BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,
Western University of Pennsylvania.
ECLIPSES.
In the early ages of the world eclipses were regarded as alarming deviations from the established laws of nature, presaging great calamities, as famines, pestilences and earthquakes; and among heathen and superstitious peoples, as evidence of the displeasure of the Deity, or deities. Herodotus tells of an eclipse of the sun occurring in 585 B. C., which put an end to a battle between the Medes and Lydians, who were so terrified by the day turning suddenly into night, that the contending armies ceased fighting and concluded a peace which was cemented by a twofold marriage. Another total eclipse of the sun occurred on March 1, 557 B. C., which so terrified the defenders of the Median city Larissa, that they withdrew from its walls, thus permitting it to fall into the hands of its besiegers, the Persians.
Among the Hindoos, it is imagined that the moon, as it covers from sight the face of the sun, is a huge dragon which devours our luminary, and can only be compelled to disgorge and then driven away “by the beating of gongs and rending the air with discordant screams of terror and shouts of vengeance.”
An eclipse of the moon, March 1, 1504, was employed by Columbus to obtain provisions for himself and his starving companions. Having been wrecked on the coast of Jamaica, the natives refused him supplies. Knowing that an eclipse of the moon was about to take place, he informed them that the Great Spirit was displeased with them on account of their ill-treatment of the Spaniards, and would manifest his displeasure by shutting out the light of the moon. When the eclipse occurred, the Indians, terrified by the sight, hastened to him with abundant supplies, beseeching him to intercede with the Great Spirit in their behalf.
At the present day we look upon these wonderful events as the results of natural causes, whose operations have long since been explained. We have learned that an eclipse of the sun is merely the moon coming between the earth and the sun, thus shutting off from the former all or a portion of the light of the latter; that this event may occur as often as five times, and never less than twice in one year; that it can only occur at time of new moon; that it occurs only in limited portions of the earth at any one time, and hence, that although happening so often, for any given place it is a comparatively rare event—especially the last two of the three kinds, partial, annular, and total; and that the portion of the earth affected by a total eclipse does not exceed 170 miles in diameter; or, in other words, the width of the moon’s shadow, when it falls perpendicularly on the earth’s surface, is not more than 170 miles. We have learned, also, that an eclipse of the moon is occasioned by the earth coming between the moon and the sun; that this event can not occur more than twice in any one year, and may not occur even once; that it happens always at full moon; that it can be seen in all parts of the earth where the moon is above the horizon at the time of the occurrence; and for this reason, although it only happens in the ratio of 29 to 41 as compared with eclipses of the sun, yet there are more lunar than solar eclipses visible in any given place.
During the present month we shall have two eclipses, one of the sun and one of the moon.