187

" 14. CONDITIONS OF ECLIPSES OF THE MOON 189

" 15. OCCULTATION OF JUPITER, AUG. 7, 1889
(IMMERSION) 237

" 16. OCCULTATION OF JUPITER, AUG. 7, 1889
(IMMERSION) 237

" 17. OCCULTATION OF JUPITER, AUG. 7, 1889 (EMERSION) 238

" 18. OCCULTATION OF JUPITER, AUG. 7, 1889 (EMERSION) 238

" 19. PATH OF THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN OF
MAY 28, 1900 _at end of book._

THE STORY OF ECLIPSES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

It may, I fear, be taken as a truism that "the man in the street"
(collectively, the "general public") knows little and cares less for
what is called physical science. Now and again when something remarkable
happens, such as a great thunderstorm, or an earthquake, or a volcanic
eruption, or a brilliant comet, or a total eclipse, something in fact
which has become the talk of the town, our friend will condescend to
give the matter the barest amount of attention, whilst he is filling his
pipe or mixing a whisky and soda; but there is not in England that
general attention given to the displays of nature and the philosophy of
those displays, which certainly is a characteristic of the phlegmatic
German. However, things are better than they used to be, and the
forthcoming total eclipse of the Sun of May 28, 1900 (visible as it will
be as a partial eclipse all over Great Britain and Ireland, and as a
total eclipse in countries so near to Great Britain as Spain and
Portugal, to say nothing of the United States), will probably not only
attract a good deal of attention on the part of many millions of
English-speaking people, but may also be expected to induce a
numerically respectable remnant to give their minds and thoughts, with a
certain amount of patient attention, to the Science and Philosophy of
Eclipses.

There are other causes likely to co-operate in bringing this about. It
is true that men's minds are more enlightened at the end of the 19th
century than they were at the end of the 16th century, and that a trip
to Spain will awaken vastly different thoughts in the year 1900 to those
which would have been awakened, say in the year 1587; but for all that,
a certain amount of superstition still lingers in the world, and t