The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1869-08-07
The Eclipse.

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O'Clock, if the weather is such as to admit Of
seeing it-for their will be no postponement
on account of the weather. round, dark
screen or cover may be seen touching the
lower edge of the face of the GLORIOUS orb
of day." and gradually extend itself over the
suns disc until all except the northern edge
will be completely covered. If the sky hap
pens to be unusually clear, it will become
dark enough only to render lights necessary
to read indoors; but if it happens to be
cloudy, the darkness will be equal, consider
ably before sundown to an ordinary moon
less night.
The cause of this marvellous deviation from
the ordinary every day routine of nature, is
the great eclipse. 1t is nothing to be alarmed
about, startling as are its phenomena, for it
is very ordinary occurrence, one or two hap
pening every year, but not often on SO large
scale. Twice in every year, about the LIST
of February and the list of August, the sun
and earth get SO nearly in position to place
the moon exactly on line between them,
that portion, and sometimes the whole
shadow Of the moon falls upon the earth, and
at whatever positions Of the earth this shadow
falls, the sun is eclipsed. ,,,,l 4,
Astronomers say that there are three kinds
of eclipses of the sun, partial, total, and
annular. A partial eclipse is, of course, when
only portion, Or one side Of the suns disc is
hidden a total eclipse is when the whole disc
is hidden, and an annular eclipse when the
moon don't appear to be large enough to
cover the whole face of the sun, and there is
bright ring left around it. Now why, the
reader may ask, is it that the eclipse of the
lar9 Are there times when the moon is
larger, or the sun smaller9 No-but some
times the sun as well as the moon is further
off than at other times. Standing some dis
lance from pane of glass in your room, it
appears nearly as large as building a square
or two away: but go nearer the window, and
we shall see the pane larger proportionably
than the building. So when the moon is
nearer, or the sun farther off, the shadow fall
ing upon the earth is proportionably larger,
and vice versa.
The eclipse this afternoon will be of the
kind called total, except that Ottawa lies a
little to far north too have it total here To
see it exactly over the center of the sun we
must be at Springfield, or anywhere ON q
straight line running diagonally across the
earth from northern Siberia, through Alaska,
Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky and North Carolina.
Of all phenomena in the way of eclipses,
total eclipse of the sun is the most sublime.
"During space of time not exceeding eight
minutes" says writer on eclipses, 1--WE OBJ
serve the passage from sunlight to a dark
ness almost like that of night and back
again. The sky, as the partial eclipse grows
larger and larger, changes its tints to various
hues, described sometimes as livid, but min
gled with orange yellow, or purple, some
times much before the beginning Of the total
eclipse proper. The moon advances slowly
over the solar disc, covering more and more
~
more obscure objects, till, when the last
CLEAN of sunlight is about to pass away, the
observer sees the moon and what remains of
the sun surrounded by bright corona or
glory, such as surrounds the heads of the
Lord and the saints in religious pictures.
When the sunlight totally disappears, moth
ing is left to enlighten objects around, save
the scattered rays of twilight and the corona
itself This glory is intersccted here and
there with flashing rays, extending often to
considerable distances from the sun. and has
been itself seen nearly as broad as the suns
diameter. When the corona gives the light
by which objects are seen, they naturally sp-
pear very differently from what we see in day
light, or even at night. The sharpness and
blackness Of distant hills have often been
noticed a."
"Besdes this corona, the protubcrances
of rosy color and irregular shape are very
marked feature. These are cloud-like masses
seen projecting beyond the dark edge of the
moon, are not generally visible without tcle-
scopes, and have long been, as well as the
corona, mysterious in their origin. But it is
now made certain by the spectroscopc that
they are gaseous in nature; it was found out
by photographing them that they were con-
nected with the sum- and that as the moon
passed over them it hid them by degrees.
If they were phenomena of the lunar atmo s.