THE SDN AND SOLAR PHENOMENA. 
309 
crouching with terror during the darkness ; but although we 
were in the midst of a crowd of the former nation, and a rural 
population too, we did not see it, and can scarcely believe it. 
As many discrepancies exist, however, between the statements 
of ordinary observers as between those who looked at the solar 
phenomena through a telescope. To one observer the darkness 
appeared to last for only two minutes (it was upwards of three) ; 
to another, such was the sense of oppressiveness, that the in- 
terval between the disappearance and reappearance of sunlight 
seemed to endure for two hours ! 
These are a few of the phenomena connected with the orb of 
day, the source of light and heat in our system of worlds. 
