The Wonder Book of Knowledge: The Marvels of Modern Industry and Invention, the Interesting Stories of Common Things, the Mysterious Processes of Nature Simply Explained
History
The Wonder Book of Knowledge: The Marvels of Modern Industry and Invention, the Interesting Stories of Common Things, the Mysterious Processes of Nature Simply Explained
Industrial arts -- History
The theory of lunar eclipses will be understood from Fig. 1, where _S_
represents the sun, _E_ the earth, and _M_ the moon. If the sun were a
point of light there would be a sharply outlined shadow or umbra only,
but since the luminous surface is so large, there is always a region in
which the light of the sun is only partially cut off by the earth, which
region is known as the penumbra (_P P_). Hence during a lunar eclipse
the moon first enters the penumbra, then is totally eclipsed by the
umbra, then emerges through the penumbra again.
An eclipse of the sun is an occultation of the whole or part of the face
of the sun occasioned by an interposition of the moon between the earth
and the sun; thus all eclipses of the sun happen at the time of new
moon.
Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the principle of a solar eclipse. The dark
or central part of the moon’s shadow, where the sun’s rays are wholly
intercepted, is here the umbra, and the light part, where only a part of
them are intercepted, is the penumbra; and it is evident that if a
spectator be situated on that part of the earth where the umbra falls
there will be a total eclipse of the sun at that place; in the penumbra
there will be a partial eclipse, and beyond the penumbra there will be
no eclipse.
As the earth is not always at the same distance from the moon, and as
the moon is a comparatively small body, if an eclipse should happen
when the earth is so far from the moon that the moon’s shadow falls
short of the earth, a spectator situated on the earth in a direct line
between the centers of the sun and moon would see a ring of light around
the dark body of the moon; such an eclipse is called annular, as shown
in Fig. 3; when this happens there can be no total eclipse anywhere,
because the moon’s umbra does not reach the earth.
An eclipse can never be annular longer than twelve minutes twenty-four
seconds, nor total longer than seven minutes fifty-eight seconds; nor
can the entire duration of an eclipse of the sun ever exceed two hours.
An eclipse of the sun begins on the western side of his disc and ends on
the eastern; and an eclipse of the moon begins on the eastern side of
her disc and ends on the western.
The average number of eclipses in a year is four, two of the sun and two
of the moon; and as the sun and moon are as long below the horizon of
any particular place as they are above it, the average number of visible
eclipses in a year is two, one of the sun and one of the moon.
What are Dreams?
The dictionary tells us that a dream is a train of vagrant ideas which
present themselves to the mind while we are asleep.
We know that the principal feature, when we are dreaming, is the absence
of our control over the current of thought, so that the principal of
suggestion has an unlimited sway. There is usually a complete want of
coherency in the images that appear in dreams, but when we are dreaming
this does not seem to cause any surprise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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