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From the American Almanac, for 1834.GREAT ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.The most remarkable of the phenomona that this year (1834) will happen, is the eclipse of the sun, on Sunday the 30th of November. This is the third of the very uncommon series of five large eclipses, visible to us, in the short term of seven years; the fourth of this series will take place, JYlav 15th, 1836, and the last, September 18th, 1838.The eclipse of the present year will doubtless receive great attention throughout our country In those places where its magnitude will not exceed eleven digits, much diminution of the light is not to be expected, even at the time of the greatest obscuration; perhaps, however, it may be sufficient to render visible the planet Venus, then about 30 degrees E. S. E. of the sun, and much nearer the earth than usual. Nor will the obscuration be very great where the eclipse is almost total; since it has been observed on former occasions, that the uneclipsed part, even when reduced to a point, sheds sufficient light to render small objects visible, and invisible the brightest of the stars. Indeed, on account jof the refraction of the sun’s rays by the atmosphere of the earth, the darkness can hardly with strictness be considered total, even when the sun is completely shut out from the sight. In the great and remarkable eclipse of June 16th, 1806, when the sun was totally obscured at Boston, for five minutes, as much light remained as is given by the moon when full; and greater darkness will not probably be experienced, in any place, on the present occasion.Throughout the United States, however, a great depression of the thermometer, if placed in the sun, will probably be noticed; and for some minutes before and after the moment of greatest obscuration, the power of a lens to produce combustion, by condensing the solar rays, will be quite, if not entirely destroyed. At the time of the annular eclipse of February 12th, 1831, it was observed by the editor, that the thermometer in the sun, fell from 73 to 26, and that during the continuance of the ring, no sensible effect was produced by placing its blackened bulb in the focus of a powerful burning glass.This eclipse, as will be seen on tracing the path of the center, will be total in a small part of the territory of Arkansas, and of the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. The principal places, in which the obscurity will probably be complete, are Charleston, Beaufort, S. C., Savannah, Milledgeville, Tuscaloosa, and Little Rock. The gretatest duration of total darkness in any place will be at Tuscaloosa and Beaufort—these places lying very near the central path. At Charleston and Savannah, the duration will be considerably less; the former being situated about forty miles north of this path, the latter about thirty south. The width of the line of total darkness varies in its passage across the earth, but in the United States will be about one hundred miles. Those of the Alantic states, who desire to behold this rare spectacle—the most magnificent and sublime of the phenomona of nature, compared with which even the Niagara sinks into mediocrity—will find Beaufort the most eligible place in which to make their observations, and they will not neglect this opportunity when they reflect that the moon’s shadow will not again, for the space of thirty-five years, pass over any part of the inhabitable portions of the United States, or until August 7th, 1860.As, at the time of the eclipse of February, 1831, much inconvenience and even injury was sustained from want of care in looking at the sun without any protection for the eye, or through glass not sufficiently colored, it may be proper to remark, that should the sky, during the continuance of the eclipse, be clear, one of the very darkest green or red glasses of a sextant, and in default of this, a piece of common window glass, free from veins, and rendered quite black by the smoke of a lamp, only, can be used with safety.If the lustre of the sun should be diminished by intervening clouds, a lighter shade will be sufficient. ' jtlIiouth yc a i cc tri be se wi !**th.beliosepuouvaofththith.
Newspaper Details
Western Christian Advocate
Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Fri, Nov 07, 1834
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Scioto C.
OH, USA 21 Feb 2024
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