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effect is lost. A common spy-glass, magnifying ten or twelve times, is better, so far as effect is concerned, than the largest telescope. Such an instrument will show not only the corona itself but the so-called "prominences"—fantastic cloud-like forms of rosy colour rising here and there, seemingly from the dark body of the moon.

It is remarkable that though the ancients were familiar with the fact of eclipses, and the more enlightened of them perfectly understood their causes, some even the laws of their recurrence, there are very few actual accounts of these phenomena in the writings of the ancient historians. The old Chinese annals now and then record the fact that an eclipse of the sun occurred at a certain time in some province or near some city of the empire. But no particulars are given. Quite recently the Assyriologists have deciphered from ancient tablets a statement that an eclipse of the sun was seen at Nineveh, B. C. 768, June 15. Our astronomical tables show that there actually was a total eclipse of the sun on this day, during which the shadow passed a hundred miles or so north of Nineveh.

Perhaps the most celebrated of the ancient eclipses, and the one that has given rise to most discussion, is that known as the eclipse of Thales. Its principal historical basis is a statement of Herodotus that in a battle between the Lydians and the Medes the day was suddenly turned into night. The armies thereupon ceased battle and were more eager to come to terms of peace with each other. It