1. A.D. 755, November 23. During the progress of this eclipse the moon occulted the star Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus.
2. A.D. 1493, April 2. This is the celebrated eclipse which is said to have so well served the purposes of Christopher Columbus. Certain natives having refused to supply him with provisions when in sore straits, he announced to them that the moon would be darkened as a sign of the anger of heaven. When the event duly came to pass, the savages were so terrified that they brought him provisions as much as he needed.
3. A.D. 1610, July 6. The eclipse in question is notable as having been seen through the telescope, then a recent invention. It was without doubt the first so observed, but unfortunately the name of the observer has not come down to us.
CHAPTER X
THE GROWTH OF OBSERVATION
The earliest astronomical observations must have been made in the Dawn of Historic Time by the men who tended their flocks upon the great plains. As they watched the clear night sky they no doubt soon noticed that, with the exception of the moon and those brilliant wandering objects known to us as the planets, the individual stars in the heaven remained apparently fixed with reference to each other. These seemingly changeless points of light came in time to be regarded as sign-posts to guide the wanderer across the trackless desert, or the voyager upon the wide sea.
Just as when looking into the red coals of a fire, or when watching the clouds, our imagination conjures up strange and grotesque forms, so did the men of old see in the grouping of the stars the outlines of weird and curious shapes. Fed with mythological lore, they imagined these to be rough representations of ancient heroes and fabled beasts, whom they supposed to have been elevated to the heavens as a reward for great deeds done upon the earth. We know these groupings of stars to-day under the name of the Constellations. Looking up at them we find it extremely difficult to fit in the majority with the figures which the ancients believed them to represent. Nevertheless, astronomy has accepted the arrangement, for want of a better method of fixing the leading stars in the memory.