Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1889 — OLD SOL IN A SHADOW. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OLD SOL IN A SHADOW.

TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN ON NEW YEAR’S DAY. Observer* from Many Scientific Institutions View the Interesting Phenomena from Points of Vantage—Totality Visible Only in California.

CLIPSES, lunar and solar, have by the uncivilized been from time immemorial i viewed with fear and 1 trembling, and a long step forward in civilization is shown by the change of feeling marked by the commencement of their prediction —in this, as in other events, the unexpected being universally fear-i nspiring. In late eclipses the astronomer, journeying peril a p s thousands of miles to an island in the great South Sea,

will see the evidences of terror excited in the nativos by the unwonted appearances. There is probably no more forcible illustration of the axiom that knowledge is power than the attitudes of savage and scientist toward the phenomena of the total solar eclipse. The former, not aware of the coming of the eclipse, is transfixed by fear as it approaches; the latter, enabled to predict the time of its advent, anxiously awaits the revelations it may afford. A total eclipse was one of the features of New Year’s Day, 1889, when fair Luna crossed Old Sol, and the beautiful sunlight was dimmed by the shadow of the moon. This solar eclipse was looked forward to for months by every student of science with great interest. •Though the totality did not last much longer than two minutes, astronomers obtained much important information. The eclipse began in San Franseisco at twenty-three minutes and eight seconds past twelve o’clock, and the end of contact was at eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds past three, the total eclipse not being seen at Son Francisco at all. The Lick Observatory had one of its stations 100 miles north of San Francisco, where the belt of totality passed from the Aleutian Islands southeasterly to the Pacific coast and northeasterly, leaving the earth between Lake Superior and Hudson Bay. Here it touched the Pacific coast. The eclipse at the station was partial, not total, and was :observed by Professor Holden and Messrs. Burnham and Schaeberle. The Warner Observatory, of Rochester, had a station seventy-five miles north of Sacramento, almost on the same line with the Lick. The accompanying diagram represents the eclipse as it was visible from Chicago and vicinity. A few seconds after 3:21 p.

m., the dark edge of the moon came fn contact with the bright disk of the sun In the position marked A, on the lower right-hand edge. The diagram shows the relative positions of the luminaries as seen from Chicago immediately before the sun dipped below the western horizon, only that part of the moon being represented which was actually between Chicago observers and the sun. Eclipses have been predicted from an early time. Thales, one of the seven sages, born about 640 years before the Christian era. is said to have taught the true nature of the lunar eclipse. Being the most striking of celestial phenomena visible to the naked eye, the desire to account for the cause of eclipses may be supposed to have arisen at a very early day. Long before the motions of the heavenly bodies were well understood, material was historically accumulating for the prediction of the occurrence of eclipses. Less than a score of years suffices to establish a recurrence of exactly the same positions of sun and moon with reference to the earth. . The period, or cycle, of eighteen years and eleven days includes all kinds of solar eclipses liable to occur, so that it may be said that each eclipse is the type_ of one to occur 18 years later. This relation once established, it is easy to see how the ancient astronomers could pro lict eclipses without an accurate knowledge of the motions of the moon or of tho earth. Of course such predictions ,haye become more and more accurate as the knowledge of these motions became better known. In the case of the sun being eclipsed, the relative positions of the three bodies —earth "moon and sun—are readily seen from the sketch. The shadow of the moon striking the earth causes the sun to appear darkened or eclipsed. Ia the case of a lunar eclipse,

however, the relative positions of the bodies are changed. The earth then occupies the intermediate place between the sun and the moon, and its shadow falling on the moon obscures that body. When the moon, earth and sun are in the positions shown in the figure, we have a new moon, as solar eclipses can occur only when the moon is new. On the other hand, in the position assigned above to the three bodies for a j lunar eclipse, the moon is full, and lunar I eclipses are found only at the time of full moon. Solar eclipses occur more frequently than do the lunar; it is susceptible of demonstration that there must be at least two solar eclipses annually, and there may be five, in one year. Of lunar eclipses, there mav bo as many as three in one year, or nonb at all. But*a lunar eclipse is visible to a whole hemisphere at once, while a solar eclipse can be seen only from a small portion of the earth. The number of times, therefore, a ■solar eclipse can be viewed many one place in, say, any one century, is comparatively ■small. The shadow at some eclipses may fall in .arctic or inaccessible regions. Hence arises the infrequency, apparent, not real, lot solar eclipses. Mbs. Robebt Williams, of Preston County, West Virginia, although but 52 years old, is the mother of twenty-two children •

TOTAL ECLIPSE. (Showing Moon's Shadow.)