[83] As shown in the [Table at page 51].
[84] It does not appear that the text here warrants the conclusion which Whalley has drawn from it, viz. “that wherever eclipses are not visible, they have no influence, and therefore subterranean eclipses cannot have any.” Ptolemy declares, that all countries in familiarity with the ecliptical place will be comprehended in the event; and, with regard to the visibility or invisibility of the eclipse, he says merely that its effects will be principally felt in such of the said countries as might have obtained a view of the eclipse.
[85] Temporal or solar hours are duodecimal parts of the Sun’s diurnal or nocturnal arc, and are numbered by day from sunrise to sunset; by night, from sunset to sunrise.
[86] Equatorial hours are the twenty-four hours of the earth’s revolution on its axis. Each of them is equal in duration to the passage of 15 degrees of the Equator; and they are numbered from noon to noon. A particular explanation of the astronomical use, both of temporal and equatorial hours, is to be found in the 9th Chapter of the second Book of the Almagest; an extract from which is given in the [Appendix].
[87] The three periods of four months each, stated in this paragraph, are applicable to solar eclipses only; for lunar eclipses, these periods may be reckoned at ten days each; that number of days bearing the same proportion to a month, as four months to a year. On this point, Whalley, with his usual inaccuracy, has asserted, that “in eclipses of the Moon, two days, or thereabouts, are equal to the four months” here reckoned in eclipses of the Sun. He adds, however, what perhaps may be true, that “lunar eclipses are by no means so powerful as those of the Sun, although more so than any other lunation.”
[88] That is to say, from any combinations of the Sun and Moon which may take place after the date of the eclipse, but before the close of its effect.
[89] The edition of Allatius does not contain the words here marked by inverted commas; but they are found in other editions of the text, and seem necessary to complete the sense of the passage.
[90] “When planets, in election for Lords of the eclipse, are found of equal strength and dignity, those which are direct are to be preferred before those which are retrograde; and the oriental before the occidental.”—Whalley’s “Annotations.”
[91] That is to say, in the Almagest, Book VIII, Chap. IV; which chapter is given, entire, in the [Appendix].
[92] “In electing fixed stars, Cardan directs to observe the angle which the eclipse follows, and that which it precedes: as, if the eclipse be between the seventh house” (or occidental angle) “and the mid-heaven, the stars which are in the seventh shall be preferred; and next, those in the mid-heaven; but, if between the mid-heaven and the ascendant, those in the mid-heaven shall have the preference; and next, those in the ascendant.”—Whalley’s “Annotations.”