Whilst there is so much to look for and look at and think about, one thing must be sought for instantly after totality, or it will be gone for ever, and that is the Moon’s shadow on the Earth. We have already seen in the last chapter the startling rapidity and solemnity with which the shadow seems to rush forward to the observer from the horizon on the western side of the Meridian. Passing over him, or even, so to speak, through him, it travels onwards in an easterly direction and very soon vanishes. Its visibility at all depends a good deal upon whether the observer, who is looking for it, is sufficiently raised above the adjacent country to be able to command at least a mile or two of ground. If he is in a hollow, he will have but little chance of seeing the shadow at all: on the other hand, if he is on the top of a considerable hill (or high up on the side of a hill), commanding the horizon for a distance of 10 or 20 miles, he will have a fair chance of seeing the shadow. Sir G. B. Airy states, in 1851, “My eye was caught by a duskiness in the S.E., and I immediately perceived that it was the Eclipse-shadow in the air, travelling away in the direction of the shadow’s path. For at least six seconds, this shadow remained in sight, far more conspicuous to the eye than I had anticipated. I was once caught in a very violent hail and thunder-storm on the Table-land of the County of Sutherland called the “Moin,” and I at length saw the storm travel away over the North Sea; and this view of the receding Eclipse-shadow, though by no means so dark, reminded me strongly of the receding storm. In ten or twelve seconds all appearance of the shadow had passed away.”
Perhaps this may be a convenient place to make a note of what seems to be a fact, partly established at any rate, even if not wholly established, namely—that there seems some connection between eclipses of the Sun and Earthquakes. A German physicist named Ginzel[18] has found a score of coincidences between solar eclipses and earthquakes in California in the years between 1850 and 1888 inclusive. Of course there were eclipses without earthquakes and earthquakes without eclipses, but twenty coincidences in thirty-eight years seems suggestive of something.
Footnotes:
[18] Himmel und Erde, vol. ii. pp. 255, 309; 1890.
CHAPTER VIII.
ECLIPSES OF THE SUN MENTIONED IN HISTORY—CHINESE.
This is the first of several chapters which will be devoted to historical eclipses. Of course the total eclipse of the Sun of August 9, 1896, observed in Norway and elsewhere, is, in a certain sense, an eclipse mentioned in history, but that is not what is intended by the title prefixed to these chapters. By the term “historical eclipses,” as used here, I mean eclipses which have been recorded by ancient historians and chroniclers who were not necessarily astronomers, and who wrote before the invention of the telescope. The date of this may be conveniently taken as a dividing line, so that I shall deal chiefly with eclipses which occurred before, say, the year 1600. There is another reason why some such date as this is a suitable one from which to take a new departure. Without at all avowing that superstition ceased on the Earth in the year 1600 (for there is far too large a residuum still available now, 300 years later), it may yet be said that the Revival of Letters did do a good deal to divest celestial phenomena of those alarming and panic-causing attributes which undoubtedly attached to them during the earlier ages of the world and during the “Dark Ages” in Western Europe quite as much as during any other period of the world’s history. No one can examine the writings of the ancient Greek and Roman historians, and the chronicles kept in the monasteries of Western Europe by their monkish occupiers, without being struck by the influence of terror which such events as eclipses of the Sun and Moon and such celestial visitors as Comets and Shooting Stars exercised far and wide. And this influence overspread, not only the unlettered lower orders, but many of those in far higher stations of life who, one might have hoped, would have been exempt from such feelings of mental distress as they often exhibited. Illustrations of this fact will be adduced in due course.
It has always been supposed that the earliest recorded eclipse of the Sun is one thus mentioned in an ancient Chinese classic—the Chou-King (sometimes spelt Shou-Ching). The actual words used may be translated:—“On the first day of the last month of Autumn the Sun and Moon did not meet harmoniously in Fang.” To say the least of it, this is a moderately ambiguous announcement, and Chinese scholars, both astronomers and non-astronomers, have spent a good deal of time in examining the various eclipses which might be thought to be represented by the inharmonious meeting of the Sun and the Moon as above recorded. To cut a long story short, it is generally agreed that we are here considering one or other of two eclipses of the Sun which occurred in the years 2136 or 2128 B.C. respectively, the Sun being then in the sidereal division “Fang,” a locality determined by the stars β, δ, π, and ρ Scorpii, and which includes a few small stars in Libra and Ophiuchus to the N. and in Lupus to the S. How this simple and neat conclusion, which I have stated with such apparent dogmatism, was arrived at is quite another question, and it would hardly be consistent with the purpose of this volume to attempt to work it out in detail, but a few points presented in a summary form may be interesting.
In the first place, be it understood, that though it is fashionable to cast ridicule on John Chinaman, especially by way of retaliation for his calling us “Barbarians,” yet it is a sure and certain fact that not only have the Chinese during many centuries been very attentive students of Astronomy, but that we Westerns owe a good deal of our present knowledge in certain departments to the information stored up by Chinese observers during many centuries both before and after the Christian Era.
This, however, is a digression. The circumstances of this eclipse as regards its identification having been carefully examined by Mr. R. W. Rothman,[19] in 1839 were further reviewed by Professor S. M. Russell in a paper published in the proceedings of the Pekin Oriental Society.[20] The substance of the case is that in the reign of Chung-K’ang, the fourth Emperor of the Hsia Dynasty, there occurred an eclipse of the Sun, which is interesting not only for its antiquity, but also for the dread fate of the two Astronomers Royal of the period, who were taken by surprise at its occurrence, and were unprepared to perform the customary rites. These rites were the shooting of arrows and the beating of drums, gongs, etc., with the object of delivering the Sun from the monster which threatened to devour it. The two astronomers by virtue of their office should have superintended these rites. They were, however, drunk and incapable of performing their duties, so that great turmoil ensued, and it was considered that the land was exposed to the anger of the gods. By way of appeasing the gods, and of suitably punishing the two State officials for their neglect and personal misconduct, they were forthwith put to death, a punishment which may be said to have been somewhat excessive, in view of the fact that the eclipse was not a total but only a partial one. An anonymous verse runs:—