12 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



of the phenomenon. I shall quote M. Arago's inte- 

 resting description of the occurrence : 



' At Perpignan, persons who were seriously unwell 

 alone remained within doors-. As soon as day began to 

 break, the population covered the terraces and battle- 

 ments of the town, as well as all the little eminences 

 in the neighbourhood, in hopes of obtaining a view 

 of the sun as he ascended above the horizon. At the 

 citadel we had under our eyes, besides numerous groups 

 of citizens established on the slopes, a body of soldiers 

 about to be reviewed. The hour of the commencement 

 of the eclipse drew nigh. More than twenty thousand 

 persons, with smoked glasses in their hands, were 

 examining the radiant globe projected upon an azure 

 sky. Although armed with our powerful telescopes, 

 we had hardly begun to discern the small notch on the 

 western limb of the sun, when an immense exclama- 

 tion, formed by the blending together of twenty thou- 

 sand different voices, announced to us that we had 

 anticipated, by only a few seconds, the observation 

 made with the unaided eye by twenty thousand astrono- 

 mers equipped for the occasion, whose first essay this 

 was. A lively curiosity, a spirit of emulation, the 

 desire of not being outdone, had the privilege of giving 

 to the natural vision an unusual power of penetration. 

 During the interval that elapsed between this moment 

 and the almost total disappearance of the sun, we 

 remarked nothing worthy of relation in the counten- 

 ances of so many spectators. But when the sun, 

 reduced to a very narrow filament, began to throw 



