The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-08-08
The Next Total solar Eclipse.

Tho Next Total solar Eclipse.
Already the scientific world is astir with
preparations to observe this grand pheno-
menon. 1t is most fortunate thing for
astronomy that this rare event occurs again
just as the knowledge obtained from the
recent eclipse expeditions has been garnered
up and carefully studied as starting point for
future solar inquiries. Our knowledge Of
the great central luminary of our planetary
system has within few years so rapidly in
creased that we need new and improved appli-
ances for vigorously pushing investigation.
The central line of the next total solar eclipse
will first meet the earths surface In the
coast of India, will pass directly across one of
the most important and populous parts Of
Hindostan in southeastern by eastern direc-
ton, where the sun will be about twenty
degrees above the horizon at the time of total
observation. The duration Of totally will be
two minutes and quarter and the breadth of
the shadow about seventy miles. Leaving the
eastern coast of the Madras Presidency, the
central line crosses Palk's Strait, the northern
part of the island of Ceylon, thence con-
point of Sumatra and will touch the
southwestern coast of Java, near its capital
city, Batavia. The shadow path will then
leave the East Indies, and, crossing over the
most uninhabited portions of Australia, will
ultimately disappear in the Pacific Ocean.
Er,~1
ments to visit the most eligible spots for
studying the eclipse, and the Astronomer
Royal is experimenting tho adaptation of
instruments.
The question of the suns corona, if it Is
not, as Mr.. Lockyer claims, ''the scientific
question of the day." is undoubtedly the great
problem of celestial physics. If astronomers
can only once settle what is the real nature of
the suns surroundings the path of research is
open for the more distant stars. At present,
however, the corona is wrapped in cloud of
hypothesis. Surrounding the sun somewhat
as an intensely illumined atmospheric enve-
lope, Mr.. Airy likened it to the ornament
round the compass card, giving it height
equal to about once and half the suns diam
eter. In 1862 it was described as "a pleasant
spectacle of rotatory notion" Don Antonio
Ulloa, Spanish astronomer, remarked of
the corona observed in the eclipse of
1888, ''It seemed to be endued with rapid
rotatory motion, which caused 1t to resemble
firework turning round its CENTRE" The
terms whirling aud Pickering were applied to
it in the records Of the eclipse of 1S6O-an
extraordinary condition, which, however, was
fully endorsed by the late eclipse observa-
tons.
1t is highly probable that great aud early
discoveries are in store for astronomers in the
forthcoming eclipse, for the indications strongly
favor the view that this remarkable phenomc-
non, just alluded to, is not mere accident, but
an essential part Of the solar mechanism,
which, like all other parts of creation, have a
bearing upon mans welfare. History records
some instances in which, even during severe
battles, the prodigy of an eclipse either stopped
the combat, or silenced its din and fury
by striking the combatants with the paralysis
of terror. If the recurrence of the lawful
observation" has lost its power to terrify 1t has
not lost Its power to instruct the philosopher
and to fll the beholder with mute and sublime
admiration. Let our American astronomers
be among the first to win the honor of these
magnificent solar discoveries.