l60 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1715. 



We have received several accounts from some places which lay near the track 

 of the centre of the shade, and which might have been very proper to deter- 

 mine the greatest continuance of the darkness; as from Plymouth, Exeter, 

 Weymouth, Daventry, Northampton, and Lynn Regis, all agreeing that the 

 whole sun was obscured at those places full 4 minutes, and at some of them 

 rather more. But these observers give us no account how they measured this 

 time, and therefore it may well be supposed they took it in a round number, 

 and perhaps from pocket minute watches. What I think may best be relied on 

 for this purpose, are two corresponding observations made, the one at Barton 

 near Kettering in Northamptonshire, where by the observation of John Bridges, 

 Esq. treasurer of his majesty's revenue of excise, and R.S.S. with a good pen- 

 dulum clock and all due care, the whole sun was hid no more than 3m. 53s. 

 The other was by Mr. John Whiteside, A. M. keeper of the Ashmolean Museum 

 at Oxford, and a skilful mathematician, who observed after the same manner, 

 at King's Walden in Hertfordshire, near Hitchin, that the total eclipse conti- 

 nued but 3 m. 52 s. Hence it follows, that the centre of the shade passed near 

 the middle between these two places, which are only 30 geographical miles 

 asunder, and situated near at right angles to the way of the shade ; and there- 

 fore that the total obscurity, where longest, could last only about 3 m. 57 s. or 

 perhaps a second or two more at Lynn, and less at Plymouth, the velocity of 

 the progress of the shade gradually decreasing, and its diameter increasing, as 

 it passed on to the eastwards. And this situation of the middle line is con- 

 firmed by an observation made at the seat of Lord Foley, at Witley, 8 miles 

 beyond Worcester, by his order, and communicated to the Royal Society ; by 

 which it appears that the total darkness lasted there 3 m. 15 s. Hence it follows 

 that Witley was about 3 or 4 miles farther from the centre of the shade on the 

 north side than London on the south ; and Witley being, by Ogilby's Mensu- 

 rations, 118 measured miles from London, it is plain that the centre passed 

 over Islip, which is, by the same admeasurement, 57 such miles on that road, 

 and about 5 miles almost due north from Oxford ; so that the centre of the 

 shade left Oxford but very little on the right hand. This situation agrees per- 

 fectly well with the former, between Barton and King's Walden ; and, as far as 

 the geography of our country may be relied on, I conclude the centre to have 

 entered on England about Plymouth, and to have passed over Exeter, the 

 Devizes, Islip, Buckingham, and Huntington, leaving Oxford and Bedford on 

 the right, and Lynn on the left, and to have quitted the coast of Norfolk about 

 Wells and Blakeney. 



As for the limits of the shade, both on the north and south side, we have by 

 inquiry obtained them with all the exactness the thing is capable of; and we 



