the colours of the Iris, and concentric
with the Moon.” He speaks also of a
dusky but strong red light which seemed to
colour the dark edge of the Moon just before the
Sun emerged from totality. Jupiter, Mercury,
Venus, and the stars Capella and Aldebaran
were seen in London, whilst N. of London, more
directly under the central line, as many as twenty
stars were seen.

The inhabitants of England who lived in the
reign of George I. were singularly fortunate in
their chances of seeing total eclipses of the Sun,
for only nine years after[99] the one just described,
namely, on May 22, 1724, another total eclipse
occurred. The central line crossed some of the
southern countries, and the phenomenon was
well seen and reported on by Dr. Stukeley,[100] who
stationed himself on Haraden Hill, near Salisbury.
The Doctor says of the darkness that he[158]
seemed to “feel it, as it were, drop upon us …
like a great dark mantle,” and that during the
totality the spectacle presented to his view “was
beyond all that he had ever seen or could picture
to his imagination the most solemn.” He could
with difficulty discern the faces of his companions
which had a ghastly startling appearance. When
the totality was ending there appeared a small
lucid spot, and from it ran a rim of faint brightness.
In about 3½ minutes from this appearance
the hill-tops changed from black to blue, the
horizon gave out the grey streaks previous to
morning dawn, and the birds sprang joyously
into the air.

This eclipse seems to have had royal observers.
It was watched at Kensington apparently by the
King or some of the royal family of England,
and at Trianon (Paris) by the King of France,[101]
under the competent guidance of Maraldi,
Cassini and De Louville. It was the last
which was visible as a total one in any part
of England.

On May 2, 1733, there was an eclipse of the
Sun, which was total in Sweden and partial in
England. In Sweden the total obscuration lasted
more than 3 minutes. Jupiter, the stars in Ursa
Major, Capella, and several other stars were
visible to the naked eye, as also was a luminous
ring round the Sun. Three or four spots of reddish
colour were also perceived near the limb of
the Moon, but not in immediate contact with it.
These so-called red “spots” were doubtless the[159]
Red Flames of the present century, and the
luminous ring the Corona.

On March 1, 1737, a good annular eclipse was
observed at Edinburgh by Maclaurin.[102] In his
account he says:—“A little before the annulus
was complete a remarkable point or speck of pale
light appeared near the middle of the part of the
Moon’s circumference that was not yet come
upon the disc of the Sun…. During the appearance
of the annulus the direct light of the
Sun was still very considerable, but the places
that were shaded from his light appeared gloomy.
There was a dusk in the atmosphere, especially
towards the N. and E. In those chambers
which had not their lights westwards the obscurity
was considerable. Venus appeared
plainly, and continued visible long after the
annulus was dissolved, and I am told that other
stars were seen by some.” Lord Aberdour mentions
a narrow streak of dusky red light on the
dark edge of the Moon immediately before the
ring was completed, and after it was dissolved.
No doubt this is a record of the “Red Flames.”

In 1748 Scotland was again favoured with a
central eclipse, but it was only annular. The
Earl of Morton[103] and James Short, the optician,
who observed the phenomenon at Aberdour
Castle, 10 miles N.-W. of Edinburgh, just outside
the line of annularity, saw a brown coloured
light stretching along the circumference of the[160]
Moon from each of the cusps. A “star” (probably
the planet Venus) was seen to the E. of
the Sun.

The annular eclipse of April 1, 1764, visible as
such in North Kent, was the subject of the following
quaint letter by the Rev. Dr. Stukeley:—

The year 1766 furnishes the somewhat rare
case of a total eclipse of the Sun observed on
board ship on the high seas. The observers were
officers of the French man-of-war the Comte
d’Artois. Though the total obscuration lasted
only 53 secs., there was seen a luminous ring
about the Moon which had four remarkable expansions,
situate at a distance of 90° from each[161]
other.[105] These expansions are doubtless those
rays which we now speak of as “streamers” from
the Corona.

Curiously enough the next important total
eclipse deserving of notice was also observed at
sea. This was the eclipse of June 24, 1778.
The observer was the Spanish Admiral, Don
Antonio Ulloa, who was passing from the Azores
to Cape St. Vincent. The total obscuration
lasted 4 minutes. The luminous ring presented
a very beautiful appearance: out of it there
issued forth rays of light which reached to the
distance of a diameter of the Moon. Before
it became very conspicuous stars of the 1st
and 2nd magnitudes were distinctly visible, but
when it attained its greatest brilliancy, only
stars of the 1st magnitude could be perceived.
“The darkness was such that persons who were
asleep and happened to wake, thought that they
had slept the whole evening and only waked
when the night was pretty far advanced. The
fowls, birds, and other animals on board took
their usual position for sleeping, as if it had been
night.”[106]

On Sept. 5, 1793, there happened an eclipse
which, annular to the N. of Scotland, was seen
and observed in England by Sir W. Herschel[107] as
a partial eclipse. He made some important
observations on the Moon on this occasion
measuring the height of several of the lunar[162]
mountains. Considerations respecting the shape
of one of the Moon’s horns led him to form an
opinion adverse to the idea that there the Moon
had an atmosphere.

