e begins soon after 9, the middle a little
before 11, the end a little after 12. There will be no total
darkness in the very middle, observable in this metropolis, but as
people's curiositys will not be over with the middle of the
eclipse, if the church service be ordered to begin a little before
12, it will properly be morning prayer, and an uniformity preserved
in our duty to the Supreme Being, the author of these amazing
celestial movements,--
Yours,
RECTOR OF ST. GEO., Q.S."[104]

The year 1766 furnishes the somewhat rare case of a total eclipse of the
Sun observed on board ship on the high seas. The observers were officers
of the French man-of-war the _Comte d'Artois_. Though the total
obscuration lasted only 53 secs., there was seen a luminous ring about
the Moon which had four remarkable expansions, situate at a distance of
90 deg. from each other.[105] These expansions are doubtless those rays
which we now speak of as "streamers" from the Corona.

Curiously enough the next important total eclipse deserving of notice
was also observed at sea. This was the eclipse of June 24, 1778. The
observer was the Spanish Admiral, Don Antonio Ulloa, who was passing
from the Azores to Cape St. Vincent. The total obscuration lasted 4
minutes. The luminous ring presented a very beautiful appearance: out of
it there issued forth rays of light which reached to the distance of a
diameter of the Moon. Before it became very conspicuous stars of the 1st
and 2nd magnitudes were distinctly visible, but when it attained its
greatest brilliancy, only stars of the 1st magnitude could be perceived.
"The darkness was such that persons who were asleep and happened to
wake, thought that they had slept the whole evening and only waked when
the night was pretty far advanced. The fowls, birds, and other animals
on board took their usual position for sleeping, as if it had been
night."[106]

On Sept. 5, 1793, there happened an eclipse which, annular to the N. of
Scotland, was seen and observed in England by Sir W. Herschel[107] as a
partial eclipse. He made some important observations on the Moon on this
occasion measuring the height of several of the lunar mountains.
Considerations respecting the shape of one of the Moon's horns led him
to form an opinion adverse to the idea that there the Moon had an
atmosphere.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 79: _Historiarum Sui Tempor