Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	eclipse_n	moon_n	shadow_n	2,791	5	10.2259	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49911	Memoirs and observations typographical, physical, mathematical, mechanical, natural, civil, and ecclesiastical, made in a late journey through the empire of China, and published in several letters particularly upon the Chinese pottery and varnishing, the silk and other manufactures, the pearl fishing, the history of plants and animals, description of their cities and publick works, number of people, their language, manners and commerce, their habits, oeconomy, and government, the philosophy of Confucius, the state of Christianity : with many other curious and useful remarks / by Louis Le Compte ... ; translated from the Paris edition, and illustrated with figures.	Le Comte, Louis, 1655-1728.	1697 (1697)	Wing L831; ESTC R15898	355,133	724

have given him leave to make use of Instruments we should never have seen any thing more ingenious on this Subject The Eclipse appeared Central that is to say the Center of the Moon was quite opposite to the Center of the Sun but because the apparent Discus of the Sun was at that time bigger than that of the Moon there was seen in the Heavens a bright Ring or a great Circle of Light and what is most to be wondred at on this Occasion is that Father Tachard assures us that this Circle was at least a Fingers-breadth which would not agree neither with the Tables of ancient Astronomers nor of the Moderns but it is no 〈◊〉 easy Matter to make a just Estimate of the bigness of Luminous Bodies when one judges only upon View because the Light that sparkles and reflects causeth them evermore to appear much bigger than they really are However these sort of Eclipses which are called Annulary Eclipses are very rare yea and some Mathematicians are of Opinion that there cannot be any at all because they suppose as a thing granted by all hands that the Diameter of the Moon even in it's Apogaeum that is at it's greatest Distance from the Earth was always either equal to that of the Sun or even sensibly greater So likewise Kepler writing to Clavius upon th● Account of an Annulary Eclipse that they had observed at Rome on the 9th of April in the Year 1567 pretends that this Luminary Border was nothing else but a little Crown of condensed Air enflamed or enlightned by the Sun-beams broken or refracted in the Atmosphere of the Moon This last Observation may be capable of undeceiving those who may have persisted obstinately to follow the like Opinion as well as to disabuse Gassendus his Disciples who imagin that the Sun cannot flow over the Moon above Four Minutes at most that is to say by it's 180th Part. Besides these Two Eclipses we have also seen some others of lesser Consequence which I shall forbear to mention because they contain nothing ext●aordinary Those of the Moon have most employed our time not only because they are in a greater Number but because there is greater difficult to observe them well The brighter the Sun is the more sensible is its desect and the body of the Moon very obscure and opake of it self depriving us of the sight of it doth not permit us to doubt so much as one moment of the beginning or ending of its Eclipse but it is not so with the Moon that does not lose its Light but by degrees and by an almost insensible Diminution As the Experience we have of it makes us better perceive all these difficulties than the most profound Speculations Will you please Sir to let me acquaint you in few Words what perplexes us the most as to this Point The Earth in its different Aspects ●it bears to the Sun hath always one half of its Globe enlightned whilst its other Hemisphere must needs be in Darkness like a Bowl that is enlightened by a Wax candle by Night so that on one side there is a projection as it were a long Tail of Shadow in fashion of a Cone the point whereof is very far extended and loseth itself at length in the vast extent of Air. When therefore the Moon by its particular Motion passes through this teneb●ous Space she loseth her Light and becomes obscure herself but now if we could mark the very Moment wherein she enters into it and comes out again we should know exactly the beginning and ending of the Eclipse but several Accidents that happen at that time do not suffer us to observe it with so great niceness First of all a long time before the Moon touches the Shadow I but just now mentioned its oriental Border is enlightened only by a small Portion of the Sun which the Earth deprives her of by little and little and by piece-meal so that at that time there is to be seen a kind of Smoak that spreads abroad insensibly upon the Body of the Moon which often precedes the real Shadow a Quarter of an Hour being this Smoak always increases according as the Eclipse approaches it is so confounded and mixed with the beginning of the Shadow that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from it So that neither Experience nor Application nor yet the best Telescopes ca● hinder an able Observator from mistaking sometimes One Minute nay and sometimes Two Secondly when I say that the Eclipse is caused by the interposition of the Terrestrial Globe it is not that the Moon is then plunged into its Shadow which never reaches farther than Fifty Thousand Leagues supposing the Earth's Diameter to be 1146 Sea-Leagues whereas the Moon even in her Perigaeum is above 57000 Leagues from the Earth But the Globe of the Earth being