How can so small a body as the moon obscure so great a body as the sun, and how can the moon pass in seven minutes across a disk nearly a million of miles in extent? All this can be explained by the nearness of the moon to our globe, and consequently the moon’s great distance from the sun. Any one of us can hide the sun from us by a dinner-plate, or even a dime, if we hold it close enough to our eyes. So we can move a dinner-plate across the disk of the sun, by one sweep of the arm. All depends upon the nearness to ourselves of the screen used. Now as the moon is so near us in time of eclipse, she hides the sun from us; the eclipse may last for an hour, but will be total only for a few moments. Every year there must be more than one eclipse of the sun. The greatest number possible in a year is five, the least two; but these will not all be visible from the same part of the globe. Astronomers call an eclipse partial when the moon passes over one or the other side of the sun’s disk. An annular or ring eclipse is one where the moon is at such a distance from the earth, that she hides only the central part of the sun’s disk, while around the dark shadow thus cast appears a ring of splendid light. A total eclipse of the sun is where the moon is so near us that she hides the entire face of the sun. This can happen only at long intervals for any given locality. Thus, when there is a total eclipse of the sun visible from New York City, it may be hundreds of years before such an eclipse is again seen from there. When the sun is in total eclipse a glorious halo of clear light called a corona, or crown, rays out on all sides behind the black body of the moon. Horns, cones, and streamers of violet, scarlet, orange, and pink light rise up from this crown, and seem to toss and whirl like clouds in a storm. In the careful study of the sun with telescopes, it has been found that there are spots on its surface, which look as if the outer portion of the sun were torn. Now by watching these spots a very wonderful fact has been discovered. What do you think that is? Why, that the sun turns over on its axis, as the earth does. But while the earth rotates once in twenty-four hours, it takes the huge sun about twenty-five days to turn around once. Not only is the sun turning over on its axis, but it has a great path along which it travels in space, and as it goes on it draws with it all the planets and satellites of our system, each held in its proper path by the great force of the sun’s attraction. Thus we have learned that from the sun these great globes, the planets, were thrown off into space, by tangental force, and lest they should go too far away they are held in their paths by his strong attractive force. FOOTNOTES: [21] Nature Reader, No. 3, pp. 40-42. LESSON X. THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT.