3-034-834 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Total Solar Eclipse of Dec. 12: II. - central eclipse, now in south of Sumatra, 1871. 'The moon passes onwards with a slightly descending motion (as if making for the feathered end of the arrow in our figures), and at the end of fifty minutes the earth presents the appearance shown in fig. II. She has turned round by nearly an hour's rotation on her axis, as is shown by the advance of Africa into view (day, in fact, has begun along the eastern shores of Africa). But let the reader notice what progress the eclipse has made. The moon's centre has already passed South India and Ceylon, and the parties there are, let us hope, engaged in recording a series of successful observations. Where Lockyer and the rest of the Government expedition are stationed the sun shows more than half his face, for our figure shows Ceylon outside the outline of the moon's disc as seen from the sun's centre. Totality is now in progress near the south of Sumatra, and the French party in Java have but a few minutes to wait before their turn comes. At the North Australian station (supposing the observing parties to have selected the western shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria) the eclipse has just begun'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.