72 



" On the Solar Eclipse of the ^th October, 1847, as seen 

 from the Observatory of the Society, and on the 

 Longitude of Yorh;." — £y W. L. Newman, Esq., 

 F. R. A. S. 



The morning was cloudless but exceedingly misty, and the 

 Eclipse was not fairly discernible over the buildings of the city, 

 until about 7 o'clock, at which time the body of the sun was 

 partially covered by the moon. The state of the atmosphere 

 was such, that some of the phenomena usually observable were 

 not in this case visible. 



The edge of the moon appeared to be clear and well defined, 

 and not serrated as is frequently the case. There were no ap- 

 pearances of any mountainous elevations on the moon's edge, 

 or of any volume of light or flame thereon. There were no 

 appearances of any beads of light, or black and white bars 

 extending between the edges of the sun and moon, at the period 

 of the greatest obscuration ; but as the Eclipse in this latitude 

 was only partial, and not annular, it was not perhaps to be ex- 

 pected that any such should be visible, particularly as the 

 atmosphere was so unfavourable to the developement of such 

 phenomena. The sun's light appeared to undergo no change 

 in its component parts. The observed time of the last contact 

 (corrected for the errors of the clock) was 8h. 44m. 54,5s. mean 

 time at York. The angle of contact measured from the vertex 

 was 148° towards the East. The longitude of the observatory 

 at York, calculated from the above observation, comes out 

 4m. 18s. 95 West of Greenwich. If we compare this result 

 with some others, we shall find a near coincidence between 

 them. The mean of 12 observations of moon-culminating 

 stars, (9 of them being taken with the first limb, and 3 with the 

 second,) gives for the longitude of the observatory 4m. 13s. 01. 

 By the Eclipse of the 15th of May, 1836, when both con- 

 tacts were obtained, the longitude was found by a mean of the 

 two, 4m. 14s. 05. By Triangulation from the Trigonometrical 

 survey it appears to be 4m. 19s. 5. — By giving a proper weight 

 to these several determinations, we shall arrive at a tolerably 



