YET A YEAR LATER. 75 



and expensive manner justified by the circumstances 

 of the recent eclipses. 



My present purpose is chiefly to indicate the nature 

 of the hopes entertained by astronomers respecting the 

 approaching eclipse, as well as the position to which 

 the observation of the eclipsed sun has already led the 

 students of solar physics. But the opportunity is a 

 favourable one for a brief consideration of the laws 

 according to which solar eclipses succeed each other. 



..We are apt to regard the prediction of eclipses, 

 and eclipses generally, as among the most mysterious 

 of all the subjects with which astronomers have to deal, 

 and in one view of the matter this is not very far from 

 the truth. Certainly the processes by which the exact 

 circumstances of eclipses are determined years before 

 they occur, are among the most surprising developments 

 of the powers of the human mind which the whole 

 body of science makes us acquainted with. But the 

 general laws of eclipses are not particularly abstruse 

 certainly not so abstruse as to account for the perplexity 

 with which the subject is very commonly regarded. 



I am inclined sometimes to think that our books 

 on astronomy are not always strictly fair to their 

 readers. Something must always be taken for granted 

 in popular treatises, while other matters are selected 

 for special consideration. But it seems to me, with all 

 deference to the authors of our original treatises on 

 astronomy, that they sometimes discuss far too 

 thoroughly certain matters which the general reader 

 cares very little about, while, on the other hand, they 



