The Portland daily press., 1878-07-30
The Eclipse,


portance and fascinating interest will SO fully
accord with the predictions of those who
know" as the performance of the sun yester-
day afternoon. 1t has come to be fashiona-
| BILE nowadays to delay all representations till
| people fancy that it is safe to delay few min
utes, and rest assured that mortal care will not
permit an advertised event ION time.'' Those
| who last evening trusted to human weakness
| or forgot that the first instant of contact was
to occur atexactly five o'clock, failed to no note
| the very clear impression the lunar shadow
made on the b:oad disc of father Sol at that
time. Ii one will imagine the face of the sun
divided and marked as watch dial with xii at
the uppermost edge, the point of first contact
would have appeared at very nearly " and
thence the shadow would have travelled to the
left and upward across the face of the sun and
emerging, the last contact would have been
very nearly on the point of the dial represented
by tx. 1t will be seen that this was by no
means total eclipse, rather less than half the
face OF the sun at any one time-appearing in
observation. Such was the programme, and it
was faithfully carried out-behnd the Clouds
The moment of the first contact was distinctly
visible and then slowly and remorselessly the
lunar shadow ate away the bright circle OF the
suns circumference. At six o'clock the mo-
ment of greatest darkness had baen reached,
when the clouds, which had threatened to
hide the whole western heaven closed in
completely obscuting the visw during the lat
ter moments of the eclipse. The part of to-
tally or that portion of the earth where the
sun was entirely hidden was as follows: Com
meucing in Asia lat. 500 North long 1860
West (WashDg ioa) it covered strip ZIG miles
wide, moving easterly across Behring's Straits,
Alaska and British America entering the
United States just at the northwest extremity
of Montana. Thence it passed through Mot
tans, Wyoming, Colorado, (totality at Denver,
1921 p. n.y. Indian Territory and North and
Eastern Texas, leaving the United States near
the boundary line between Louisiana and
Texas Lastly, sweeping over the Gulf of
Mexico and the western extremity Of Cuba, it
ended in the Caribbean Sea eff the southwest
coast of San Domingo about sunset.
Never before have preparations so elaborate
been made to observe an eclipse. The work of
making photographs of the eclipse and of the
corona, of subjecting the light of the corona to
the polarlscope, of noting the times of contact,
of searching for ra-mercurial planets, of
TAXING SpectrOScopl; anu tnermO-electrlC 0DSef-
vations, of sketching the corona, of marking
changes eff temperature, of noting the general
effect of the shadow on the atmosphere, on the
earth, on animals, and on plants, sc, was
charge of men who have special skill in the
respective tasks If the weather was at all
favorable in the path mapped above, there is
no doubt that data were obtained of the utmost
importance to the scientists and secondarily to
all the following questions will receive special
attention. Leverrier's researches regarding
klnx 1nfM l.nrN s.,ls Al.
treme probability of the existence of mass or
of masses of matter revolving round the SIM
within the orbit of that planet. Careful pho
tographs were therefore to be taken of the
space within that orbit That Mercury is sub
ject to some disturbing cause, the nature of
which is yet unknown, has received further
confirmation in working up the observations of
| the late transit, Mr. Blaxendell of Manchester
holds that certain periodic meteorological
phenomena can be explained by the hypothesis
OF ring or zone or spheroid of matter near
| the sup.
Mr.. Proctor believes that it would satisfy
both theories-and he supports his position
with most ingenious argument-if the neigh
| borhood of the sun be supposed to be peopled
with an immense number of minute c0smical
bodies These bodies constitute, he says the
corona of which so little is really known. A
| second aim of research, then, during the
| eclipse was to obtain facts which will make
| clear the character and constitution of the CO.
the inquiry, ''Does the corona reflect solar light
| to us or does it not and if it does, where are
the PARTICLES which thus act as reflsctors?'
Lastly, the eclipse ought to afford means of
correcting the lunar and tidal tables, matter
of much importance to the maritime interests
Of the people. 1t is hard to say what
the harvest will be. Some of the most
| fertile facts in solar physics had been
stumbled upon as if by accident, and had been
| reluctantly and tardily admitted into consider
QfiOn kV aatr0nOnara thnmSalvpS a. raqu1ta of
| trustworthy observation. Where SO much is
| unknown no one can positively say what shall
be revealed or from what particular source the
key shall come to solve grand mysteries, such
| as the manner In which the energy of the sun
| is maintained, &C. Even those persons who
care little for truth for its own sake may learn
from Mondays labor of the scientists some
| thing more of the practical influence of the
| condition of the sun upon human life and COM
fort than they do now; something as directly
| bearing upon both as the absence of the solar
spots affected the supply of the general pur-
choosing POWER of the perpatetic astronomer.