pses."

I am not at all sure that this is quite a fair presentation of the case.
I do not remember ever to have seen the power to predict eclipses
ascribed to the Chinese, but it is a simple matter of fact that we owe
to them during many centuries unique records of a vast number of
celestial phenomena. Their observations of comets may be singled out as
having been of inestimable value to various 19th-century computers,
especially E. Biot and J. R. Hind.

The second recorded eclipse of the Sun would seem to be also due to the
Chinese. Confucius relates that during the reign of the Emperor Yew-Wang
an eclipse took place. This Emperor reigned between 781 B.C. and 771
B.C., and it has been generally thought that the eclipse of 775 B.C. is
the one referred to, but Johnson doubts this on the ground that this
eclipse was chiefly visible in the circumpolar regions, and if seen at
all in China must have been of very small dimensions. He leans to the
eclipse of June 4, 780 B.C. as the only large one which happened within
the limits of time stated above.

An ancient Chinese historical work, known as the _Chun-Tsew_, written by
Confucius, makes mention of a large number of solar eclipses which
occurred before the Christian Era. This work came under the notice of M.
Gaubil, one of the French Jesuit missionaries who laboured in China
some century and a half ago, and he first gave an account of it in his
_Traite de la Chronologie Chinoise_, published at Paris in 1770.[21]

The _Chun-Tsew_ is said to be the only work really written by
Kung-Foo-Tze, commonly known as Confucius, the other treatises
attributed to him having been compiled by disciples of his either during
his life-time or after his decease. The German chronologist, Ideler, was
acquainted with this work, and in a paper of his own, presented to the
Berlin Academy, remarked:--"What gives great interest to this work is the
account of 36 solar eclipses observed in China, the first of which was
on Feb. 22, 720 B.C., and the last on July 22, 495 B.C."

In 1863 Mr. John Williams, then Assistant Secretary of the Royal
Astronomical Society, communicated to the Society in a condensed form
the particulars of these eclipses as related in Confucius's book,
together with some remarks on the book itself. The _Chun-Tsew_ treats of
a part of the history of the confederated nations into which China was
divided during the Chow Dynasty, that is between 1122 B.C. and 255 B.C.
The particula