Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1881 — The Shadow on tho Moon. [ARTICLE]

The Shadow on tho Moon.

New York Son. . , Although the eclipse of the moon on Sunday morning had no special value to science, Chose who saw ft through teiesoopes will not soon forget the spectacle.* To the naked eye, aud eten wttfe an* opera ftass, the convex outline of the earth’s shadow seemed pretty kharply defined as iV'iwept acroes ww* seen Torf&de and shade. The abeenqe ,of air on the soenery never appears in a twilight. "But the gradually deepening edge of

the shadow In the eclipse furnished a twilight effect nndgr Which same of the familiar featdMi hSM anew and Interesting kppearauce. TbSjWas, seen as the shadow Was passing off The telescope directed near the en&ot the total phase to the eastern edge Of the modn had in its field the Oceah of Btortns, part of the Sea ofShowers and the Sea of Clouds, and the craters of Aristarchus, Kepler, ,and. Copernicus. All these, and other plains and moontains, could be easily distinguished the reddish ilght of the eclipse. Presently, along the eastern odge of the moon’s globe, which stood out against the sky with stereoscopic roundness, the returning sunlight began to break In a bright, narrow line which rapidly lengthened and grew broader. In a few minutes it had shot northward until it lllu min ated the peaks around the Land of Hoar Frost And southward to the furthest confines of the Ocean 6f Storms, beyond which it streamed across the Sea of Moistiire to the borders of the great mountain dlstriot of which Tycho is the center. Then the hrilllaut mountain Aristarchus began to shine like a star in the advancing light, and a few minutes later the sunshine flooded the shores of the Bay of Rainbows. Hero the gradualnrlghtening of th® light ou the cliffs and the long headlands at either end of the waterless bay formed a striking contrast to the usual illumination of objects on the moon. The shadows of the hills were not extended across tbo levels as dhring the ordinary sunrise on the moon, for the illumination covered objects on all sides at once. But the-slow Increase In brightness brought out one familiar feature after another, aS a sunrise oh the earth gradually reveals the details of a landscape. So the shadow crept slowly off, uncovering region after region, until the whole round faoe of the nioon was shining again.