l. viii. p. 132. March,
1848.]

[Footnote 118: A very striking chromolithograph of the lunar
eclipses of Oct. 4, 1884, and Jan. 28, 1888, showing the contrast
of--(1) an almost invisible grey Moon, and (2) a reddish-pink Moon,
will be found in the German astronomical monthly, _Sirius_, vol.
xxi. p. 241. Nov. 1888.]

[Footnote 119: _Month. Not._, R.A.S., vol. xlv. p. 35.]

[Footnote 120: _Month. Not._, R.A.S., vol. xlviii. p. 227. March
1888.]

[Footnote 121: p. 197 (_post_).]

CHAPTER XVI.

ECLIPSES OF THE MOON MENTIONED IN HISTORY.

We saw in a previous chapter that we owe to the Chinese the first record
of an eclipse of the Sun. It must now be stated that the same remark
applies to the first recorded eclipse of the Moon, and Prof. S. M.
Russell is again our authority. He refers to a book called the
_Chou-Shu_ or book of the Chou Dynasty, said to have been found in 280
A.D. in the tomb of an Emperor who lived many centuries previously. In
this book it is stated that in the 35th year of Wen-Wang on the day
Ping-Tzu there was an eclipse of the Moon. Russell finds that this event
may be assigned to January 29, 1136 B.C., and that the eclipse was
total.

Next after this Chinese eclipse, in point of time, come several eclipses
recorded by Ptolemy, on the authority of records collected or examined
by himself. The three earliest of these came from Chaldaean sources.

The first of these eclipses was observed at Babylon, in the 27th year of
the era of Nabonassar, the 1st of the reign of Mardokempadius, on the
29th of the Egyptian month Thoth, answering to March 19, 721 B.C. The
eclipse began before moonrise, and the middle of the totality appears to
have occurred at 9h. 30m. p.m. The other two eclipses, also observed at
Babylon, occurred on March 8, 720 B.C., and September 1, in the same
year, respectively.

Three other lunar eclipses, recorded by Ptolemy, assisted Sir I. Newton
in fixing the _Terminus a quo_ from which the "70 weeks" of years were
to run which the prophet Daniel[122] predicted were to elapse before the
death of Christ. This _Terminus a quo_ dates from the Restoration of the
Jews under Artaxerxes, 457 B.C. The three eclipses which Newton made
use of were those of July 16, 523, November 19, 502, and April 25, 491
B.C.

Aristophanes, in "The Clouds" (lines 561-66), makes an allusion to which
has been supposed