CHAPTER XIII.

ECLIPSES OF THE SUN DURING THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY.

Observations of total solar eclipses during the
19th century have been, for the most part,
carried on under circumstances so essentially
different from everything that has gone before,
that not only does a new chapter seem desirable
but also new form of treatment. Up to the
beginning of the 18th century the observations
(even the best of them) may be said to have
been made and recorded with but few exceptions
by unskilled observers with no clear ideas as to
what they should look for and what they might
expect to see. Things improved a little during
the 18th century and the observations by
Halley, Maclaurin, Bradley, Don Antonio Ulloa,
Sir W. Herschel, and others in particular rose to
a much higher standard than any which had preceded
them. However, it has only been during
the 19th century, and especially during the
latter half of it, that total eclipses of the Sun have
been observed under circumstances calculated to
extract from them large and solid extensions of
scientific knowledge. Inasmuch as it has been[163]
deemed convenient to sort out and classify our
knowledge under particular heads in previous
chapters, I shall in this chapter speak only of
the leading facts of each eclipse in such an outline
form as will avoid as far as possible unnecessary
repetition.

In 1806 a total eclipse of the Sun occurred,
visible in N. America. Observations made in
the United States have been handed down to
us. Don Joachin Ferrer, a Spanish astronomer,
observed the eclipse at Kinderhook in the State
of New York. The totality lasted more than
4½ m.—a somewhat unusual length of time. One
or two planets and a few 1st magnitude stars
were seen. During the totality there was a
slight fall of dew.

On Nov. 19, 1816, there occurred the first
total eclipse of the Sun in the 19th century,
the central line of which passed over Europe.
There is only one known observation of the
total phase, and this was by Hagen at Culm in
Bohemia, but he appears to have seen only the
beginning of the totality and not the whole of it.

A partial eclipse of the Sun visible as such in
England but which was annular in the Shetland
Isles took place on Sept. 7, 1820. The only
reason why this is worth mention is for its
political associations. The trial of Queen Caroline
was going on in the House of Lords, and the
House suspended its sitting for a short time for
the sake of the eclipse.

On May 15, 1836, there occurred an annular
eclipse of the Sun, which though it was nowhere
total, may be looked upon as the first of the[164]
modern eclipses the observations of which have
taken such a great development during recent
years. The annularity of this eclipse was observed
in the N. of England and in the S.
of Scotland; and it was at Jedburgh in Roxburghshire
that Mr. Francis Baily[108] observed that
feature of eclipses of the Sun now universally
known as “Baily’s Beads.” Some indications
of the Red Flames were also obtained at places
where the eclipse was annular.

Probably it was the recognition of Baily’s
Beads as a regular concomitant of eclipses of
the Sun, which helped to pave the way for the
extensive preparations made in France, Italy,
Austria, and Russia for observing the total
eclipse of July 8, 1842. Many of the most
eminent astronomers of Europe repaired to different
stations on the central line in order to see
the phenomenon. Amongst these may be named
Arago, Valz, Airy, Carlini, Santini, and O.
Struve. The eclipse was witnessed under favourable
circumstances at all the various stations on
the central line across Europe, from Perpignan in
France in the West to Lipesk in Russia in the
East.

Arago wrote[109] such an exceedingly graphic
account of this eclipse from what may be termed
the standpoint of the general public, that I will
quote it at some length, because, with an alteration
of date, it might be re-written and applied
to every total eclipse visible in much populated
tracts of country.

[165]“At Perpignan persons who were seriously
unwell alone remained within doors. As soon
as day began to break the population covered
the terraces and battlements of the town, as well
as all the little eminences in the neighbourhood,
in hopes of obtaining a view of the Sun as he
ascended above the horizon. At the citadel we
had under our eyes, besides numerous groups of
citizens established on the slopes, a body of
soldiers about to be reviewed.

