248 ASTRONOMY: 



will be its seventy-eighth appearance, it will go off at the South Pole of 

 the earth, and disappear altogether;" 



Columbus is said to have frightened the Aborigines of America into 

 supplying provisions, &c. for his crew, by foretelling an eclipse of 

 the Sun, which he knew from his calculations would take place at a 

 particular time. An account was read during the last year at the Royal 

 Astronomical Society, of some computations, agreeing with the time of an 

 eclipse of the sun, observed in China, October 13, no less than two 

 thousand one hundred and twenty-eight years before Christ, or four 

 thousand years since. The time of the greatest obscuration has been 

 computed by Mr. Rothman, to be from the solar tables of Delambre, and 

 the lunar elements of Darnoiseaa to have happened at eight minutes forly- 

 seven seconds past noon, with ten and a half digits eclipsed, according 

 entirely with the indications of the Chinese chronicles. For not pre- 

 dicting this eclipse the two astronomers Ho and Hi were put to death. 



The great eclipse of the sun which took place on Sunday, May 15th, 

 1836, was visible over the whole of Europe, and North America, part of 

 Columbia, and Africa : in the West Indies, Denmark, Germany, and 

 the northern parts of the British Isles, tunular or ring like. The 

 eclipse began at Greenwich fifty-one minutes twelve seconds after one 

 o'clock, arrived at its greatest obscuration at nineteen minutes six 

 seconds past three, and terminated thirty-nine minutes six seconds after 

 four o'clock, p.m. 



THE ATMOSPHERE. 



The Atmosphere is highly important, as being the cause of many 

 of the phenomena we witness, in modifying the influence of others, 

 and in its essential character as the supporter of animal and vegetable 

 life. It is described as a thin, invisible, elastic fluid, surrounding the 

 earth to the extent of fifty miles in height from its surface: it is the 

 element in which we live and breathe, which contains the principles of 

 life, and constitutes the power of vegetation. All the displays of beauty, 

 so well adapted to cheer the spirits, to enliven the sensibilities, and to 

 excite the adoration of man, would have been formed in vain, if the 

 atmosphere had not been a transparent fluid* The specific gravity of 



