Egypt."
"Well, Mr Black," resumed Mrs Barnett, "if you lose the eclipse of the 18th July 1860, you can console yourself by looking forward to that of the 31st December 1861. It will only be seventeen months !"
"I can console myself, madam," said the astronomer gravely, "by looking forward to that of 1896. I shall have to wait not seventeen months but thirty-six years !"
"May I ask why?"
"Because of all the eclipses, it alone-that of 9th August 1896-will be total for places in high latitudes, such as Lapland, Siberia, or Greenland."
"But what is the special interest of an observation taken in these elevated latitudes?"
"What special interest?" cried Thomas Black; why, a scientific interest of the highest importance. Eclipses have very rarely been watched near the Pole, where the sun, being very little above the horizon, is considerably increased in size. The disc of the moon which is to intervene between us and the sun is subject to a similar apparent extension, and therefore it may be that the red prominences and the luminous corona can be more thoroughly examined This, madam, is why I have travelled all this distance to watch the eclipse above the seventieth parallel. A similar opportunity will not occur until 1896, and who can tell if I shall be alive then?"
To this burst of enthusiasm there was no reply to be made; and the astronomer's anxiety and depression increased, for the inconstant weather seemed more and more disposed to play him some ill-natured trick.
It was very fine on the 16th July, but the next day it was cloudy and misty and Thomas Black became really ill. The feverish state he had been in for so long seemed likely to result in a serious illness. Mrs Barnett and Hobson tried in vain to soothe him, and Sergeant Long and the others could not understand how it was possible to be so unhappy for love of the moon."
At last the great day-the 18th July-dawned. According to the calculations of astronomers, the total eclipse was to last four minutes thirty-seven seconds-that is to say, from forty-three minutes fifteen seconds past eleven to forty-seven minutes fifty-seven seconds past eleven A.M.