The herald., 1897-07-30
A PARTIAL ECLIPSE
OF THE SUN BY THE MOON
YESTERDAY
B. r. Baumgardt Describes the Phe-
nomenon and Explains Plan
etary Conditions

The man in the moon was Inaccessible
to callers yesterday after having manlp-
ulated his little planet so successfully
as to cast his solar rival in the shade.
He was disposed to be proud and naughty
and communicative, so Herald scribe
was forced to take the testimony of an
eyewitness; and Mr.. B. r. Baumgardt,
who knows as much as his lunar high
ness about such matters any way, kindly
gave the following account of the phe-
nomena:
I'm spite of the fog which interfered
partially with the view of the eclipse
from this locality, the latter was de-
cided success Promptly a the time pre-
dicted 1928 a. m, the first contact took
place, and for two hours, or until 7:25,
the eclipse of the sun by the moon lasted.
From a scientific point of view the
phenomenon offers nothing of especial
value on account of the fact that the
eclipse, from this point of view at least
was only partial. This applies to all the
territory in North America south of lati-
tude Sc degrees and to an equivalent
portion of South America. The eclipse
acter in a path twenty-five miles in
width, commencing in the middle of the
South Atlantic ocean and passing due
northwest, grazing Cape de Rogue, the
extreme eastern portion of South Amer
lea, through the West Indias and the
northern coast of Cuba, and across Mex
leo to longitude 125 degrees east of Green
witch in the Pacific ocean.
Seen from any locality along this
path the phenomenon would have pre-
scented itself in far more interesting
manner than it did from this especial
point. Instead of the sun appearing
gibbouS or convex, as 1t did this morn
ing to those who were up early enough
to observe it, it would have appeared as
bright ring of narrow diameter, ex-
actly fitting around the dark disk of the
moon.
ITO those who are not familiar with
the theory of eclipses it may be well to
state that an eclipse of the sun always
takes place exactly when the moon is
passing from old to new, in front of the
sun, thereby cutting off its light. On the
contrary the eclipse of the moon can
never take place except when the moon
is full and exactly opposite the sun
point of the earth.
"On account of the fact that the earth
and the moon both move in an ellipse
and not a circle it follows that the dis
lance separating the moon and the earth
varies somewhat. The sun Is $50, 900
miles in diameter, while the moon has
diameter of but 216O miles, but this
great discrepancy in actual size is ex-
actly compensated for by the fact that
one primary, the sun is 400 times further
away from us than our satellite, the
moon, which gives them about the same
apparent diameter.
Bearing all these facts distinctly in
mind. first of the movements in ellipse,
and the greater actual size of the sun
being counteracted by its greater dis
lance from us, it is not difficult to see
that when total eclipses take place,
when the relative, distances separating
the earth and moon is a maximum,
we shall have an annular eclipse such
as we had this morning. On the other
hand when the moon is closer to u.s. so
the apparent diameter of its disc is in
creased, to exactly or perhaps more
than would suffice to duly cover and
eclipse the whole disc of the sun, then
we have what is known as the. most in
teresting and wonderful sight-one which
astronomers travel thousands of miles
to see, even if it is to be of but two or
three minutes duration-the total eclipse
of the sun
1T is then, and then only, that the
suns mysterious atmosphere, known as
the corona, becomes visible to man.