1899-1900.] Mr Heath on the Total Solar Eclipse. 
243 
rain, and at least one niglit was cloudy. As the 28th approached 
the weather seemed, if anything, to improve, and culminated 
at the time of the eclipse in weather conditions which were 
everything that could possibly be desired. The brightness of 
the skies at night, indeed, formed a subject of comment amongst 
us all. The shorter duration of twilight than we are accustomed 
to at this season in this northern latitude enhanced the beauty 
of the evening sky. Evening after evening showed us the 
planet Yenus, a strikingly beautiful object, then just at her 
position of greatest brilliancy. The brightness of the Milky 
Way also struck us all as very remarkable, especially a detached 
portion of it forming a little cloud not far from the constellation 
Scorpio. Scorpio itself seemed to remind us night after night 
how far South we had come from the scene of our regular work, 
for Antares, its chief star, only rises about 8° above the horizon 
at Edinburgh, whereas, at Santa Pola, it stared at us from the 
goodly elevation of over 25°. 
The scene at our camp on the 28th was somewhat remarkable. 
We had fortunately enclosed the ground on which our instruments 
stood with a light wire fence, and, acting on the authority of the 
chief magistrate, or Alcalde of the town, had erected notices with 
the legend, “ Se prohibe el paso.” This we found quite sufficient 
to restrain the crowds of townspeople who daily assembled to 
watch our proceedings from encroaching on the space allotted 
to us. Every day, and all day long, the greatest interest had 
been taken in our work by crowds of people, who, I must say, 
conducted themselves in the most quiet and orderly fashion, 
and never in one single instance was the slightest attempt 
made to interfere with us in any way. It would have been 
cruel, however, if not impracticable on our part to attempt to 
restrain for ten long days the natural volubility of the Spanish 
tongue, and accordingly we heard enough of the language in 
the days preceding the eclipse to have made us all perfect 
masters of it, if we could only have taken reasonable advantage of 
the daily lessons we received. This was all very well before the 
eclipse, but it is evident that during the seventy-five seconds of total- 
ity, nothing would suit us better than that silence which is known 
to be golden. It was therefore arranged with the authorities, 
