pse, and perished in
the snow"--a statement which Hind discredits. The central line passed
from near Stranraer, over Dalkeith, and therefore Edinburgh was within
the zone of totality. Totality came on at Edinburgh at 10h. 15m. and
lasted 1m. 30s. From the rapid motion of the Moon in declination, the
course of the central line was a quickly ascending one in latitude on
the Earth's surface, the totality passing off within the Arctic circle.

Kepler in his account of the new star in the constellation Ophiuchus[93]
refers to the total eclipse of the Sun of October 12, 1605, as having
been observed at Naples, and that the "Red Flames" were visible as a rim
of red light round the Sun's disc: at least this seems to be the
construction which may fairly be put upon the Latin of the original
description.

The partial eclipse of the Sun of May 30, 1612, is recorded to have been
seen "through a tube." No doubt this is an allusion to the
newly-invented instrument which we now call the telescope. Seemingly
this is the first eclipse of the Sun so observed, but it is on record
that an eclipse of the Moon had been previously observed through a
telescope. This was the lunar eclipse of July 6, 1610, though the
observer's name has not been handed down to us.

The eclipse of April 8, 1652, is another of those Scotch eclipses, as we
may call them, which left their mark on the people of that country.
Maclaurin[94] speaks of it in his time (he died in 1746) as one of the
two central eclipses which are "still famous among the populace in this
country" [Scotland], and "known amongst them by the appellation of Mirk
Monday." The central line passed over the S.E. of Ireland, near Wexford
and Wicklow, and reaching Scotland near Burrow Head in Wigtownshire, and
passing not far from Edinburgh, Montrose and Aberdeen, quitted Scotland
at Peterhead. Greenock and Elgin were near the northern limit of the
zone of totality, and the Cheviots and Berwick upon the southern limit.
The eclipse was observed at Carrickfergus by Dr. Wyberd.[95] Hind found
that its duration there was but 44s. This short duration, he suggested,
may partly explain the curious remark of Dr. Wyberd that when the Sun
was reduced to "a very slender crescent of light, the Moon all at once
threw herself within the margin of the solar disc with such agility that
she seemed to revolve like an upper millstone, affording a pleasant
spectacle of rotatory motion." Wyberd's further description c