do not understand, but which are capable of giving, with tolerable accuracy, the positions of the planets and the phenomena of eclipses, is sufficient proof that astronomy was once cultivated in the East to a much greater extent than at the present day. The modern Brahmins, it is expressly stated, are mere machines in the calculation of eclipses, having their rules in verse, which they repeat during the computation.

Of the series of observations said to have been made at Babylon during the nineteen centuries antecedent to the time of Alexander, we have sufficient reason to doubt the accuracy at least, if not the very existence, from the fact that Ptolemy, when investigating the period of the moon's revolution, placed in them so little confidence as to neglect them entirely, and go no further back than 720 B. C. for the record of an eclipse sufficiently accurate for his purpose. The Chaldeans, however, undoubtedly became distinguished at an early period for their knowledge of astronomy. To them has been generally ascribed the discovery of that well known period of eclipses which bears their name. This cycle, consisting of eighteen years and ten or eleven days, was probably the only means possessed by the ancients for the prediction of eclipses. The whole art of computation was embraced in the simplest process of arithmetical addition. There being a regular return of the same eclipse every Chaldean period, we have obviously only to note the eclipses which happen during eighteen successive years, to be able to predict approximately all that will occur during several centuries. It is plain, however, that in this way, we can determine neither the visibility of the eclipse, nor the time of day in which it will happen. And this seems to have been the case with the ancient predictions; hence their frequent failures.

The first introduction into Greece of a method of foretelling eclipses has been generally ascribed to Thales, and that which he predicted is said to have been the remarkable total obscuration of the sun, which put an end to a battle between the Medes and Lydians. Yet Thales neither specified the day, nor even the month of its appearance; indeed, so vague is the testimony concerning it, that even the year itself has never yet been satisfactorily settled. His method of prediction was undoubtedly the Chaldean, which he might have borrowed from the east. That the Greeks in general, even at a later period than this, were unacquainted with the true theory of eclipses, appears from the fact that one of their philosophers was subjected to the most cruel persecution for showing the true reason of an eclipse of the moon, being accused of ascribing to natural causes the attributes and power of the gods.' It was not till the age of Ptolemy that the motions of the moon began to be tolerably understood and tables constructed like those of modern times. From that age to this, as the calculations of eclipses have acquired more and more accuracy, these phenomena have been regarded, among

civilized nations, with decreasing interest, and the terror which they once inspired is now known only as a matter of history. Among barbarous nations, however, they are still invested with all the alarming attributes they ever possessed. That they are the precursors of wars, and famines, and of every calamity, is a superstition coeval with the earliest history of our race. An eclipse took place when the foundations of Rome were laid; another witnessed the downfall of the Assyrian, and the erection of the Babylonian empire; a third portended a famine at Rome, and the commencement of the Peloponnesian war; a fourth the slaughter of the Sabines, and a fifth the plague at Athens. Even in later times an eclipse of the sun betokened the death of Constantius, another that of Lewis the Pious, and another still-one so remarkable that the stars were visible the great schism at Rome which arose from the contentions of three rival popes.

There is a striking similarity in the notions entertained of eclipses, at the present day, among all uncivilized nations. The common Brahmins of India believe them to be caused by the intervention of the monster Rahu, who endeavors to devour the sun and moon as they pass by him in their revolutions. The head and tail of the monster have been allegorized as the two nodes of the moon's orbitwhich explains one of the many relics of barbarism to be found in our common almanacs. , the dragon's head or ascending node, and, the dragon's tail or descending node are doubtless familiar to all. In an allegorical representation of an eclipse witnessed in India by M. de Guignes, two dragons were the principal characters; the moon was heroine. The natives of the Nicobar Islands, in the bay of Bengal, during an eclipse, are accustomed "to beat their gongs with the utmost violence, and hurl their spears into the air, to frighten away the demon who is devouring the celestial luminary." The Moors in Africa, on the occurrence of an eclipse, are said to "run about distracted in companies, firing vollies of musketry at the sun to drive off the monster, or dragon, by which they suppose it is being devoured." A traveler mentions that on entering Deba, in Thibet, the moon becoming eclipsed, his ears were "greeted with the sound of trumpets, and the beating of drums and gongs from the temple of Naryan." Similar customs were witnessed in other parts of Asia. The like superstition prevails among the natives of America. A dragon, a great fish, a demon, or an enraged deity is supposed to be swallowing the sun and moon. Hence, as in other quarters of the world, the beating of noisy instruments, and the howling of warwhoops and death-songs to frighten away the monster.

There is hardly an occurrence in nature at which a savage is more terrified, than at an eclipse. To him it is a visible revelation of the anger of his gods. And the man who can tell him beforehand at what hour the sun and moon will be darkened, he naturally regards as one favored of Heaven, and worthy of superior reverence. In

stances are not wanting in which this superstition has been made an engine of interest. Knowledge here is, indeed, power. Columbus proved this upon the natives of the West Indies. Being in danger of famine from their refusal to furnish him with provisions, he boldly threatened them with impending calamities, announcing, as a token, an eclipse of the moon; which occurring as he had predicted, he no longer found difficulty in compelling obedience. In like manner, it is related of the warrior Tecumseh, that having been preinformed of the eclipse of 1806, he immediately usurped, in the name of the Great Spirit, the sovereignty of his tribe, asserting that on the 16th of June, the will of Heaven would be manifested in his favor by a total darkening of the sun at noonday-thus raising himself, on the ignorance of his countrymen, from the rank of a subject to unlimited authority.