“The hour of the commencement of the eclipse
drew nigh. More than twenty thousand persons,
with smoked glasses in their hands, were examining
the radiant globe projected upon an azure
sky. Although armed with our powerful telescopes,
we had hardly begun to discern the small
notch on the western limb of the Sun, when an
immense exclamation, formed by the blending
together of twenty thousand different voices, announced
to us that we had anticipated by only
a few seconds the observation made with the
unaided eye by twenty thousand astronomers
equipped for the occasion, whose first essay this
was. A lively curiosity, a spirit of emulation,
the desire of not being outdone, had the privilege
of giving to the natural vision an unusual power
of penetration. During the interval that elapsed
between this moment and the almost total disappearance
of the Sun we remarked nothing
worthy of relation in the countenances of so
many spectators. But when the Sun, reduced to
a very narrow filament, began to throw upon the
horizon only a very feeble light, a sort of uneasiness
seized upon all; every person felt a desire[166]
to communicate his impressions to those around
him. Hence arose a deep murmur, resembling
that sent forth by the distant ocean after a tempest.
The hum of voices increased in intensity
as the solar crescent grew more slender; at length
the crescent disappeared, darkness suddenly succeeded
light, and an absolute silence marked this
phase of the eclipse with as great precision as did
the pendulum of our astronomical clock. The
phenomenon in its magnificence had triumphed
over the petulance of youth, over the levity
which certain persons assume as a sign of superiority,
over the noisy indifference of which soldiers
usually make profession. A profound stillness
also reigned in the air; the birds had ceased to
sing. After an interval of solemn expectation,
which lasted about two minutes, transports of
joy, shouts of enthusiastic applause, saluted with
the same accord, the same spontaneous feeling,
the first reappearance of the rays of the Sun.
To a condition of melancholy produced by sentiments
of an indefinable nature there succeeded a
lively and intelligible feeling of satisfaction which
no one sought to escape from or moderate the
impulses of. To the majority of the public the
phenomenon had arrived at its term. The other
phases of the eclipse had few attentive spectators
beyond the persons devoted especially to astronomical
pursuits.”

The total eclipse of July 28, 1851, may be said
to have been the first which was the subject of
an “Eclipse Expedition,” a phrase which of late
years has become exceedingly familiar. The
total phase was visible in Norway and Sweden,[167]
and great numbers of astronomers from all parts
of Europe flocked to those countries. Amongst
those who went from England were Sir G. B.
Airy, the Astronomer Royal (then Mr. Airy), Mr.
J. R. Hind and Mr. Lassell. The Red Flames were
very much in evidence, and the fact that they
belonged to the Sun and not to the Moon was
clearly established. Hind mentions that “the
aspect of Nature during the total eclipse was
grand beyond description.” This feature is
dwelt upon with more than usual emphasis in
many of the published accounts. I have never
seen it suggested that the mountainous character
of the country may have had something to do
with it, but that idea would seem not improbable.

In the year 1858, two central eclipses of the
Sun occurred, both presenting some features of
interest. That of March 15 was annular, the
central line passing across England from Lyme
Regis in Dorsetshire to the Wash, traversing
portions of Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire,
Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, and
Norfolk. The weather generally was unfavourable
and the annular phase was only observed
at a few places, but important meteorological
observations were made and yielded results, as
regards the diminution of temperature, which
were very definite. All over the country rooks
and pigeons were seen returning home during the
greatest obscuration; starlings in many places
took flight; at Oxford a thrush commenced its
evening song; at Ventnor a fish in an aquarium,
ordinarily visible in the evening only, was in
full activity about the time of greatest gloom;[168]
and generally, it was noted that the birds stopped
singing and flew low from bush to bush. The
darkness, though nowhere intense, was everywhere
very appreciable and decided. The second
central eclipse of 1858 took place on September
7 and was observed in Peru by Lieutenant Gilliss
of the U.S. Navy. The totality only lasted one
minute, and the general features of a total eclipse
do not appear to have been very conspicuously
visible. Gilliss remarks[110]:—“Two citizens of
Olmos stood within a few feet of me, watching
in silence, and with anxious countenances, the
rapid and fearful decrease of light. They were
wholly ignorant that any sudden effect would
follow the total obscuration of the Sun. At
that instant one exclaimed in terror “La Gloria,”
and both, I believe, fell to their knees, filled
with awe. They appreciated the resemblance of
the Corona to the halos with which the old masters
have encircled their ideals of the heads of our
Saviour and the Madonna, and devoutly regarded
this as a manifestation of the Divine Presence.”

The year 1860 saw the departure from England
of the first great Ship Expedition to see
an eclipse. One was due to happen on July 18,
and a large party went out from England to
Spain in H.M.S. Himalaya. Mr. De La Rue
took a very well-equipped photographic detachment,
and his photographs were eminently
successful. This eclipse settled for ever the
doubt as to whether the Red Flames belonged
to the Sun or the Moon, and in favour of the
former view.

