YET A YEAR LATER. 8 1 



peculiarities of these ' eclipse months ' belong, or 

 should belong, to treatises on astronomy. What has 

 been said above suffices for my present purpose 

 which is to explain the sequence of the late eclipses. 

 It will be observed that about eleven months and 

 eleven days separate an eclipse month in one year 

 from the corresponding eclipse month in the next. 

 We thus see why the great Indian eclipse of August 

 1868 had its analogues, so to speak, in the total 

 eclipae of August 29 in the preceding year, and in the 

 American eclipse of August 7, 1869. These three 

 eclipses, occurring eleven days earlier in each succeed- 

 ing year, were all three total. But the series did not 

 end with the eclipse of August 1869. On July 27, 

 1870 (again eleven days earlier) there was an eclipse 

 of the sun. It was, however, only a partial one, and 

 closed the series. 



Now the eclipse of the present month belongs to 

 another series. It will be remembered by every one 

 that there was an eclipse on December 22, 1870; 

 that eclipse was the first of the series to which the 

 approaching eclipse belongs. This series, like the 

 former, includes four eclipses. In December 1870, 

 the moon, as seen from the sun, crossed the earth's 

 face near its northern edge. In the eclipse of December 

 12, 1871, the moon, as supposed to be seen from 

 the sun, will pass slightly to the north of the middle 

 point of the earth's face. 1 Thus the eclipse will be 



1 It is a singular circumstance that the earth will present almost 

 exactly the same face towards the sun at the moment of central eclipse 

 III. G 



