ON MODERN ECLIPSES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1184, 30 September 1885, Page 4

ON MODERN ECLIPSES.

The " New York Times" last March contained the following racy article on a then recent eclipse. It might have been written about the event of a similar character which just came off in New Zealand : —

Yesterday'seclipse was, on the whole, a creditable affair. That is to say it fulfilled the promises of the astronomers. The sun was not darkened perceptibly, although some 234,000 noses were marked with lamp-black. The chickens did not go to roost on the trees on the City Hall Park at 2 p.m., and nobody expressed the opinion that the world was coming to an end. On, the other hand, the eclipse was distinctly visible through smoked glass, and the moon, disguised as a baseball, crossed the sun's disc promptly at an hour fixed. The decline of eclipses is one of the features of modern astronomy. In former years total eclipses were quite common, but they are never produced at the present time except in localities where there is nobody to look at them. Occasionally an almanac announces that on such a date there will be a total eclipse of the sun ; but it always adds, Visible only at Eranz Josef Land and at Mgombwa, on the West coast of Lake Tanganyika. There was a time when the total eclipses of the sun were produced in localities where there were people to observe them. They were eclipses worthy of the name, too. The sun was obscured to such an extent that not only chickens, but young men about town, and other more stupid animals, imagined that night had suddenly arrived. In- the great total eclipse produced before the Emperor Nero, Rome became so dark that hundreds of people went to the theatre, and thousands of men made what they fancied their

evening calls on ladies of their acquaintance. No Eoman astronomer would have ventured to announce an eclipse " visible in Michigan only," for the average Roman Emperor would have held such an announcement to be a personal insult, and would have thrown the astronomer to the lions. When Columbus found that the total eclipse would be useful in persuading the Indians of Jamaica to supply his crew with the celebrated rum of the island he did not inform them that if the case of rum was not produced there would be a total eclipse of the suu visible in Russia, Africa, and the southern part of Arizona only, i He told them that the eclipses would take place right in front of the leading, distillery, which was about ten rods from the wharf where his ship was lying, and the eclipse did take place precisely there, with the anticipated effect of sending the local chickens to roost and an express waggon full of kegs of rum down to the ship. "What has been the cause of the disappearance of total eclipses from the inhabited regions of the globe the astronomers have not told us. It does not follow that it is their fault, though of course suspicion will be dh'ected towards them. As for the small and incomplete eclipses which we do have, they are of no practical value, and exert no beneficial influences upon chickens. After all, total eclipses are not very beautiful or interesting spectacles, and the world can get along without them very easily.