[169]The years 1868, 1869, and 1870 were each
marked by total eclipses, which were observed
to a greater or less extent. In the first-named
year the eclipse occurred on August 18, the
central line passing across India. The weather
was not everywhere favourable, but several expeditions
were dispatched to the East Indies.
The spectroscope was largely brought into play
with the immediate result of showing that the
Corona was to be deemed a sort of atmosphere
of the Sun, not self-luminous, but shining by
reflected light. The eclipse of 1869 was observed
by several well-equipped parties in the
United States, and a very complete series of
excellent photographs was obtained.

To view the eclipse of December 22, 1870,
several expeditions were dispatched, the central
line passing over some very accessible places in
Spain, Sicily, and North Africa. The English
observers went chiefly in H.M.S. Urgent, though
some of them travelled overland to Sicily. The
expenses, both of the sea and land parties, were
to a large extent defrayed by Her Majesty’s
Government. It deserves to be noted that so
great was the anxiety of the French astronomer
Janssen to see this eclipse, that he determined
to try and escape in a balloon from Paris (then
besieged by the Germans) and succeeded, carrying
his instruments with him. The weather
seriously interfered with the work of all the
observers who went out to see this eclipse,
which was the more to be regretted because
the preparations had been on a very extensive
and costly scale. The chief result was that it[170]
was ascertained that the Red Flames (hence
forward generally called “Prominences”) are composed
of hydrogen gas in an incandescent state.

The year 1871 saw, on December 12, another
Indian eclipse, noteworthy for the numerous and
excellent photographs which were obtained of the
Corona, of the rifts in it, and of the general details,
which were well recorded on the plates.

There was an eclipse visible in South Africa
on April 16, 1874. Some useful naked eye views
were obtained and recorded, but as no photographic
work was done, this eclipse cannot be
said to come into line with those which preceded
or followed it.

In the following year, that is to say on April
6, 1875, there was a total eclipse of the Sun,
visible in the far East, especially Siam; but the
distance from England, coupled with the very
generally unfavourable weather, prevented this
from being anything more than a second-class
total eclipse, so to speak, although extensive preparations
had been made, and the sum of £1000
had been granted by the British Government
towards the expenses. A certain number of
photographs were obtained, but none of any very
great value.

Perhaps of the next eclipse which we have to
consider, it may be said that the circumstances
were more varied than those of any other during
the second half of the 19th century. The eclipse
in question occurred on July 29, 1878.

Several favourable circumstances concurred to
make it a notable event. In the first place, the
central line passed entirely across the United[171]
States; in other words, across a long stretch of
inhabited and civilised territory, accessible from
both sides to a nation well provided with the
requisite scientific skill and material resources of
every kind. But there was another special and
rare facility available: the central line crossed
the chain of the Rocky Mountains, an elevated
locality, which an American writer speaks of as
overhung by “skies of such limpid clearness, that
on several evenings Jupiter’s satellites were seen
with the naked eye.” On the summit of a certain
peak, known as Pike’s Peak, a party of skilled
observers, headed by Professor Langley, observed
the wonderful developments of the Corona, mentioned
on a previous page. The fact that such a
display came under the eyes of man was no doubt
mainly due to the superbly clear atmosphere
through which the observations were made. That
this is not a mere supposition may be inferred
from the fact that at the lower elevation of only
8000 feet, instead of 14,000 feet, the Coronal
streamers were seen by Professor Newcomb’s
party, far less extended than Langley saw them.
Perhaps the best proof of the importance of a
diaphanous sky is to be found in the fact that
on the summit of Pike’s Peak, the Corona remained
visible for fully 4 minutes after the
total phase had come to an end. A comparison
of the descriptions shows that even at the elevation
of 10,200 ft. the observers placed there,
whilst they were better off than those at 8000 ft.,
assuredly did not see so much or so well as those
at 14,000 ft.

There occurred a total eclipse on July 11, 1880,[172]
visible in California, but as the totality lasted
only 32 secs. and the Sun’s elevation was only
11°, not much was got out of this eclipse notwithstanding
that it was observed in a cloudless
sky at a station 6000 ft. above the sea.

The eclipse of May 17, 1882, yielded several
interesting and important features although the
totality was short—only about 1¼ minutes.
Here again favourable local circumstances helped
astronomers in more ways than one. It was in
Egypt that the eclipse was visible, and Egypt
is a country which it is exceedingly easy for
travellers to reach, and it is also noted for its
clear skies. These were doubtless two of the
reasons which combined to inspire the elaborate
preparations which were made for photographic
and spectroscopic observations. The former resulted
in a very unprecedented success. One of
Dr. Schuster’s photographs of the totality showed
not only the expected Corona, but an unexpected
comet.

