474 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



(xtarjuoiiiav signify, analagously to ixziT -fjiiipav (during day), 

 during noon. About that time, as Pingre's computations show, 

 only one eclipse was possible in the early spring, and about noon, 

 viz. that in —429, Jan. 26, 22h, P. T., U 1° E., curve — 15°, —30°, 

 — 3°. According to our Table, p. 429, however, the longitude 

 of the U was shorter by about 5° 35', and hence the obscuration 

 amounted to about 11 inches in Athens. The conjunction took 

 place nearly 3h. 37m. later, which agrees with Thucydides. Pe- 

 tavius, of course, had reference to the eclipse in —430, Aug. 3d, 

 5h. local time, obscuration 11.20 inches; but, unfortunately, this 

 eclipse belonged to yttp-cov (p. 418), and not, as Thucydides tes- 

 tifies, to the early d-ipo:;. Moreover, this eclipse was too late in 

 the afternoon, and it happened, according to Petavius's chronolo- 

 gy, one year too late ; for Petavius referred the Olympian games 

 to —427, and since the said eclipse, as reported by Thucydides, 

 occurred 3 yrs. 5 mos. prior to the Olympian games, Petavius 

 ought to have recurred to a similar eclipse in —431, during which 

 year no similar eclipse was possible. Finally, it is well known 

 that Buerg's Lunar Tables were, in spite of the Almagest, based 

 upon 3200 Greenwich observations, and that the former, on occa- 

 sion of the total eclipse in 1851, proved more correct than Burck- 

 hardt's and Damoiseau's Tables. By the aid of Buerg's Tables, 

 Prof. Heiss (Ueber die Finsternisse des Peloponnesischen Kriegs, 

 Koln, 1834) computed the same eclipse, but the obscuration of 

 the sun was only 7.9 inches. In this case, as Thucydides testifies, 

 nobody would have seen fixed stars. 



12. Thucydides (iv. 2.) narrates that, in the course of the 9th 

 year of the Peloponnesian war, the tanner Cleon was extraordi- 

 narily elected strategus ; and the scholiast of Aristophanes (Nub. 

 581) says that about that time. Arch. Stratocles, a lunar eclipse 

 occurred in August {iTTcdr^ ixAsi(/'i^ asAyjvi^^ rw Tzporipco ezsi irre 

 I!TpaTOx?Jou^ Bor^dpojiuove^ i.e. August; p. 23). This is the 

 eclipse in — 421, Aug. 8, oh. 15m., V 10° E., which confirms our 

 Table, p. 429 ; for the longitude of the moon was 1° 57' shorter 

 (3h. 35m. later), and without this correction the said full moon 

 would not have been visible in Athens. The obscuration of 

 the moon must have coincided with sunset. Petavius recurred 

 to the eclipse in —424, Oct. 23d, 6h. 30m., which clearly is con- 

 tradicted by the consecution of the archons and the years of the 



