Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1851-09-04
As the totality approached the air felt sen

As the totality approached the air felt SEN
sibly colder at every moment, and the dark
ness plainly increased the clouds seemed to
lower, and under the sun was seen an appear
ance of rushing, descending streams of them
while the sea-birds appeared by their noise to
be gathering around the rocks for their night
! ly rest or for shelter. The difference of illu-
mination had also become very marked on
the mountains at different distances, those
far from us being brought out with vivid
ness and distinctness which made our own
/ increasing gloom the more observable. Sud-
denly, at the moment of totality, the very ex-
tremity of darkness seemed to fall upon U.S.
/ Notso, however, absolutely, for the rain clouds
which closed in the greater part of the hori-
zon, left open strip of sky extending from
N. w. to E. N. E. and two or three degrees
high, and which at this moment became of a
dark lurid orange color, verging from red on
one side to greenish on the other, and enabled
us barely to see each other by faint I'M
earthly sort of light; small hand-lamps, fifty
or sixty yards off, in hollow, were as vissi-
bic as in dark night, and, with their red col
or, contrasted strangely with the general
green hue of everything Immediately around.
But The appearance of the country, seen
through that lurid opening under the clouds,
was the most appalling. Though standing
in the centre of the shadow, we could yet,
by reason of their great height, see the distant
peaks of the lofty Jostedals and DovreGield
mountains still illuminated by the rays of the
sun descending upon them from on high; but
we were shut out in outer darkness. Some
approximation to the appearance might be
obtained by watching the opportunity of a
similar confguration of clouds in the north
from the Calton hill during midsummer's
midnight; but still it would be only an ap-
Proclamation, for never have we observed all
the light of heaven and earth so entirely con-
fined to one narrow strip along the horizon,
never that peculiar greenish hue, and never
that appearance of outer darkness in the place
of observation, and of extensive distance in
the verge of the horizon, caused in this case
by the hills there being more highly illumi-
minated as they receded by a less and less e.
clipsed sun; while in morning or evening
sky they are, on the contrary, most in the
/ shade, and therefore are dark and unnaturally
thrown forward.
Though none of US were unmoved with
gratitude at having been allowed to witness
such spectacle, though we should have been
glad to have enjoyed its teachings for Ion
ger space of time, and should have been a
harmed, indeed, if it had not happened as it
did, and with such wonderful accuracyto the
computed time; yet certain feelings of relief
were experienced when the lurid streak in
the sky suddenly changed to yellew, when
the clouds frightened up, and the darkness
seemed to be waited vissibly away TO the
southeast.
The sea-birds that had stopped their scream
ing during the darkness now reappearad but
the wild Norsemen of those rocky isles, who
had congregated SO curiously arond us during
the commencement of the eclipse, when the
! light returned, where were they ! Gone to
hide themselves in their huts, thinking that
they were in the jaws Of destruction, among
the stones of darkness, and in the shadow OF
death. Such we heard afterward was the
general feeling among them all along the
coast, even beyond the limits of total obscu-
ration. Horses and even oxen began to wend
their way homewards, and poultry to fly ur
to their roosts; but one farmer informed US
that an amusing scene of confusion took place
when the fowls found the darkness coming
on so quickly that they could not all ge,
placed on their perches in time and then a.
gain, when they found, by the quickly return
ing light, that they had had a false alarm
We also heard that there had been over all
that line of the country such excessive rain
that day, that our party, enabled by the light.
house steamer to take up the peculiar position
we did, was probably the only one that had
had the good luck to make any accurate OBJ
servations circumstance the more fortu-
nate, inasmuch as that was the earliest part
of Europe visited by the shadow in its pro-
gress from west to east
These observations will, of course, appear
elsewhere in due time, and in different form
but meanwhile some general idea of what
was witnessed may not be unacceptable to the
public at large.
'Mr. jenkins" said mine host of the Swan
cas- you always come in late, have you any
objection to this gentleman occupying your
bed until the sage goes out?"
"Not in the least. | will be infinitely
obliged to you if you put him there, SO tha