cience enough to make him connect the solar eclipses with the change
of the Moon, but not enough to give him any idea of the limitations to
the visibility of an eclipse.

On a subsequent occasion Mr. Williams laid before the Society a further
list of solar eclipses observed in China, and extending from 481 B.C. to
the Christian Era. He collected these from a Chinese historical work,
entitled _Tung-Keen-Kang-Muh_. This work, which runs to 101 volumes,
contains a summary of Chinese history from the earliest times to the end
of the Yuen Dynasty, A.D. 1368, and was first published about 1473. The
copy in Mr. Williams's possession was published in 1808. The text is
very briefly worded, and consists merely of an account of the accessions
and deaths of the emperors and of the rulers of the minor states, with
some of the more remarkable occurrences in each reign. The appointments
and deaths of various eminent personages are also noticed, together with
special calamities such as earthquakes, inundations, storms, etc. The
astronomical allusions include eclipses and comets. Amongst the eclipses
are also all, or most of those which are recorded in the _Chun-Tsew_ as
having occurred prior to 479 B.C. Though no particular expressions are
used to define the exact character of the eclipses, it is to be presumed
that some of them must have been total, because it is stated that the
stars were visible, albeit that seemingly in only one instance is a word
attached which specifically expresses the idea of totality. Here again
all the dates were expressed in Chinese style, but, as published by
Williams, were rendered, as before, in European style by aid of
chronological tables, published about 1860 in Japan. Mr. Williams, in
his second paper, from which I have been quoting, states that he brought
his published account down to the Christian Era only as a matter of
convenience, but that he had in hand a further selection of eclipses
from the _Tung-Keen-Kang-Muh_, the interval from the Christian Era to
the 4th century A.D. yielding nearly 100 additional eclipses. This
further transcript has not yet been published, but remains in MS. in the
Library of the Royal Astronomical Society. Mr. Williams died in 1874 at
the age of 77, one of the most experienced Chinese scholars of the
century.

It is remarkable that none of the Chinese annals to which reference has
been made include any mention of eclipses of the Moon; but the records
of Comets are exc