The eclipse of 1806 is the one familiarly spoken of in New England as the great eclipse,' being the most remarkable that had been seen for many years, and indeed the only total one visible in New England during the present century. The alarm it inspired, however, was not confined to savages. Many are the proofs that even in this land of light, there were shades of ignorance and superstition darker even than the eclipse itself. Not a few spectacled eyes were strained almost from their sockets, to obtain what was supposed to be a last glimpse at the expiring sun. The stars at noon

day, the lamp in the drawing room, the gloom upon the landscape, the retiring of domestic animals, the untimely crowing of the cock-these were well calculated to excite alarm in the superstitious, and surprise in all. Though total eclipses of the sun are of rare occurrence, and near approximations to them proportionally few and far between,' yet of the latter class our age has been furnished with a series by no means common. Within a period of eight years, no less than four very large solar eclipses, in addition to several smaller ones, have been, or are to be visible in New England. The first happened in 1831, the second in '34, the third in '36, and the fourth will be that of September 18th, 1838; after which another of much importance will not happen till April 25th, 1846, when the sun will be half obscured; and again in 1854, when there will be an annular eclipse in New England on the 26th of May.

The eclipse of 1838 is the fifth return, according to the Chaldean period, of that which happened in England on the 25th of July, 1748. If any one wishes to see an account of the phenomena of this eclipse at its various periodical returns, and of the progress of its central path across the earth, from the time it first entered upon it at the south pole about the year 1153, to the time of its entirely leaving it at the north pole in the year 2090, reference may be had to Smith's Dissertation on eclipses, published at London in 1748, an extract from which is contained in the eighteenth chapter of Ferguson's Astronomy.

We subjoin a few remarks on the general phenomena of the eclipse of 1838, in its passage across the earth, with the result of a calculation of its appearance, as exhibited to an observer at New Haven. Not having had access to the latest tables published in Europe, nor been able to obtain a copy of the Nautical Ephemeris for the year in question, our calculations may not, perhaps, be found to possess, in all respects, perfect accuracy. Yet a possible error of a few seconds is no more than that to which the most finished tables are liable. The very best do not agree with each other. The tables of Delambre for the sun, and those of Burckhardt for the moon-which have been the principal ones employed in the computation of this eclipse-are acknowledged to be among the most accurate that have yet been constructed. And the results obtained from these, especially when repeated from the tables of Burg and Damoiseau, as in the present instance, are believed to be as near approximations to the truth as the nature of the case admits; at least, as near as can be of any practical utility to ordinary observers, for clocks and watches. capable of giving us the time within a few seconds of the truth are exceedingly rare.

It is well known that a solar eclipse can be seen only from a small portion even of that hemisphere to which the sun itself is, at the time, visible. That of 1838 will be witnessed only in North America, and the northern portion of Colombia. The places to which an eclipse is total or annular, are embraced within much narrower limits. Those to which it is exactly central are designated by the single line which represents the path across the earth of the center of the moon's shadow. To all places within a few miles of this line, on both sides of it, the eclipse will be either total or annular, according as the apparent diameter of the moon exceeds or falls short of that of the sun. The line of the central eclipse, one might naturally suppose at first thought would be not far from rectilinear, crossing the earth from west to east, in the direction of the moon's apparent motion. In high latitudes, however, the curves given to this path by the rotation and oblique position of the earth, are exceedingly various. Of the lines described by the large eclipses which we have named as peculiar to the present period, the most anomalous is that of September, 1838. The center of the moon's shadow in this eclipse first strikes the earth in the Frozen Ocean, not far from the North Pole, at ten minutes past three, P. M., whence proceeding in a southerly direction, it crosses the western part of Hudson's Bay at Fort York; entering soon after the United States through Lake Superior, it passes on towards the southeast over Traverse Bay in Lake Michigan, across lakes St. Clair and Erie, the northeastern corner of Ohio, the southwestern of Pennsylvania, the State of Maryland and Chesapeake Bay, and entering the Atlantic near the southern boundary of Delaware, it then takes an easterly direction till it finally leaves the globe in latitude 34° 10′ N. and longitude

57° 5' W., at 2 minutes past five in the afternoon. The time occupied in passing over the United States, from Lake Superior to the Atlantic coast, a distance of nearly nine hundred miles, is only thirty minutes, averaging, therefore, about thirty miles a minute. To those places over which the center of the shadow passes, the eclipse will be annular for the space of about six minutes. This will happen at Detroit, Mich. Cleveland, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pa. Frederickstown and Annapolis, Md. and Washington, D. C. To all places within about two hundred miles of a line passing through these points, the annular appearance will be more or less perfect, according to circum

stances.

At New Haven, (Lat. 41° 17' 58" N. and Long. 72° 57′ 46′′ W.) the appearance of this eclipse, at the time of Greatest Obscuration, will be as represented in the accompanying figure.

The times are computed to be as follows:-Tuesday, Sept. 18th,

1838.

h. m. s.

Beginning of the eclipse, 3 19 59

Greatest obscuration,

End of the eclipse,

Duration,

4 39 28 P. M. mean time at New Haven.

5 50 49

2 30 50

Digits eclipsed on the sun's south limb, 11° 2'.

Apparent distance of centers of the sun and moon at greatest obscuration, 1' 22′′.

The sun will set at six minutes past six, or about fifteen minutes after the end of the eclipse.