In 1724 there occurred an eclipse, the total phase of which was visible from the south-west of England, but not from London. The weather was unfavourable, and the eclipse consequently appears to have been seen by only one person, a certain Dr. Stukeley, who observed it from Haraden Hill near Salisbury Plain. This is the last eclipse of which the total phase was seen in any part of England. The next will not be until June 29, 1927, and will be visible along a line across North Wales and Lancashire. The discs of the sun and moon will just then be almost of the same apparent size, and so totality will be of extremely short duration; in fact only a few seconds. London itself will not see a totality until the year 2151--a circumstance which need hardly distress any of us personally! It is only from the early part of the nineteenth century that serious scientific attention to eclipses of the sun can be dated. An _annular_ eclipse, visible in 1836 in the south of Scotland, drew the careful notice of Francis Baily of Jedburgh in Roxburghshire to that curious phenomenon which we have already described, and which has ever since been known by the name of "Baily's beads." Spurred by his observation, the leading astronomers of the day determined to pay particular attention to a total eclipse, which in the year 1842 was to be visible in the south of France and the north of Italy. The public interest aroused on this occasion was also very great, for the region across which the track of totality was to pass was very populous, and inhabited by races of a high degree of culture. This eclipse occurred on the morning of the 8th July, and from it may be dated that great enthusiasm with which total eclipses of the sun have ever since been received. Airy, our then Astronomer Royal, observed it from Turin; Arago, the celebrated director of the Paris Observatory, from Perpignan in the south of France; Francis Baily from Pavia; and Sir John Herschel from Milan. The corona and three large red prominences were not only well observed by the astronomers, but drew tremendous applause from the watching multitudes. The success of the observations made during this eclipse prompted astronomers to pay similar attention to that of July 28, 1851, the total phase of which was to be visible in the south of Norway and Sweden, and across the east of Prussia. This eclipse was also a success, and it was now ascertained that the red prominences belonged to the sun and not to the moon; for the lunar disc, as it moved onward, was seen to cover and to uncover them in turn. It was also noted that these prominences were merely uprushes from a layer of glowing gaseous matter, which was seen closely to envelop the sun.