<h2 style="margin-top: 1em"><SPAN name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></SPAN>CHAPTER I.</h2>
<p class="subheader">INTRODUCTION.</p>
<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword">It</span> may, I fear, be taken as a truism that “the
man in the street” (collectively, the “general
public”) knows little and cares less for what is
called physical science. Now and again when
something remarkable happens, such as a great
thunderstorm, or an earthquake, or a volcanic
eruption, or a brilliant comet, or a total eclipse,
something in fact which has become the talk of
the town, our friend will condescend to give the
matter the barest amount of attention, whilst he
is filling his pipe or mixing a whisky and soda;
but there is not in England that general attention
given to the displays of nature and the philosophy
of those displays, which certainly is a characteristic
of the phlegmatic German. However,
things are better than they used to be, and the
forthcoming total eclipse of the Sun of May 28,
1900 (visible as it will be as a partial eclipse all
over Great Britain and Ireland, and as a total
eclipse in countries so near to Great Britain as
Spain and Portugal, to say nothing of the United<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</SPAN></span>
States), will probably not only attract a good
deal of attention on the part of many millions of
English-speaking people, but may also be expected
to induce a numerically respectable remnant to
give their minds and thoughts, with a certain
amount of patient attention, to the Science and
Philosophy of Eclipses.</p>
<p>There are other causes likely to co-operate in
bringing this about. It is true that men’s minds
are more enlightened at the end of the 19th
century than they were at the end of the 16th
century, and that a trip to Spain will awaken
vastly different thoughts in the year 1900 to
those which would have been awakened, say in
the year 1587; but for all that, a certain amount
of superstition still lingers in the world, and total
eclipses as well as comets still give rise to feelings
of anxiety and alarm amongst ill-educated
villagers even in so-called civilized countries.
Some amusing illustrations of this will be presented
in due course. For the moment let me
content myself by stating the immediate aim of
this little book, and the circumstances which
have led to its being written. What those
circumstances are will be understood generally
from what has been said already. Its aim is
the unambitious one of presenting in readable
yet sound scientific language a popular account
of eclipses of the Sun and Moon, and (very
briefly) of certain kindred astronomical phenomena
which depend upon causes in some degree
similar to those which operate in connection
with eclipses. These kindred phenomena are
technically known as “Transits” and “Occultations.”<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</SPAN></span>
Putting these two matters entirely aside
for the present, we will confine our attention
in the first instance to eclipses; and as eclipses
of the Sun do not stand quite on the same footing
as eclipses of the Moon, we will, after stating
the general circumstances of the case, put the
eclipses of the Moon aside for a while.</p>
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