encompassed with a thick and gross Air which we call its Atmosphere which the Rays cannot quite penetrate there is caused by the interposition of those Vapours a new Shadow whose Diameter and Length do far surpass the true Shadow of the Earth Now these Vapors are so much the more Transparent as they are the more Remote from us whence it comes to pass that they also make a more faint Shadow at the beginning and end of the Eclipse and consequently they do not afford that Liberty to Observators to determin them with any exactness You may understand by that Sir why we often discover the Moon yea at the very height of the Eclipse so far as to distinguish her smallest Spots why she paints herself at that time in so various Colors for she appears Red Ash colored Iron-gray Bluish or somewhat inclining to Yellow insomuch that she seems to be herself sensible of her failings and shews certain signs of her different Passions You see on the contrary why in some certain Eclipses she totally disappears and steals quite out of our sight All this doth no question happen from the Nature of this Atmosphere which changes perpetually and thereby produces these different effects In the Third Place when the Moon begins to grow dark near the Horizon it is yet more difficult to observe well the beginning of it and a Man must take special Notice that the Time of this apparent beginning compared with the Time of its ending doth not give you the middle of the Eclipse exactly because the Vapors are much more gross at the Horizon than they are at Thirty or Forty Degrees of elevation Fourthly altho the direct Rays of the Sun do not pass through the Atmosphere of the Earth yet are there a great many of them that turning aside or as they speak by being broken by refraction may enlighten the Border of the Moon and consequently hinder the Shadow from being exactly Terminated Fifthly it sometimes cometh to pass that the Shadow begins to touch the Oriental Edge of the Moon at the place where the Spots are more obscure than those of the Occidental Border which makes

the different Figures of Mars Mercury and Venus which appeared to us sometimes round sometimes gibbose sometimes dicotomised and ever and anon in fashion of a Bow or Sickle and the truth is when Venus approaches the Sun and when she is besides in her Perigaeon she appears in the Telescope so little different from the New Moon that it is very easie for one to commit a mistake I do remember that causing a Chinese to observe it in this posture who had but little skill in Astronomical Secrets he did no longer doubt but presently gave his assent and making him at the same take notice of the Moon at a place in the Heavens not far remote He cried out for joy and told me then that he now comprehended that which had always perplext him I did not know says he seriously how the Moon could change Faces so often and appear sometimes in the wax and sometimes in the wane but now I perceive it is a Redy composed of several parts which sometimes is taken in pieces and then join'd together again after some certain times for to day at least I see one half of it on one side and one half on the other The Knowledge also that we have acquired by Telescopes concerning the number of the Stars is likewise more curious That large Fascia that embraces almost the whole Heaven which they commonly call for whiteness the Milky-way is a congeries of an infinite number of Minute Stars each one of which in particular hath not strength enough to affect our eyes no more can the Nebulosae whose dim and confused Light is like to a little Cloud or head of a Comet yet it is a compound of several Stars so they reckon thirty six of them in that of Praesepe cancri twenty one in that of Orion forty in the Pleiades twelve in the single Star that makes the middle of the Sword of Orion five hundred in the extent of two degrees of the same Constellation and two thousand five hundred in the whole Sign which hath given occasion to some to imagin that the number of them is infinite At least it is true that the prodigeous bigness of each Star which according to some differ but little from the Sun that is to say whose Globe is perhaps a thousand times bigger than that of the Earth which nevertheless appears but as a Point in the Heavens ought to convince us of the vast extent of this Universe and of the infinite Power of its Author I cannot Sir finish this Discourse before I have spoken of some Observations we have made of the Satellites These are so many little Planets that belong to the train of bigger ones which were detected in our Age they continually turn about Saturn Iupiter and Mars c. some nearer and some farther off from the center of their motion they sculk sometimes behind their Body sometimes again they are plunged into their Shadow from whence they come out more splendid nay it even happens that when they are between the Sun and their Planet they Eclipse one part of it I have sometimes beheld with a great deal of delight a black Point that run upon the discus of Iupiter which one would have taken for a blemish yet in effect was nothing else but the shadow of one of these Satellites that caused an Eclipse upon its Globe as the Moon does upon the Earth when by her Interposition she deprives it of the Sun 's light We do not know for what particular use Nature hath designed these Satellites in the Heavens but that which we Astronomers make use of them is very useful for the perfection of Geography and since M. Cassini hath communicated his Tables to the Observators one may easily and in a very small time determine the Longitude of the principal Cities of the World Insomuch that if the irregular Motion of Shps would permit us to make use of the Telescopes at Sea the Science of Navigation would be perfect enough to make long Voyages with a great deal of safety We have observed the immersions and emersions of the Satellites Iovis at Siam Louveau Pontichery at the Cape of Good Hope and in several Cities of China but the observations made at Nimpo and Chambay that are the most Eastern Cities have reduc'd the great Continent to its true limits by cutting off above five hundred Leagues from the Country that never subsisted but in the imagination of the antient Geographers Since Sir I speak of what respects the perfection of Geography I shall tell you moreover that we have taken some pains to determine the Latitude of Coasts Ports and the most considerable Cities of the East by two other methods First By a great number of Observations about Meridian Altitudes of the Sun and Stars Secondly By divers Maps and Sea Charts that our Voyages have given us occasion to invent or perfect I have a Ruttiér or Directory for finding out the Course of a Vessel from Nimpo to Pekin and from Pekin to Ham-cheou where we have omitted nothing that may any way contribute to the perfect knowing of the Country so that the particularities of it is in my Opinion too large nay and even too troublesome to those who in these sorts of Relations do rather seek after delight than profit I have also by me the Course of the Rivers that lead from Nankin to Canton it is the Work of two or three months and a tedious one too I 'll assure you when one would do things to purpose the Map is eighteen Foot long and each minute takes up above four Lines or the third part of Inch so that all the By ways the breadth of the River the smallest Islands and least Cities are there exactly and acurately set down We had always the Sea Compass in our hand and we always took care to observe ever and anon upon the Road the Meridian Altitude of every particular Star to correct our estimate and determine more exactly the Latitude of the principal Cities of the Country Whereupon Sir I cannot forbear making some reflections in this place which may one day be useful perhaps for the resolving a material Problem in Physicks Men are not yet sure whether all Seas in the World be upon the level one with another The generous Principles of sound Phylosophy will have it that all Liquor of the same Kind that Communicate own with another do spread uniformly whether by their own weight or by the pression of the Air and at last take the same Surface Most of the Experiments are in this Point pretty congruous to Reason yet some later Reflections have started a doubt whether or no the Sea had not really some inclination and were not more elevated in some certain places than in others What I have remarked touching this last Map I but now mentioned seems to back this last Opinion For in the Provinces of Canton and Kiansi is to be seen a Mountain out of which issues two

in this Undertaking we easily perceived that Six Persons busied besides in the Study of Languages and in preaching the Gospel could never be able to go through with such a vast Design It therefore came into our Mind first of all to engage the Europeans that were at that Time in the Indies but above all the Missionaries to the end that every one of us might concur in carrying on a Design equally Beneficial and Glorious to all Nations Secondly to establish in divers Places some particular Houses where our Mathematicians and Philosophers should labour after the Example and under the Conduct of the Academians of Paris who from thence as from the Center of Sciences might communicate their Thoughts their Method and their Discoveries and receive if I may be so bold as to say so as by Reflexion our weak Lights But these Two Expedients so proper in themselves for the promoting of our Project and withal capable to render France Famous to Posterity have hitherto proved ineffectual on the one hand we have found very little Disposition in other Nations to second us on the other hand the Revolutions of Siam have overthrown our fi●st Observatory which the King's Liberality and the Zeal of his Minister of State had in a manner quite finished These Accidents tho' fatal ones did not yet discourage us we had Thoughts of laying the Foundation of a Second Observatory in China still more Magnificent than that of Siam It would have been no such difficult Matter to have built several others afte●ward at Hispaan in Persia at Agria in the Mogul's Country in the Isle of Borneo under the Line in Tartary and in several other Places whose Situation might facilitate the Execution of our Design when that universal War that has set all Europe on Fire so many Years made us sensible of it in the Indies and in one Moment broke all our Measures Perhaps Sir Peace may put us into the same Road again that the Tempest hath forced us to forsake and that all in good time we shall enjoy a Calm equally advantageous to Religion to the People's Happiness and to the Perfection of Sciences In the mean time as contrary Winds do not hinder skilful Pilots to go forward a little notwithstanding they do much retard their sailing so have we endeavoured maugre all these Tempests to pursue our former Design and continue a Work the Essay of which as you may shortly see will not perhaps be