ECLIPSE OF 1851. 



1851, which became a subject of systematic observation by the 

 most eminent astronomers of the present day. A considerable 

 number of English observers, aided by several foreigners, dis- 

 tributed themselves in parties at different points along the path 

 of the shadow, so that the chances of the impediments that might 

 arise from unfavourable conditions of the atmosphere might be 

 diminished. The reports and drawings of these various observers 

 have been collected by the Royal Astronomical Society, and 

 published in their transactions. 



The Astronomer Royal, with two assistants, Messrs. Dunkin and 

 Humphreys, authorised by the Board of Admiralty, selected certain 

 parts of Sweden and Denmark as the most eligible stations. 

 Professor Airy observed at Gottenberg, Mr. Dunkin at Christiana, 

 and Mr. Humphreys, assisted by Mr. Miland, at Christianstad. 



29. The weather on the whole proved favourable at Gottenberg. 

 "We take from the report of the Astronomer Royal the following 

 highly interesting particulars of the progress of the phenomenon. 



t( The approach of the totality, was accompanied with that 

 indescribably mysterious and gloomy appearance of the whole 

 surrounding prospect, which I have seen on a former occasion. A 

 patch of clear blue sky in the zenith became purple-black while I 

 was gazing at it. I took off the higher power, with which I had 

 scrutinised the sun, and put on the lowest power (magnifying 

 about 34 times). With this I saw the mountains of the moon 

 perfectly well. I watched carefully the approach of the moon's 

 limb to the sun's limb, which my graduated dark glass enabled 

 me to see in great perfection ; I saw both limbs perfectly well 

 denned to the last, and saw the line becoming narrower and the 

 cusps becoming sharper without any distortion or prolongation of 

 the limbs. I saw the moon's serrated limb advance up to the 

 sun's, and the light of the sun glimmering through the hollows- 

 between the mountain peaks, and saw these glimmering spots 

 extinguished one after another in extremely rapid succession, but 

 without any of the appearances which Mr. Baily has described. 

 I saw the sun covered, and immediately slipping off the dark 

 glass, instantly saw the appearances represented at a b c d f 

 fig. 13 (p. 161). 



" Before alluding more minutely to these, I must advert to the 

 darkness. I have no means of ascertaining whether the darkness 

 really was greater in the eclipse of 1842 ; I am inclined to think 

 that in the wonderful, and I may say appalling, obscurity, I saw 

 the grey granite hills within sight of Hvalas more distinctly than 

 the darker country surrounding the Superga. But whether 

 because in 1851 the sky was much less clouded than in 1842 (so 

 that the transition was from a more luminous state of sky to a 



171 



