some farts of the United States and Canada in 'Nov, 1819. ^67 
same yellowish-white hue as the heavens. The fowls show- 
ed that peculiar restlessness that was remarked in them during 
the total eclipse of the sun in 1806. Some of them retired to 
roost. The cocks crowed several hours incessantly, as they do 
at the dawning of day. 
At 3 P. M. the sky brightened up a little, but in the evening 
the darkness became more extraordinary. A person could not 
discern his hand, held directly before his eyes. It was next to 
impossible for a person to find his way even in streets where he 
had been long accustomed to walk. 
The sun was concealed from our view, nearly the whole time, 
from Monday evening to Friday morning. It did occasionally 
appear, but was always of a deep blood-red colour ; and the 
apparent magnitude was at least one-third larger than usual. 
This was very striking on Friday, about nine in the morning. 
A dense, yellow vapour was then passing slowly over its en- 
larged disc. The spectacle was viewed by many with astonish- 
ment. 
The darkness was not confined to this immediate vicinity It 
was as great seventy miles west (in the State of New ^ork) as 
at this place. And here I beg leave to insert an extract of a 
letter, on this subject, from Noadiah Moore, Esq. of Cham- 
plain, N. Y. a well informed and highly respectable gentleman. 
The darkness was first noticed on the night of the 6th 
November, when the day closing with a hazy atmosphere, the 
night became so exceedingly dark as to render the sense, of sight 
wholly useless. The horse and his rider were in equal uncer- 
tainty, The moon, though near the full, produced no sensible 
change as it rose. Even the faint profile of the landscape, so 
important a guide to the benighted traveller, was lost in intense 
obscurity. The atmosphere continued to be clouded by dense 
vapours until the 9th ; when the darkness greatly increased. A 
light snow covered the ground. It blew a strong gale from the 
south. The^clouds, from which fine drops of rain were conti- 
nually descending, resembled the pitchy blackness of the smoke 
of a furnace ; they moved in a wild and hurried manner through 
the heavens, and, at times, seemed to be closing down upon the 
earth. Several claps of distant thunder were heard, and in a 
town adjoining, a heavy shower ensued. 