altogether unprofitable The difficulty that Men have found from all Antiquity to regulate the Motions of the Stars was never to be overcome either by the Lucubrations of ancient Astronomers or even by all the Penetration of the Neoterics what Endeavours soever our Imagination may have used to dive into these Mysteries of the Omnipotent Creator yet have we made but a sorry Progress and we must needs confess that Heaven is at a much greater distance from our Thoughts and Conception than it is elevated above our Heads Nothing can bring us nearer to it than a continued Series of Observations and an exact Enquiry into every thing that Occurs in the Stars because that this continual Attention to their Motions making us perceive the gross and as it were palpable Errors of ancient Systems gives Occasion to Astronomers to reform them by little and little and make them more conformable to Observation to this purpose in these latter days men have so carefully applied themselves to the perfecting of Instruments Pendulums Telescopes and of whatsoever may any ways bring the Heavens nearer to our Eyes In France England and Denmark and in divers other Places in the World they have elevated huge Machines built magnificent Towers as it were to serve instead of Stairs to those who would proceed in this new Road and the Progress that many Observators have already made is so considerable that one may hope for great Matters in future Ages provided Princes do continue by their Liberality to uphold such a toilsome Piece of Work This is Sir in general what we have contributed towards it for our Part. First of all we have been most conversant in Observing the Eclipses and because those of the Sun have more than all others occasioned peoples Admiration we have been very Diligent to improve all Occasions that might seem favourable to us Amongst those that offered themselves there chanced to be Two somewhat odd and particular and will afford some delight to the Curious The First was the Eclipse that happened about the end of April 1688. We knew that it was to be Total in some Parts of China altho' at Pekin where we sojourned some time before it was to be but indifferent Great for you know Sir there is a great difference between the Eclipses of the Sun and those of the Moon The Moon that hath only a precarious Light is covered with real Darkness when ever the Earth robs her of the Sun beams and doth not appear eclipsed to some certain People but that she at the same time hides her face from the Eyes of others in like manner The Sun on the contrary that is a Body of its own Nature always Splendid always Luminous or rather is light it self can never be Obsuscated or Darkened and when the Moon by covering it seems to deprive it of all its Lustre it is not the Sun that is Eclipsed it is the Earth it is we indeed that do find our selves at that time all in Darkness So that Astronomers would speak more proper if instead of naming it an Eclipse of the Sun they would name it an Eclipse of the Earth Thence it comes to pass that this Eclipse is at the same time very different according to the different Regions where one is insomuch that if several Observators at a distance one from another were placed upon the same Line drawn from East to West it might so happen that the first would see the whole Body of the Sun as it is commonly seen whilst the second would discover but one Part of it There it would appear half covered here it would be no more than an Ark of Light and still farther off it might perchance totally disappear It is likewise for the same Reason that an Observator placed at the Center of the Earth would not behold the Sun Eclipsed as we do here now this Difference which they term the Paralax would increase or decrease according as this Luminary should be more or less elevated above the Horizon this is what the Chinese were hitherto ignorant of and of which to this day they have but a very superficial Knowledge As for the Indians much less capable of being Polished and Refined than the Chinese they are always admiring such wonderful Effects Insomuch that the King of Siam demanded one day if the Sun in Europe was the same with theirs in the Indies being it appeared at the same time so different in these Two Places Wherefore we departed on purpose from Pekin to get to Kiam-cheou a

that it was an assured prognostication of his Death We endeavoured but all in vain to undeceive him by M. Constance his principal Minister of State whom we made apprehensive that the Events of this lower World have no Communication with the particular Motion of the Planets and that altho' our Destiny should depend thereon yet the King was no more concern'd in it than the most abject of his Subjects for whom the Sun and the Stars do as well turn round as for the greatest Potentate upon Earth Nevertheless these Reasons nor abundance of others could set him to rights He still maintain'd that his Reign was not to last long and that he should be a dead Man within a few days In effect he died the next Year but it was in vain for him to seek for the cause of his death in the Heavens which he carried about him for several Years an habitual Distemper did extreamly trouble him at that very time and that without doubt was the true ground of his Fear and Prediction I do not know Sir whether or no these Observations will appear singular and odd to you yet methinks this at least which I am going to have the honour of relating to you does a little deserve your attention