x has been prepared, giving a large amount of information showing
how those countries can be best reached, whether by sea or overland,
from the shores of England.

If anyone is inclined to doubt whether an eclipse expedition is likely
to provide non-astronomical tourists with incidents of travel, pleasant,
profitable, and even amusing, perhaps the doubt will be removed by a
perusal of the accounts of Sir F. Galton's trip to Spain in 1860
(_Vacation Tourists in 1860_, p. 422), or of Professor Tyndall's trip to
Algeria in 1870 (_Hours of Exercise in the Alps_, p. 429), or of
Professor Langley's Adventures on Pike's Peak in the Rocky Mountains,
Colorado, U.S., in 1878 (_Washington Observations_, 1876, Appendix III.
p. 203); or of some of the many Magazine and other narratives of the
Norway eclipse of 1896 and the Indian eclipse of 1898.

Subject to these special points no further prefatory explanation seems
needed, the general style of the contents being, _mutatis mutandis_,
identical with the contents of the Volumes which have gone before.

I have to thank my friend, Dr. A. M. W. Downing, the Superintendent of
the _Nautical Almanac_, for kindly verifying the calculations in
chapters II. and III.

G. F. C.
NORTHFIELD GRANGE,
EASTBOURNE, 1899.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION 9

II. GENERAL IDEAS 11

III. THE SAROS AND THE PERIODICITY OF ECLIPSES 18

IV. MISCELLANEOUS THEORETICAL MATTERS CONNECTED
WITH ECLIPSES OF THE SUN (CHIEFLY) 34

V. WHAT IS OBSERVED DURING THE EARLIER STAGES
OF AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN 40
The Moon's Shadow and the Darkness it causes 41
Shadow Bands 46
The Approach of Totality 49
The Darkness of Totality 53
Meteorological and other effects 54

VI. WHAT IS OBSERVED DURING THE TOTAL PHASE OF
AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN 56
Baily's Beads 57
The Corona 62

VII. WHAT IS OB