Litchfield enquirer., 1869-08-26
OUR PARTY. Q

Ou Sno uiPs duu dS GHcy Seem SO IaF HI Ol
 them to have enjoyed even the discomforts
 Of travei,-I do not think they will be dis
 appointed. We had arranged to take the
 here that by taking the Rock Island road, we can stop at Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday afternoon, and see the eclipse of the sun, which is total at that point. Great prepa.
 rations have been made for observing it there. and a crowd of scientic people have
 gone on and made, arrangements to wit.
 ness it. The member from the second dis: trict IS extremely anxious to see the phe. l-ronnenon, as he has not seen total eclipse Fsinee last April. He is more fond of an
 eclipse, | think, than Mir. Babcocx of New
 Haven. whose total obscuration he had the satisfaction of beholding at that time. So we shall probably go by way of Des Moines and in a learned and scientific way; exam inc the eclipse. If the weather is favora- ble, we shall be there on that business and look as wise as any ofthem; if it is cloudy, we shall be simply travellers going through and notgln any way connected with the eclipse. So we have a tolerably sure thing, and don't mean to be fooled. i- sef-a% 1IoA TO DIES MONIES. ,y2A ~ks
 i%hEe' VI DEs MONIES, Saturday, Aug. '. We left Chicago Friday morning at 9:45, by the Rock Island road, and reached this place about one o'clock this morning. The face of the country from Chicago to Rock Island, 162 miles, differs little in appear ance from the long stretch in Indiana, oyer which we came before reaching Chicago. Illinois and Indiana are both abundant in prairies, and do not differ materially in their general aspect. At Rock Island, we struck the Mississippi and crossed over in- ,>,st21G t-.uE gLr laaaeaa .{arsgs.sT y4a4
 After leaving Davenport, on the west side of the Mississippi river, we struck straight out into and across the State of Iowa. had no conception of the bound lessness of these prairies, and the wonder ful productive capacity of this great state, until looked out from the car window up- on the miles and miles, on either side of us, of cut and stacked grain, and waving corn. The wheat has been for the most part cut, and the brown fields are covered far as the eye can reach with the standing shocks waiting to be .threshed. Great fields of waving corn, wonderful in extent to my unaccustomed eyes, relieve the monotony and lend variety to the landscape, with an occasional patch of bnckwheat or few acres of potatoes sprinkled along it's inter vals. Rolling prairies of most graceful outlines, seem rising into perfectly round ed mounds, and,now flowing away in gem tie undulations or spreading out into broad intervales, meet the eye on all sides, bil- lowy sea of grace and beauty, without mo- tion, but full of life and all life-giving things. i I do not wonder that the Iowa people are proud of their state. It is a perfect wonder of fertility and beauty. $
 THE ECLIPSE. ' We found every body in Des Moines full of the eclipse. Nothing else has been talked of to-day. and tonight, small boys and1grown men are carrying its sign on the tips of their noses, in the shape of dis inct impressions from the smoked glass on which their noses have been fattened. The best point for observing the general effect was said to be in the summit of little rise in the prairie, about four miles northeast of the city. Thither our party, with hundred others, went in wagons. The astronomers and scientific, observers occupied different points in and about the city, where observatories had been erect ed and all the arrangements made for per- fecting their observations. Ido not know how manyof these eminent gentlemen are here, but from the abundance of. " Profess sors" about the hotel and at private hous- es, | judge that if science is not enriched by new discoveries to-day, it will certainly not be for lack of observers and investi. gators. ll ads*s F. .-l.ssa5o3io Y le g. < Iconfess | had not taken much stock in the eclipse as spectacle. supposed it to be simply total obscuration of the sun, and that seeing 8 partial eclipse as we might, frem some other point west, would give us a. correct idea of what the totality would be-. Others of the party were of the same mind, but Kellogg was tetotally bent -oni seeing 1t entire-though we fancy he was more anxious to see some friends at Des Moines, than to witness any celestial on his advice we came.
 We'll, we have seen it. Kellogg was right. No man who is within five hundred mites of the central line of a total eclipse of tine sun, ican afford to miss seeing it.sL It is but once in an ordinary life time. l, never saw one before, and do not expect to see an other, but the recollection of this will be g delight to me as long as memory lasts. From the point where we stood, the, wis., ion swept unobstrncted over miles of roll ing prairie, on every side. The simple be- ing there, in the center of that vast plain, with magnificent distances stretching out from our feet to the dim misty horizon far away, was to one sunaccustomed to such scenes, itself an inspiration. The day was perfect not a cloud appeared in the heav- ems; nothing to ebstruct the view from the first moment to the last. We 2 watched through our smoked glasses the gradual progress of the moon as she. took up her stately march across tue path down which the sun sends the earth it's light and heat. Slowly the shadow moved across; day soft ened into twilight The mellowness of eventide, dropped down upon the prairies Ira just percepible! chill came into the at
 mosphere, like the beginning of dew-falle--t the sun became half f-moon-shen qu ar ter, then a segment -an area thin, and thinner growing line=-and then,a8as the
 whole body of the moon came in view and the contact vas completes sudden rush of darkness came up like dense cloud or bank of blackness, from the far northwest, sweeping along over and enveiopinge us- down little to the right, Al. the same in- stant, Mercury ran right to the astrono-
 mer, came out distinct and clearLabove and at the7left aiVenuss flashed her. brills iance into the gloom while all around the
 black disc of the intervening moon, there seemed to be a perfect gushing. forth of luminous rays, flashing and dancing and changing constantlySto new anda brilliant forms. with here, and there. on . the very