Though on more than one previous occasion in
history the darkness which is a special accompaniment
of a total eclipse had caused a comet
to be seen, yet the 1882 eclipse was the first at
which a comet had thrust itself upon the notice
of astronomers by means of a photographic plate.
It will be remembered that the political circumstances
of Egypt in 1882 were of a somewhat
strained character and probably this contributed
to the development of an unusual amount of
astronomical competition in connection with this
eclipse. Not only did the Egyptian Government
grant special facilities, but strong parties went[173]
out representing England, France, and Italy,
although not perhaps in set terms at the direct
instigation of their respective Governments.

The next eclipse, that of May 6, 1883, had
some dramatic features about it. To begin with
its duration was unusually long—nearly 5½
minutes, and Mrs. Todd in her genial American
style remarks:—“After the frequent manner of
its kind, the path lay where it would be least
useful—across the wind-swept wastes of the
Pacific. But fortunately one of a small group of
coral islands lay quite in its line, and, nothing
daunted, the brave scientific men set their faces
toward this friendly cluster, in cheerful faith that
they could locate there. Directed to take up
their abode somewhere on a diminutive island
about which nothing could be ascertained beforehand,
save the bare fact of its existence at a
known spot in mid-ocean, the American observers
were absent from the United States more than
three months, most of which time was spent in
travelling, 15,000 miles in all, with ten full weeks
at sea. Their tiny foothold in the Pacific was
Caroline Island, a coral atoll on the outskirts
of the Marquesas group.”

In spite of the unattractive, not to say forbidding,
character of the place to which they
would have to go, parties of astronomers went
out from England, France, Austria, and Italy,
and although rain fell on the morning of the day
the sky became quite clear by the time of totality
and the observations were completely successful.
One of the pictures of the Corona obtained by
Trouvelot, an observer of French descent, but[174]
belonging to the American party, has been often
reproduced in books and exhibited the Corona in
a striking form. How few were the attractions
of Caroline Island as an eclipse station may be
judged from the fact that the inhabitants consisted
of only four native men, one woman, and
two children who lived in three houses and two
sheds.

On September 8, 1885, there occurred a total
eclipse, which was seen as such in New Zealand,
but the observations were few, and with one
exception, unimportant and uninteresting. A
certain Mr. Graydon, however, made a sketch
which showed at one point a complete break
in the Corona so that from the very edge of
the Moon outwards into space, there was a
long and narrow black space showing nothing
but a vacuity. If this was really the condition
of things, such a break in the Corona is apparently
quite unprecedented.

In 1886, on August 29, there occurred a total
eclipse, visible in the West Indies, which yielded
various important results. It was unfortunate
that for the greater part of its length, the zone
of totality covered ocean and not land, the only
land being the Island of Grenada and some
adjacent parts of South America. The resulting
restriction as regards choice of observing
stations was the more to be regretted because
the duration of the totality was so unusually
long, and therefore favourable, being more
than 6½ minutes in the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean. Parties of English, American, and Italian
astronomers assembled, however, at Grenada,[175]
and though the weather was not the best
possible, some interesting photographs were
obtained which exhibited an unusual development
of hydrogen protuberances. The central
line in this eclipse not only stretched right
across the Atlantic, but entered Africa on the
West Coast where a missionary saw the eclipse
as a mere spectator, and afterwards expressed
his regret that no astronomers were within reach
with instruments to record the remarkable Corona
which was displayed to his gaze.

Though the unusual opportunities which, so
far as the Sun and the Moon were concerned,
were afforded by the eclipse of 1886 were lost,
astronomers looked out hopefully for August 19,
1887, when another eclipse was due to happen
which, weather permitting, would be observable
over a very long stretch of land, from Berlin
through Russia and Siberia to Japan. Unusually
extensive preparations were made in
Russia at one end and in Japan at the other,
but clouds prevailed very generally, and the
pictures of the Corona which were obtained fell
far short in number and quality from what had
been hoped for, having regard to the number
and importance of the stations chosen, and of the
astronomers who made their preparations thereat.
An enthusiastic Russian, in the hopes of emancipating
himself from the risks of terrestrial
weather at the Earth’s surface, went up in a
balloon to an elevation of more than two miles.
His enthusiasm was so far rewarded that he
had a very clear view of a magnificent Corona;
but as, owing to some mischance, the balloon[176]
rose, conveying only the astronomer and leaving
behind his assistant who was to have managed
the balloon, all his time was engrossed by the
management of the balloon, and he could do
very little in the way of purely astronomical
work.