1819.) Scientific Intelligence. 475 
If you do not consider the matter as too trivial to occupy a 
place in the Annals, I shall feel obliged by your affording me an 
opportunity of meeting with an explanation, and am, Sir, 
Your most obedient servant, 
XIV. Notice of an Annular Eclipse in the Thirteenth Century. 
By the Rev. James Yates, M.G.S. 
(To Dr. Thomson.) 
SIR, Birmingham, May, 1819. _ 
The learned and curious observations of Mr. Francis Baily 
upon the annular eclipse of the sun, which will take place in 
September, 1820,* induce me to think that the following notice 
of one, which was seen in the same quarter of the globe, may be 
interesting to some of your readers. The passage occurs in 
“The Norwegian Account of Haco’s Expedition against Scot- 
land,” first published in the original Islandic, with a literal 
English version, by the Rev. James Johnstone, A.D. 1782. I 
extract both the original Islandic, and Mr. Johnstone’s English 
translation. 
“¢ 54 er Hakon Konongr lai Rognvalzvagi dré myrkr mikit 4 
Rs — . aa: 
solina, sva at litill hringr var biartur um s6lina utan, ok hellt p 
vi nockora stund dags.” 
Id est, . 
“ While King Haco lay in Ronaldsvo a great darkness drew 
over the sun, so that only a little rmg was bright round the sun, 
and it continued so for some hours.”—P. 44, 45. 
Haco invaded Scotland in the year 1263; he sailed with his 
navy into Ronaldsvo, which appears to have been the name of a 
bay or harbour in South Ronaldsay, one of the Orkney islands, 
some time “after St. Olave’s wake ;+” and he quitted Ronaldsvo 
“on the day of St. Lawrence’s wake.” { These two days corres- 
pond to July 29 and August 9, which fixes the time of the eclipse 
with considerable precision, and shows it to be the same, which 
is marked in catalogues as having happened on Aug. 5, 12638. 
Had this account been published at an earlier period, it might 
have supplied in some degree the long chasm remarked by 
Maclaurin, who says, that Ricciolus in his Catalogue mentions 
no annular eclipse from the year 334 to 1567.§ In the last 
edition of the “ Art de verifier les Dates,” A.D. 1783, this eclipse 
is marked as annular. ‘the expression “it continued so for 
some hours,” must be understood to mean only, that the obscu- 
ration of the sun continued for some hours. 
* Annals of Philosophy for Sept. and Oct, 1818, 
+ Norwegian Account, &c. p. 43. 
~ Page 47. 
- § Phil, Trans, vol, xi. p. 193. 
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