l62 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1715. 



of Kent, and not so much of Sussex, out of all the south coast of Great Bri- 

 tain, escaped being involved in this darkness. 



The northern limit, having passed over a much greater space, has had more 

 observers, and is not less curiously determined than the other. We find by 

 the account given by the Rev. Mr. Roger Prosser, rector of Haverford-west, 

 that the eclipse was total there a minute and a half; whence it follows, that 

 Haverford was but about 6 miles within the shade; and therefore that it entered 

 on Pembrokeshire about the middle of St. Bride's bay, leaving St. Davids and 

 Cardigan on the left hand, and having traversed those two counties and Mont- 

 gomeryshire it entered on Shropshire, leaving the town of Shrewsbury 1™ 40* 

 in the shadow, as was observed there by Dr. Rollings; whence it appears that 

 Shrewsbury was about 8 miles within the limit. Thence it proceeded by the 

 east side of Cheshire, leaving Whitchurch and Nantwich a very little without, 

 and passing by Congleton, went over the Peak of Derbyshire into Yorkshire, 

 and crossed the great northern road between Pontefract and Doncaster, some- 

 what nearer the former than the latter. For by the observations of Theophilus 

 Shelton, Esq. at Darrington, about 2 miles on this side Pontefract, in lat. 53° 

 40', and long, west from London 4"* 40* of time, as may be concluded from 

 Norwood's measure of a degree, the sun at g^ 11"^ was reduced almost to a 

 point, which both in colour and size resembled the planet Mars; but while he 

 watched for the total eclipse, that point grew larger, and the darkness dimi- 

 nished; whence he inferred, that the limit was very little more southerly. And 

 since that, he has been informed that it was just total in Barnsdale, 3 miles 

 south from thence. And that it was so at Badsworth about the same distance 

 from Darrington, we are told by a letter of the reverend and learned Mr. Daubuz, 

 that he has a certain account from that place, that the luminous ring round the 

 moon was seen there, which was no where visible but while the eclipse was total. 

 From these data we may securely determine the remainder of this track, and 

 that the edge of the shadow, having passed over the rest of Yorkshire, went off 

 to sea about Flamborough head. 



So that of the 40 counties into which England is subdivided, only the 5 most 

 northerly have not had the sun wholly hid from them ; and 6 others have 

 escaped only in part, viz. Shropshire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire, and the ex- 

 treme part of Derbyshire on the north, and Kent and Sussex on the south ; all 

 the rest of the kingdom having more or less suffered an interval of total 

 darkness. 



I shall not at present consider this eclipse as universal, but only as it related 

 to England ; and it shall suffice to say, that the shadow came out of the Atlantic 



