The annular eclipse of April 1, 1764, visible as such in North Kent, was the subject of the following quaint letter by the Rev. Dr. Stukeley:—
“To the Printer of Whitehall Evening Post,—
“In regard to the approaching solar eclipse of Sunday, April 1, I think it advisable to remark that, it happening in the time of divine service, it is desired you would insert this caution in your public paper. The eclipse begins soon after 9, the middle a little before 11, the end a little after 12. There will be no total darkness in the very middle, observable in this metropolis, but as people’s curiositys will not be over with the middle of the eclipse, if the church service be ordered to begin a little before 12, it will properly be morning prayer, and an uniformity preserved in our duty to the Supreme Being, the author of these amazing celestial movements,—
Yours,
Rector of St. Geo., Q.S.”[104]
The year 1766 furnishes the somewhat rare case of a total eclipse of the Sun observed on board ship on the high seas. The observers were officers of the French man-of-war the Comte d’Artois. Though the total obscuration lasted only 53 secs., there was seen a luminous ring about the Moon which had four remarkable expansions, situate at a distance of 90° from each other.[105] These expansions are doubtless those rays which we now speak of as “streamers” from the Corona.
Curiously enough the next important total eclipse deserving of notice was also observed at sea. This was the eclipse of June 24, 1778. The observer was the Spanish Admiral, Don Antonio Ulloa, who was passing from the Azores to Cape St. Vincent. The total obscuration lasted 4 minutes. The luminous ring presented a very beautiful appearance: out of it there issued forth rays of light which reached to the distance of a diameter of the Moon. Before it became very conspicuous stars of the 1st and 2nd magnitudes were distinctly visible, but when it attained its greatest brilliancy, only stars of the 1st magnitude could be perceived. “The darkness was such that persons who were asleep and happened to wake, thought that they had slept the whole evening and only waked when the night was pretty far advanced. The fowls, birds, and other animals on board took their usual position for sleeping, as if it had been night.”[106]
On Sept. 5, 1793, there happened an eclipse which, annular to the N. of Scotland, was seen and observed in England by Sir W. Herschel[107] as a partial eclipse. He made some important observations on the Moon on this occasion measuring the height of several of the lunar mountains. Considerations respecting the shape of one of the Moon’s horns led him to form an opinion adverse to the idea that there the Moon had an atmosphere.
Footnotes:
[79] Historiarum Sui Temporis, Lib. iv., cap. 9.