The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-05-29
SEEN FROM MORDECATs FIELD.
The Eclipse as it Appeared to a Citizen Ct
North Raleigh

4 citizen who viewed the eclipse
from Mordecai's field, in the rear Of
Peace Institute. writes of it rs fol-
lows:
No more favorable morning for
viewing a total eclipse of the sun. |
am sure, ever daWned. \ few tieecy
clouds trailed across the skies. but
none appeared near the great luml-
nary. whose beams smote the earth
through an atmosphere as lucid as
crystal.
At thirty-nine minutes after seven
o'clock little black notch of shadow
appeared on the upper rim of the great
blazing circle, and gradually advanc-
ing. took Il more rounded form
The shadow seen through a smoked
glass at this period of the eclipse was
of an intense black. while the sun it
self viewed through the same med
ium looked like Il moon rising at
dusk through an atmosphere charged
with vapors, being of a smoky orange
color.
At SIS o'clock. one glance at the
sun with the naked eye which thus
still struck the orbs with almost in
tolerable brilliancN. showed the vast
disc half covered with the moons
shadow. much Of whose darkness.
however. was lost i'm the ocean OF
splendor, whose spray shot out on
all sides from the sun.
At 500 o'clock the disc was half
covered, and the sun through the
smoked glass appeared like a hall
moon. At the same time the pecu-
lar haze which had gradually over
spread the earth as the beams of the
sun were more and more withdrawn,
began to invest objects with an APP
pearance which in some vague way
recalled to mind Tennyson descFip-
ton of the Lotus Eaters land. where
it is always afternoon. 1t was not
like the approach of twilight: not like
the gathering of clouds; it was like
nothing fact to which one might
compare il. unless ii was those sad,
lonely days i'm Indian summer when
thin haze pathes the far off hills and
the harsh reedy notes OF the grass
hopper pierce the ear through the
lonely silence that reigns.
The air at s:25 had grown sensibly
cooler; the light that falls upon, the
paper on which / am writing is less
light than the ghost of light. It
seems dead. The sky is growing livid.
The sun appears like Il new moon. and
on the edge Of the moons advancing
shadow can be seen the serrated forms
OF the mountains that on that planet
astronomers tell us rise to stupendous
attitudes. Meanwhile the obscurity
has grown deeper.
At S:45 n strange twilight has fallen
blush. ghostly. weird. y circle of
rays still surrounds the sun. but pale
darkness is rushing down. Faster.
faster. The sun is Il mere thin ring.
At the left is a tiny golden ball-the
last of the vanishing sun. blazing
with intolerable splendor. At the
right and close to the sun brilliant
star bursts on the view. On the
earth there is Il weird play of light
and shadow as luminous lines. all
aquiver seen flying from the devour-
ing gloom.
Another moment and the ball Of fire
ON the right of that slender golden
ring shrinks, becomes but Il point is
swallowed up by the moons rushing
umbra. and amid the pallid night
that reigns. naught Of the sun is
seen except the corona which like
a lustrous cloud. so soft is it in its
yellow glory. that black sphere hang
ing Il figure of awful and stupendous
majesty in the eastern sky.
simultaneously another star,
point of milky fire breaks on the
view, shining like an opal in the north
east through the blush dusk that
shrouds the earth while the period Of
totality endures.