266 ECLIPSE. 



my short sojourn at this pretty little 

 Market town, with its spacious street 

 its well-built houses their gardens and 

 meads, flanked by the beautiful river 

 from which it takes its name the lofty 

 hills on all sides, forming a splendid 

 amphitheatre was a total eclipse of the 

 sun. This was the only perfect eclipse that 

 has occurred in my memory : that of 

 1858 was annular, and the great lumi- 

 nary was never quite obscured, but ap- 

 peared in the form of a crescent, of a 

 greater or less magnitude, as our satellite 

 passed over its disc; therefore did it 

 disappoint the expectations of the cre- 

 dulous multitude, who looked for an ab- 

 sence of all light, birds going to roost, 

 and other symptoms of coming night. 



The eclipse of 1820 was a far greater 

 obscuration, inasmuch as the planet Venus 

 was plainly to be seen with the naked 

 eye at noonday in mid-heaven a posi- 



