The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1888-07-27
The MOONS Eclipse.

The total eclipse of the moon last Sunday
night took place under most favorable aus
pices for terrestrial observers. Throughout
the eclipse, lasting altogether five and one
half hours, the sky was perfectly clear.
The great interest to astronomers in the
event was whether the moon would become
az any time totally invisible, as Is some
times the case. Last Sunday night, as
stated, the moon was visible at all times.
There are only three kinds of eclipses-
those of the sun, Of planetary satellites and
Of the moon. There was an important
eclipse Of the sun last August, and the star
sharps cleared their glasses for action in
many strange hamlet and remote town of
Northern Asia and Europe. There was a
total eclipse Of the moon as recently as last
January, on the 2Sth, but it was deficient
in general interest as compared with the
event of last Sunday night. The latter is
said to have been a repetition OF the eclipse
of July 10, 1870. And yet the eclipse of
January last is said by scientists to have
been Zone of the most beautiful eolipses on
record and especially noteworthy for the
red, COPPER color that revealed the presence
of the eclipsed moon in the sky. when en-
tirely immersed in the earth's dark sha-
dow"
In most of the eclipses called total the
moon, dlmmed and pale though she be. is
still visible to citize ms of the world, her hue
varying from copper to deep, sombre
gray" The light Of her lover, the sun, can
not be entirely intercepted even by the
envious earth, for some Of the suns rays,
which would otherwise shoot Oh into
space and be lost in immensity or swallow
ed up in the light Of other suns, are caught
in the earth's atmosphere and refracted or
strike and illumine the moon. II the earth
had no atmosphere at all, the totally eclips
ed moon would be absolutely invisible from
the earth. There is theory that if those
parts of the terrestrial atmosphere which
border the earth's illuminated half, that
side of her turned towards the sun, were
cloud-laden, then the moon would be shut
off absolutely and be invisible.
And there is another still and far more
interesting theory which accounts for the
occasional complete disappearance OF the
moon when she Is the heart of the earth's
shadow. 1t is the theory that the dust OF
the Krakatos cataclysm is still flying in
space and over the earth in such dense
clouds as to prevent any possible refraction
of the suns rays.
During the two eclipses of the moon in
1884, observed only in the Eastern Hemi-
sphere, the moon entirely disappeared from
view, and it was expected that this would
be the case Sunday night On the contrary,
1t was as plainly visible as during the
eclipse in January.
II the KrakatOa theory were true In 1884
II would seem that by this time the dust
has disappeared. 1t will be remembered
that in 1888 the Island of Krakatoa, in the
Indian Ocean, with its 100, 900 inhabitants,
disappeared in mighty cataclysm, which
appeared to upheave all that portion of the
world. The island absolutely disappeared,
and the numerous volcanoes that appeared
belched forth volumes Of smoke, lava and
ashes, which was dissipated through space,
and was supposed by some astronomers to
have made the moon invisible during the
two succeeding eclipses.-EE.