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perigee accomplishes a revolution, called of the moon's apsides, in 3232d 13h 48m 29.6, or a little more than nine years, notwithstanding its motion is sometimes retrograde and sometimes direct but such is the difference between the disturbing energy of the sun and that of all the planets put together, that it requires no less than 109,830 years for the greater axis of the terrestrial orbit to do the same, moving at the rate of 11"-8 annually. The form of the earth has no sensible effect either on the lunar nodes or apsides. It is evident that the same secular variation which changes the sun's distance from the earth, and occasions the acceleration in the moon's mean motion, must affect the nodes and perigee. It consequently appears, from theory as well as observation, that both these elements are subject to a secular inequality, arising from the variation in the excentricity of the earth's orbit, which connects them with the Acceleration, so that both are retarded when the mean motion is anticipated. The secular variations in these three elements are in the ratio of the numbers 3, 0·735, and 1; whence the three motions of the moon, with regard to the sun, to her perigee, and to her nodes, are continually accelerated, and their secular equations are as the numbers 1, 4.702, and 0.612. A comparison of ancient eclipses observed by the Arabs, Greeks, and Chaldeans, imperfect as they are, with modern observations, confirms these results of analysis. Future ages will develop these great inequalities, which at some most distant period will amount to many circumferences (N. 108). They are, indeed, periodic; but who shall tell their period? Millions of years must elapse before that great cycle is accomplished.

The moon is so near, that the excess of matter at the earth's equator occasions periodic variations in her longitude, and also that remarkable inequality in her latitude, already mentioned as a nutation in the lunar orbit, which diminishes its inclination to the ecliptic when the moon's ascending node coincides with the equinox of spring, and augments it when that node coincides with the equinox of autumn. As the cause must be proportional to the effect, a comparison of these inequalities, computed from theory, with the same given by observation, shows that the compression of the terrestrial spheroid, or the ratio of the difference between the polar and the equatorial diameters, to the diameter of the equator, is 30.05. It is proved analytically, that, if a fluid mass of homogeneous matter, whose particles attract each other

inversely as the squares of the distance, were to revolve about an axis as the earth does, it would assume the form of a spheroid whose compression is. Since that is not the case, the earth cannot be homogeneous, but must decrease in density from its centre to its circumference. Thus the moon's eclipses show the earth to be round; and her inequalities not only determine the form, but even the internal structure of our planet; results of analysis which could not have been anticipated. Similar inequalities in the motions of Jupiter's satellites prove that his mass is not homogeneous, and that his compression is. His equatorial diameter exceeds his polar diameter by about 6000 miles.

The phases (N. 109) of the moon, which vary from a slender silvery crescent soon after conjunction, to a complete circular disc of light in opposition, decrease by the same degrees till the moon is again enveloped in the morning beams of the sun. These changes regulate the returns of the eclipses. Those of the sun can only happen in conjunction, when the moon, coming between the earth and the sun, intercepts his light. Those of the moon are occasioned by the earth intervening between the sun and moon when in opposition. As the earth is opaque and nearly spherical, it throws a conical shadow on the side of the moon opposite to the sun, the axis of which passes through the centres of the sun and earth (N. 110). The length of the shadow terminates at the point where the apparent diameters (N. 111) of the sun and earth would be the same. When the moon is in opposition, and at her mean distance, the diameter of the sun would be seen from her centre under an angle of 1918′′-1. That of the earth would appear under an angle of 6908′′.3. So that the length of the shadow is at least three times and a half greater than the distance of the moon from the earth, and the breadth of the shadow, where it is traversed by the moon, is about eightthirds of the lunar diameter. Hence the moon would be eclipsed every time she is in opposition, were it not for the inclination of her orbit to the plane of the ecliptic, in consequence of which the moon, when in opposition, is either above or below the cone of the earth's shadow, except when in or near her nodes. Her position with regard to them occasions all the varieties in the lunar eclipses. Every point of the moon's surface successively loses the light of different parts of the sun's disc before being eclipsed. Her brightness therefore gradually diminishes before she plunges

into the earth's shadow. The breadth of the space occupied by the penumbra (N. 112) is equal to the apparent diameter of the sun, as seen from the centre of the moon. The mean duration of a revolution of the sun, with regard to the node of the lunar orbit, is to the duration of a synodic revolution (N. 113) of the moon as 223 to 19. So that, after a period of 223 lunar months, the sun and moon would return to the same relative position with regard to the node of the moon's orbit, and therefore the eclipses would recur in the same order were not the periods altered by irregularities in the motions of the sun and moon. In lunar eclipses, our atmosphere bends the sun's rays which pass through it all round into the cone of the earth's shadow. And as the horizontal refraction (N. 114) or bending of the rays surpasses half the sum of the semidiameters of the sun and moon, divided by their mutual distance, the centre of the lunar disc, supposed to be in the axis of the shadow, would receive the rays from the same point of the sun, round all sides of the earth; so that it would be more illuminated than in full moon, if the greater portion of the light were not stopped or absorbed by the atmosphere. Instances are recorded where this feeble light has been entirely absorbed, so that the moon has altogether disappeared in her eclipses.