You know that Mercury hitherto hath been the least known and if I may so say the least tractable of all the Planets Always absorpt in the rays of the Sun or in the vapours of the Horizon he continually flies it seems all the courtings and caresses of Astronomers who are put to as much trouble to fix him in the Heavens as Chymists are to fix their Mercury upon Earth We read in the Life of Charlemagne that the Mathematicans of his times despairing of ever being able to observe him well when he was the farthest remote from the Sun endeavoured to find him in the Sun it self under which they suspected he might sometimes pass They supposed they had there sound him in the Month of April 807. or rather 808. except the Historian counted the beginning of the Year at that time from Easter In effect a black Spot appeared in the Sun eight days tho' his going in and coming out were hindered by a Cloud I wonder this Observation could have been able to make them judge that this was Mercury who is so far from spending eight days in running over such a little space that he must according to his natural course finish it in a very few hours besides that it is utterly impossible for a Man to perceive him in the Sun without the help of a Telescope and that too a very good one What therefore they then saw or supposed to see was without doubt a Spot not unlike those that have so often appeared since but bigger than ordinary and conspicuous enough to be discovered by the bare sight Gassendus was more fortunate Anno 1631. on the seventh of November The Observation he made of it hath rendered him so famous that some Authors to do him Honour have dedicated their Books to him as a Person to whom Astronomy was infinitely obliged Some others also have signaliz'd themselves by this curious disquisition we are the last that have had occasion to imitate them but our Observation peradventure may not deserve the meanest esteem of all those which have been made We were at Canton a Maritim Town of China and pretty well known by the Earopeans Traffick We apply'd our selves to the particular studying of the Motion of this Planet and that made us judge that it would not be altogether impossible to discover it in the Sun on the tenth day of November 1690. to that end we prepared two excellent Tellescopes the one of 5 foot that bore a reticula equal to the diameter divided into twelve equal parts and the other of twelve foot with its reticula composed of four Threads one whereof represented a Parallel and the other the Meridian the two others cut them at the Angle of forty five degrees we also rectified our Pendulums Besides all this the Heavens were exceeding clear and serene and bating the Wind which was a little violent we could wish for nothing to the exactness of our Observation Mercury appeared to us like a black point or speck which entring into the body of the Sun run over it in three hours and a half or thereabouts we exactly observed its time entrance departure its distance from the Ecliptic its apparent swistness longitude and diameter We understood likewise by that with the greatest certainty in the World that this Planet hath no proper light of its own that its Body is Opake and that it is at least sometimes less distant from us than the Sun the which could not formerly be determined but only by conjecture We owe Sir these fine Discoveries to the Invention of Optick Glasses and Telescopes as we do a great many other things which in these latter Ages are the Subject of the New Astronomy So that as by means of Microscopes we multiply the most simple Bodies and magnifie the most minute and almost insensible ones so likewise by help of these Telescopes we approach to our eyes the most distant Objects and do abridge those infinite spaces that separate the Firmament from the Earth Art having in a manner forced Nature to suffer Men to have free commerce with Heaven for time to come and let Mathematicians enter more easily into a kind of Society with the Stars We find at present Mountains and Precipices in the Moon we discern its least Shadows that increase or decrease according to the different posture of the Sun we measure the maculae of Planets we have a shrewd guess of their Colours Latitudes of their circular Motion about their Center It is by that that Men have perceived that prodigious Ring that appeared in the Air suspended about Saturn in form of a Vault or like a Bridge that would encompass the whole Earth without Arches without Piles without any other support beside the uniform weight and perfect continuity of its parts Gallileo and many other Astronomers have in vain put their Brains on the rack to explain this Mystery they look'd upon this Planet as another Proteus always changing always differing from it self to day round then oval by and by Armed with two Ansas or Handles that opened or shut according to the time of the Revolution Or else accompanied with two little Stars that vaulted up and down without ever forsaking it Lastly cut in the middle with a broad Fascia or Swaithing-band whose extremities were extended far beyond its Sphere We have a long time examined this wonderful Work of the Omnipotence of our Creator and notwithstanding we cannot but admire M. Hugens his Ingenuity who hath reduced to such a plain and facile System all these seeming irregularities yet for all that we must confess that we are ignorant of much more of it than that Learned Astronomer was able to discover to us It is less difficult to explain