File:Astronomy for amateurs (1904) (14803709193).jpg

Identifier: astronomyforamat00flam (find matches)
Title: Astronomy for amateurs
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Flammarion, Camille, 1842-1925 Welby, Frances A. (Frances Alice) tr
Subjects: Astronomy
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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forChoisy-le-Roi, Longjumeau, and Dourdan, but verybrief: seven seconds), and August 11, 1999, at 10.28A. M. (total for Beauvais, Compiegne, Amiens, St.Quentin, fairly long: two minutes, seventeen seconds).Paris itself will not be favored before August 12, 2026.In order to witness the phenomenon, one must go andlook for it. This the author did on May 28, 1900, inSpain. The progress of the lunar shadow upon the surfaceof the Earth is traced beforehand on maps that serveto show the favored countries for which our satellite willdispense her ephemeral night. The above figure showsthe trajectory of the total phase of the 1900 eclipse inPortugal, Spain, Algeria, and Tunis. The immutable splendor of the celestial motions hadnever struck the author so impressively as during theobservation of this grandiose phenomenon. With theabsolute precision of astronomical calculations, oursatellite, gravitating round the Earth, arrived upon thetheoretical line drawn from the orb of day to our planet, 272
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273 ASTRONOMY FOR AMATEURS and interposed itself gradually, slowly, and exactly, infront of it. The eclipse was total, and occurred at themoment predicted by calculation. Then the obscureglobe of the Moon pursued its regular course, discoveredthe radiant orb behind, and gradually and slowly com-pleted its transit in front of him. Here, to all observers,was a double philosophical lesson, a twofold impression:that of the greatness, the omnipotence of the inexorableforces that govern the universe, and that of the inex-orable valor of man, of this thinking atom straying uponanother atom, who by the travail of his feeble intelligencehas arrived at the knowledge of the laws by which he^Hke the rest of the world, is borne away through space,through time, and through eternity. The line of centrality passed through Elche, a pic-turesque city of 30,000 inhabitants, not far from Ali-cante, and we had chosen this for our station onaccount of the probability of fine weather. From the terrace of th

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