This month, on the 1st, we can obtain mean or clock time by making our
clocks indicate 12:12⅓ p. m. when the sun crosses our meridian; on
the 15th, by making our time pieces 12:09 p. m.; and on the 31st, by
making them show 12:04 p. m. On the 1st, 15th, and 31st, the sun rises
at 6:33, 6:11, and 5:44 a. m., and sets at 5:52, 6:07, and 6:24 p. m.,
respectively. And on the same dates, daybreak occurs at 4:58, 4:35,
and 4:04 a. m., and end of evening twilight at 7:27, 7:43, and 8:03 p.
m., respectively. On the 19th, at 36½ minutes after 11:00 p. m. the
sun “crosses the line” (that is, on its journey northward, crosses the
equator), and we are accustomed to say that it enters the sign _Aries_,
and spring commences. During this month we have also one of the five
eclipses of this year. This one occurs on the 27th, and on such a
portion of the earth’s surface as to render it invisible to most of our
readers, being confined to a region within 42° of the North Pole, and
embracing the North Pole, North Sea, Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, and the
Scandinavian Peninsula. In Washington mean time, it begins on the 27th
at 10:20.4 a. m., in longitude 9° 28.2′ east, latitude 54° 11.5′ north;
greatest eclipse occurs at 11:10.5 a. m., in longitude 7° 50.1′ west,
latitude 72° 5′ north; and eclipse ends at six minutes after 12:00 p.
m., in longitude 103° 54.3′ west, latitude 87° 12.8′ north. This eclipse
will excite little or no interest among astronomers, since the shadow
cast by the moon hides only a small portion (about ⅐) of the sun’s disc,
and will not afford any opportunity for observing the sun’s corona and
the colored prominences (seen till lately only in total eclipses) which
have been a source of so much interest and speculation to the scientific
world. It may, indeed, not be saying too much to assert that hereafter
eclipses of the sun may be looked upon as something to exercise the
mathematical ability of students, and not as a means of obtaining a
knowledge of the physical properties of that body. For it has already
been demonstrated that the colored prominences may be examined at any
time when the sun can be seen; and it is believed that Mr. Huggins has
accomplished the difficult feat of photographing the corona, so that it
too may be scrutinized _at leisure_. The importance of this discovery can
be approximately estimated when we remember that, as Mr. Proctor asserts,
“adding together all the minutes of total solar eclipse during an entire
century, we obtain a period of about eight days during which the corona
can be observed.”