The New York herald., 1874-10-22


western WALL
With such q screen covering our night sky we
should see the worlds shadow, like black sun,
travestying the motions OF that luminary-rising
as he set, setting as he rOse-n md-heaven at
midnight, and running high or low as he ran low
or high. But, with such screen, there would be
night. Illuminated by bright sunlight every
where except at the solitary spot where the
earth's shadow fell, the night sky would be as II
led with full moons. So perhaps 1t is IS well, on
the WHOLE that the only screen we have is a small
one. and one that seldom wanders into that por-
ton of the heavens pre-empted, for the nonce, by
the earth's shadow.
Our satellite thus takes much less time than we
can consume when ''tnrough the shadows OF the
world we sweep into the younger day;' but IL
must be recoected that we traverse the cone at
Its base, where it is 5000 miles across, while the
moon on saturday night has but about 5000 miles
to cIoss and plunges through 1t ut q speed OF
nearly thirty miles minute
ARE WE rAUGHT9
Now, qunre in 80 hacknied an occurrence as q
lunar eclipse Is there ANYTHING left to be learned
anything not thoroughly understood, the consid-
Grafton OF which may raionally occupy our minds
while Observing the phenomenOnf
Unhesitatlngly yes; and 1t is this: the ex-
preston "blotted OUT used In the first para
graph does not as every observer Will testify,
correctly represent the state OF things; and here
is the wonder. The moon is not blotted out. She
is there, plainly visible IN the midst or the total
ity her disc lit up with lurid glow that enables
one still to trace the mere conspicuous markings
or her surface.
Whence this light out Of darkness There are
but three possible sources-the moon, the EARTH
the sun. The sefumnous history OF the moon
was long ago completed. Exposing her materials
tahl ,four ttr,ao
IN proportion TO her volume) as our own planet to
the action Of her atmosphere and the cooling in
nuences Of space, she ran the cycle of planetary
lie aons OF ages before the earth had entered
upon its organic history. Her hungry elements
gaping with their fourfold mouths, drank up her
meagre atmosphere and suDsiding into the
apathy Of sated oxides or the stupOr OF hopeless,
unsarisfed affinites, left her fourfold, rada:ing
surface naked to the chilling embraces OF the
'scoid inane." Prodigal that she was, she literally
burned her candle at both ends, and, IN the matter
OF atmosphere she laid up nothing Tor rainy day.
She floats in her orbit-the cinder OF burned up
world-whtte with the salt-tncrusted floors or
dried up oceans. No life, no sound, no motion,
save the crashless fall of warping precipices and
the undrtfting spownakes OF the ''cosmtc dust"
The ruddy eclipse light must, therefore, derive its
existence from some source other than the cold,
pale planet It sufuses, and we are left to select
between the earth and sun. The mild "earth
nght' which Alumines, and often renders dlmly
visible, the dark body OF the new moon is,
however, unavailable for explaining the Wis
ibiiity OF the moons disc in eclipse. The
bright side OF the earth is, In the latter
case, turned completely away from her. To her the
sun mas set, not behind the hills Of her own hori-
zon, but behind the huge planet which figures In
her armament, and which We call the earth.
Slowly he has sunk from her view behind the
ragged edge' OF the dark planet, leaving her, not
in darkness, but in the twilight rather partial
sunlight, OF his disc, still partly visible by refrac-
tion above (around) the planets edge. We
eartnites know that this refraction is capable OF
making the sun visible to as when his whole disc
Is really below our horizon. But our lungess
lunarian looking across the edge OF the earths
apparent Csc, enjoys the refractve use of this
atmosphere twice as compared with him who ts
Immersed In it
THE TOTAL VEIL.
The total eclipse Of the moon, which, with proper
atmospheric conditions, we are to witness on Sat-
urday night will begin at II :4s, ut which hour the
moon viii enter the penumbra. The effect OF the
penumbra will in all probability be nearly indis-
cernable, as the moons radiance after the pennm-
bral shadow has passed over It will be nearly as
brilliant as before. At 1850 P. NJ. however. the
moon will begin TO enter the shadow, thus