The sun is eclipsed when the moon intercepts his rays (N. 115). The moon, though incomparably smaller than the sun, is so much nearer the earth, that her apparent diameter differs but little from his, but both are liable to such variations that they alternately surpass one another. Were the eye of a spectator in the same straight line with the centres of the sun and moon, he would see the sun eclipsed. If the apparent diameter of the moon surpassed that of the sun, the eclipse would be total. If it were less, the observer would see a ring of light round the disc of the moon, and the eclipse would be annular, as it was on the 17th of May, 1836, and on the 15th of March, 1858. If the centre of the moon should not be in the straight line joining the centres of the sun and the eye of the observer, the moon might only eclipse a part of the sun. The variation, therefore, in the distances of the sun and moon from the centre of the earth, and of the moon from her node at the instant of conjunction, occasions great varieties in the solar eclipses. Besides, the height of the moon above the horizon

changes her apparent diameter, and may augment or diminish the apparent distances of the centres of the sun and moon, so that an eclipse of the sun may occur to the inhabitants of one country, and not to those of another. In this respect the solar eclipses differ from the lunar, which are the same for every part of the earth where the moon is above the horizon. In solar eclipses, the light reflected by the atmosphere diminishes the obscurity they produce. Even in total eclipses the higher part of the atmosphere is enlightened by a part of the sun's disc, and reflects its rays to the earth. The whole disc of the new moon is frequently visible from atmospheric reflection. During the eclipse of the 19th of March, 1849, the spots on the lunar disc were distinctly visible, and during that of 1856 the moon was like a beautiful rose-coloured ball floating in the ether: the colour is owing to the refraction of the sun's light passing through the earth's atmosphere.

In total solar eclipses the slender luminous arc that is visible for a few seconds before the sun vanishes and also before he reappears, resembles a string of pearls surrounding the dark edge of the moon; it is occasioned by the sun's rays passing between the tops of the lunar mountains: it occurs likewise in annular eclipses.

A phenomenon altogether unprecedented was seen during the total eclipse of the sun which happened on the 8th of July, 1842. The moon was like a black patch on the sky surrounded by a faint whitish light or corona about the eighth of the moon's diameter in breadth, which is supposed to be the solar atmosphere rendered visible by the intervention of the moon. In this whitish corona there appeared three rose-coloured flames like the teeth of a saw. Similar flames were also seen in the white corona of the total eclipse which took place in 1851, and a long rosecoloured chain of what appeared to be jagged mountains or sierras united at the base by a red band seemed to be raised into the corona by mirage; but there is no doubt that the corona and red phenomena belong to the sun. This red chain was so bright that Mr. Airy saw it illuminate the northern horizon through an azimuth of 90° with red light. M. Faye attributes the rosecoloured protuberances to the constitution of the sun, which, like Sir William Herschel, he conceives to be an incandescent globe, consisting of two concentric parts of very unequal density, the internal part being a dark spherical mass, the external a very

extensive atmosphere, at a certain height in which there is a stratum of luminous clouds which constitutes the photosphere of the sun; above this rises his real atmosphere, so rare as to be only visible as a white aureola or corona during total and annular eclipses. M. Faye conceives that from the central mass gaseous eruptions issue, which form the spots by dissipating and partly extinguishing the luminous clouds, and then rising into the rare atmosphere above that they appear as rose-coloured protuberances during annular eclipses. He estimates that the volume of these vapours sometimes surpasses that of the earth a thousand or even two thousand times. Sir William Herschel attributed the spots to occasional openings in the luminous coating, which seems to be always in motion; but whatever the cause of the spots may be, it is certainly periodical. The white corona and beads were seen during the eclipse of the 15th March, 1858, but there were no rose-coloured appearances, in England at least; but the sky was clouded, so that the eclipse was only visible at intervals.

Planets sometimes eclipse one another. On the 17th of May, 1737, Mercury was eclipsed by Venus near their inferior conjunction; Mars passed over Jupiter on the 9th of January, 1591; and on the 30th of October, 1825, the moon eclipsed Saturn. These phenomena, however, happen very seldom, because all the planets, or even a part of them, are very rarely seen in conjunction at once; that is, in the same part of the heavens at the same time. More than 2500 years before our era the five great planets were in conjunction. On the 15th of September, 1186, a similar assemblage took place between the constellations of Virgo and Libra; and in 1801 the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus were united in the heart of the Lion. These conjunctions are so rare, that Lalande has computed that more than seventeen millions of millions of years separate the epochs of the contemporaneous conjunctions of the six great planets.

The motions of the moon have now become of more importance to the navigator and geographer than those of any other heavenly body, from the precision with which terrestrial longitude is determined by occultations of stars, and by lunar distances. In consequence of the retrograde motion of the nodes of the lunar orbit, at the rate of 3' 10"-64 daily, these points make a tour of the heavens in a little more than eighteen years and a half.

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