as mere lines of text
are concerned, but it will not on that account be unimportant. It will
be evident to the reader that many more eclipses of interest have
happened, and will happen, than it has been possible to speak of in
these pages. Accordingly, as it is one of the main objects of this
series of volumes to create a thirst for knowledge, to be satisfied by
the study of other and bigger volumes, it will be desirable to furnish a
list of some of the various books and publications, in which eclipses
will be found catalogued or described in detail, so that readers
desirous of pursuing the matter further, may possess facilities for
doing so.

By far the most complete and comprehensive catalogue of solar eclipses
is that prepared some years ago by an Austrian astronomer, the late
Theodore Von Oppolzer of Vienna, and published under the title of _Canon
der Finsternisse_, in the Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of
Sciences.[144] This work supplies approximate calculations of about 8000
eclipses of the Sun, for a period of more than 3000 years, from November
10, 1207 B.C. (Julian Calendar), to November 17, 2161 A.D. (Gregorian
Calendar). There are appended 160 charts, of all the principal
eclipses; but as the charts only exhibit the beginnings, middles, and
ends of the eclipses dealt with, they are frequently misleading, because
the intermediate lines of path are, in many cases, more or less
considerably curved.

Another very important and comprehensive catalogue of eclipses, solar
and lunar together, will be found in the well-known French work, _L'Art
de verifier les Dates_,[145] compiled by a member of the religious order
of St. Maur. One volume of this famous work contains eclipses from the
year 1001 B.C. to the Christian Era, whilst another volume gives a
similar catalogue from the year 1 A.D. to 2000 A.D. The other volumes
deal with chronological matters only. Although not strictly a work of
extreme astronomical exactness, yet _L'Art de verifier les Dates_ stands
unrivalled as a record not only to subserve the purpose indicated by its
title, but of the bare facts of the eclipses which have happened during
the period of 3000 years stated above.

There has not been much done in England in the way of publishing eclipse
records or tables, past or future, but in the _British Almanac and
Companion_ for 1832 there is given a catalogue, which was useful in its
day, of eclipses, then future from 1832 to 1900, omitting, howev