A total eclipse of the sun is one of the most sublime and impressive phenomena of Nature. Among barbarous tribes it is ever contemplated with fear and astonishment, and as strongly indicative of the displeasure of the gods. Two ancient nations, the Lydians and Medes, alluded to before, who were engaged in a bloody war, about six hundred years before Christ, were smitten with such awe, on the appearance of a total eclipse of the sun, just on the eve of a battle, that they threw down their arms, and made peace. When Columbus first discovered America, and was in danger of hostility from the Natives, he awed them into submission by telling them that the sun would be darkened on a certain day, in token of the anger of the gods at them, for their treatment of him.
Among cultivated nations, a total eclipse of the sun is recognised, from the exactness with which the time of occurrence and the various appearances answer to the prediction, as affording one of the proudest triumphs of astronomy. By astronomers themselves, it is of course viewed with the highest interest, not only as verifying their calculations, but as contributing to establish, beyond all doubt, the certainty of those grand laws, the truth of which is involved in the result. I had the good fortune to witness the total eclipse of the sun of June, 1806, which was one of the most remarkable on record. To the wondering gaze of childhood it presented a spectacle that can never be forgotten. A bright and beautiful morning inspired universal joy, for the sky was entirely cloudless. Every one was busily occupied in preparing smoked glass, in readiness for the great sight, which was to be first seen about ten o'clock. A thrill of mingled wonder and delight struck every mind when, at the appointed moment, a little black indentation appeared on the limb of the sun. This gradually expanded, covering more and more of the solar disk, until an increasing gloom was spread over the face of Nature; and when the sun was wholly lost, near mid-day, a feeling of horror pervaded almost every beholder. The darkness was wholly unlike that of twilight or night. A thick curtain, very different from clouds, hung upon the face of the sky, producing a strange and indescribably gloomy appearance, which was reflected from all things on the earth, in hues equally strange and unnatural. Some of the planets, and the largest of the fixed stars, shone out through the gloom, yet with their usual brightness. The temperature of the air rapidly declined, and so sudden a chill came over the earth, that many persons caught severe colds from their exposure. Even the animal tribes exhibited tokens of fear and agitation. Birds, especially, fluttered and flew swiftly about, and domestic fowls went to rest.
Indeed, the word eclipse is derived from a Greek word, (εκλειψιϛ, ekleipsis,) which signifies to fail, to faint or swoon away; since the moon, at the period of her greatest brightness, falling into the shadow of the earth, was imagined by the ancients to sicken and swoon, as if she were going to die. By some very ancient nations she was supposed, at such times, to be in pain; and, in order to relieve her fancied distress, they lifted torches high in the atmosphere, blew horns and trumpets, beat upon brazen vessels, and even, after the eclipse was over, they offered sacrifices to the moon. The opinion also extensively prevailed, that it was in the power of witches, by their spells and charms, not only to darken the moon, but to bring her down from her orbit, and to compel her to shed her baleful influences upon the earth. In solar eclipses, also, especially when total, the sun was supposed to turn away his face in abhorrence of some atrocious crime, that either had been perpetrated or was about to be perpetrated, and to threaten mankind with everlasting night, and the destruction of the world. To such superstitions Milton alludes, in the passage which I have taken for the motto of this Letter.
The Chinese, who, from a very high period of antiquity, have been great observers of eclipses, although they did not take much notice of those of the moon, regarded eclipses of the sun in general as unfortunate, but especially such as occurred on the first day of the year. These were thought to forebode the greatest calamities to the emperor, who on such occasions did not receive the usual compliments of the season. When, from the predictions of their astronomers, an eclipse of the sun was expected, they made great preparation at court for observing it; and as soon as it commenced, a blind man beat a drum, a great concourse assembled, and the mandarins, or nobility, appeared in state.
LETTER XIX.
LONGITUDE.—TIDES.
"First in his east, the glorious lamp was seen, Regent of day, and all the horizon round Invested with bright rays, jocund to run His longitude through heaven's high road; the gray and the Pleiades before him danced, Shedding sweet influence."—Milton.
The ancients studied astronomy chiefly as subsidiary to astrology, with the vain hope of thus penetrating the veil of futurity, and reading their destinies among the stars. The moderns, on the other hand, have in view, as the great practical object of this study, the perfecting of the art of navigation. When we reflect on the vast interests embarked on the ocean, both of property and life, and upon the immense benefits that accrue to society from a safe and speedy intercourse between the different nations of the earth, we cannot but see that whatever tends to enable the mariner to find his way on the pathless ocean, and to secure him against its multiplied dangers, must confer a signal benefit on society.
In ancient times, to venture out of sight of land was deemed an act of extreme audacity; and Horace, the Roman poet, pronounces him who first ventured to trust his frail bark to the stormy ocean, endued with a heart of oak, and girt with triple folds of brass. But now, the navigator who fully avails himself of all the resources of science, and especially of astronomy, may launch fearlessly on the deep, and almost bid defiance to rocks and tempests. By enabling the navigator to find his place on the ocean with almost absolute precision, however he may have been driven about by the winds, and however long he may have been out of sight of land, astronomers must be held as great benefactors to all who commit either their lives or their fortunes to the sea. Nor have they secured to the art of navigation such benefits without incredible study and toil, in watching the motions of the heavenly bodies, in investigating the laws by which their movements are governed, and in reducing all their discoveries to a form easily available to the navigator, so that, by some simple observation on one or two of the heavenly bodies, with instruments which the astronomer has invented, and prepared for his use, and by looking out a few numbers in tables which have been compiled for him, with immense labor, he may ascertain the exact place he occupies on the surface of the globe, thousands of miles from land.