Manoir of the late Francis Baily, Esq.^ F.R.S., Src. 43 



both the locality and the probable historical limits were suffi- 

 ciently precise ; and the account of Herodotus, which agrees 

 only with the character of a total and not of an annular 

 eclipse (as Mr. Baily was the first to remark), still further 

 limits the problem. But the tables of the moon employed by 

 all prior computists were inadequate to carry back her place 

 with the requisite exactness, nor was it till the publication of 

 Burg's Lunar Tables that the means of doing so were in the 

 hands of astronomers. The course of Mr. Baily's reading at 

 this period (being then, no doubt, employed in collecting the 

 materials for the Chronological Tables in his ' Epitome of 

 Universal History,' which appeared not long after) brought 

 him necessarily into contact with this subject. He perceived 

 at once both the uncertainty of all former calculations of this 

 eclipse, and the possibility of attacking it with a fresh prospect 

 of success. None, however, but a consummate astronomical 

 calculator would have ventured on such an inquiry, which in- 

 volved the computation of all the solar eclipses during a period 

 of seventy years, six centuries before the Christian aera. 

 These calculations led him to assign, as the eclipse in question, 

 that of September 30, B.C. 610, which was central and total, 

 according to these tables, at the very point where all historical 

 probability places the scene of action. 



Most men would have regarded such a result, obtained by 

 so much labour, with triumphant complacency : not so Mr. 

 Baily. His habit of examining things on all sides, instead of 

 permitting him to rest content with his conclusion, led him on 

 to further inquiry, and induced him to calculate the phaeno- 

 mena of another total eclipse recorded in ancient history, that 

 of Agathocles, which happened August 15, B.C. 310, an eclipse 

 of which neither the date nor the locality admits of any con- 

 siderable uncertainty, and which, therefore, appeared to him 

 well fitted to test the accuracy of the tables themselves. Ex- 

 ecuting the calculation, he found indeed a total eclipse on the 

 year and day in question, and passing near to the spot, btit not 

 over it. An irreconcilable gap of about 3°, or 180 geogra- 

 phical miles, remains between the most northerly limit of the 

 total shadow, and the most southerly supposable place of 

 Agathocles's fleet. Although this may justly be looked upon 

 as a wonderful approximation between theory and historical 

 fact (indicating, as it does, a correction of only 3' in the moon's 

 latitude, for an epoch anterior by more than twentj'-one cen- 

 turies to that of the tables), yet it did not escape Mr. Baily's 

 notice, nor did his love of truth permit him to conceal the 

 fact, that no presumed single correction of the tabular ele- 

 ments will precisely reconcile both eclipses with their strict 



