The Story of Eclipses

In this chapter we shall, for the most part, be on firmer ground than hitherto, because several of the most eminent Greek and Latin historians have left on record full and circu...

An interesting question has been suggested: Are there any allusions to eclipses to be found in Holy Scripture? It seems safe to assert that there is at least one, and that there...

We saw in a previous chapter that we owe to the Chinese the first record of an eclipse of the Sun. It must now be stated that the same remark applies to the first recorded eclip...

No book professing to deal with eclipses would be complete without a few words of mention of "transits" and "occultations." A transit is the passing of a primary planet across t...

The Christian Era is, for several reasons, a suitable point of time from which to take a new departure in speaking of historical eclipses, although the First Century, at least,...

One of the most celebrated eclipses of mediaeval times was that of August 2, 1133, visible as a total eclipse in Scotland. It was considered a presage of misfortune to Henry I....

Observations of total solar eclipses during the 19th century have been, for the most part, carried on under circumstances so essentially different from everything that has gone...

To bring about an eclipse of the Sun, two things must combine: (1) the Moon must be at or near one of its Nodes; and (2), this must be at a time when the Moon is also in "Conjun...

The information to be given in this and the next following chapters will almost exclusively concern total and annular eclipses of the Sun, for, in real truth, there is practical...

The central feature of every total eclipse of the Sun is undoubtedly the Corona[16] and the phenomena connected with it; but immediately before the extinction of the Sun's light...

This is the first of several chapters which will be devoted to historical eclipses. Of course the total eclipse of the Sun of August 9, 1896, observed in Norway and elsewhere, i...

In dealing with eclipses generally, but with more especial reference to eclipses of the Sun, in a previous chapter, it was unavoidable to mix up in some degree eclipses of the M...

Amongst the auxiliary agencies which have been brought into use in recent years, to enable astronomers the better to carry out systematic observations of eclipses of the Sun, th...

The primary meaning of the word "Eclipse" ([Greek: ekleipsis]) is a forsaking, quitting, or disappearance. Hence the covering over of something by something else, or the immersi...

This must of necessity be a brief chapter, so far 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...

One or two miscellaneous matters respecting eclipses of the Sun (chiefly) will be dealt with in this chapter. It is not easy to explain or define in words the circumstances whic...

I had intended heading this chapter "Eclipse Customs amongst Barbarous Nations," but in these days it is dangerous to talk of barbarians or to speak one's mind on points of soci...

The sound of these words may be large but facts do not bear out the theory, for eclipses do not appear to have captivated our great poets to anything like the extent that Moon,...

A few words (they must be few for lack of space) may usefully be added, by way of advice, to persons proposing to choose a suitable locality at which to station themselves for v...

In a certain sense, a description of the incidents which precede the total disappearance of the Sun in connection with a total Eclipse will apply more or less to the second half...

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 a...