292 Observations on the 



accounts of these phenomena, and in the more elaborate 

 works on astronomical science, considerable importance, in 

 relation to the above inquiry, attaches to certain appearances, 

 observed externally round the margin, as also within the cir- 

 cumference of the moon while visible on the sun's disc. In 

 the instance now under review, several of these appearances were 

 observed. Instead, therefore, of merely enumerating isolated. 

 and in themselves, perhaps, unimportant, facts, it is proposed 

 in the following remarks, to view them in connexion with the 

 subject at large, and as compared with the results of similar 

 observations in preceding eclipses, arranging the different cir- 

 cumstances in the order of their occurrence. 



From the original accounts* of the more remarkable solar 

 eclipses, since the period above-mentioned, Hashes of light 

 darting in various directions, and from different parts of the 

 moon's darkened hemisphere, appear to have been frequently 

 observed. In general, these appearances seem to have been 

 visible about the time of greatest obscuration only. " During 

 the whole time of the total eclipse, (says Dr. Halley, in de- 

 scribing that of 1715). I kept my telescope constantly fixed 

 on the moon, and I Sdiw perpetual flashes of light, which seemed 

 for a moment to dart out from behind the moon, now here, now 

 there, on all sides, but more especially on the western side, a 

 little before the emersiont." In his Memoir on the eclipse of 

 1748, nearly the same account is given by M. de Thury : — 



* The eclipses here referred (o are chiefly those of 17J5, 17Q4, 1736-7, 

 and 1748, of which the principal accounts are by Halley, Loville, Cassini, 

 Maraldi, M'Laiirin, Le Monnier, De L'isle, ^c. Pliil. Trans, and 3Iem. de 

 I'Acad. de Sciences. Of that in 1724, there is no account by an English 

 astronomer, notwithstanding, as appears from the map which accompanies 

 Le Monnier's Slemoir sur les Eclipses totale dii Soleil, the path of the shadow 

 must have traversed great part of Britain, (Mem. de I'Acad. de Scien. 178 1, 

 p. 243). Of the annular eclipse of 1764, the accounts are few and un- 

 interesting. Though great preparations were made by the French 

 astronomers. Card, de Lugoes seems to have been the only person who 

 witnessed the formation of the annulus, by a momentary opening of the 

 clouds. (Mem. del' Acad,, ifc, i76i.) 



t Phil, Trans., No. 343, vol. a9, p. 348. 



