482 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



several years after, to Chaeronea (38'^ 30' N.), where he had the 

 good fortune to see a total eclipse of the sun, of which an exact 

 description is to be found in the before-mentioned passage (p. 

 461). "During the eclipse," he says, "which I lately observed, 

 many stars in all directions of the sky became visible, and while 

 it (the eclipse) commenced exactly at noon {ix fxea-^fiSftiuQ dp^a- 

 ,usi^^), the air assumed a hue like that of twilight." Really total 

 eclipses of the sun, it is well known, return to the same places of 

 our globe only after centuries, and it happens very seldom that 

 solar eclipses commence with noon ; wherefore Plutarch, during 

 his life-time, could not have seen in Boeotia two such obscurations 

 of the sun as he describes. Pingre's computations of ancient 

 eclipses show that, about that time, only the following eclipses 

 coincided with noon in Boeotia whilst Plutarch lived there : 



A.D. 71, March 19, 2ih. 30m., Q, 8° W., curve 16°, 39°, 66°. 

 " 73' July 22, 22h., ^ 4° E., curve 63-64°, 61°, 24°. 

 " 75, Jan. 5, ih. 30m., Q 6° W., curve 16-42°. 

 " 76, May 21, noon, y 12° E., curve Northern Europe & North- 

 ern Asia. 

 '♦ 78, April 29, 22th. 30m, tJ 2° W., Southern India. 

 " 81, Feb, 27, noon, ^ 2° E., curve Jji, 20°, S.W. Asia. 



None of these eclipses could have been really total in Boeotia, or 

 other regions of Greece except that in A.D. 73»J"^y 22, 22h. P.T., 

 Plutarch at that time being aged 26 years. Prof. Hind ("Nature," 

 New York, July 25th, 1872) computed, by means of Hansen's 

 Tables, all the eclipses visible during the last half of the first cen- 

 tury of our era and during the first part of the second century, but 

 none of them corresponded with Plutarch ; and this fact alone will 

 suffice to convince every astronomer that the present theory of the 

 moon's motions is incorrect. According to our Table, p. 429, the 

 y lay, A.D. 73, July 22, about 3° 24' nearer to the sun, and hence 

 the central shadow of the moon traversed, about noon, nearly the 

 38th degree of N.Lat., and not, as Pingr^ found, the 6ist degree. 

 The conjunction happened 2h. 12m. later, which agrees with Plu- 

 tarch, who testifies that the eclipse " commenced at noon." All 

 these 26 Greek eclipses confirm the result, obtained by the Ro- 

 man eclipses, that the longitudes of the moon and her Nodes 

 were, in earlier times, shorter than our Lunar Tables, based upon 

 the Almagest, induce. 



