Abstract
THOSE set in authority over the branch of the Eclipse Expedition stationed at Agosta having decided against depending only upon observations to be made from the Observatory there, deputed Mr. Ranyard to proceed to another point upon the line of totality, and selected me as his coadjutor. Accordingly we set off, accompanied by Jarvis and Burgoyne, two of Colonel Porter's Sappers, at half-past nine in the morning of the eventful day; and, after driving some eight miles inland, we attained about eleven o'clock a point which appeared to my companion to present advantages for our object. Leaving the road, we went into the middle of a field of springing oats, on the highest point of a rocky ridge at an elevation of 600ft. above sea level, and of 520ft. above the glacis of Fort Agosta, where were posted the rest of our friends. The spot which Mr. Ranyard selected as the most suitable lay about a hundred yards from a roadside farmhouse, called Casa Vecchia, upon the property of that friend of Science, the Marchese di Sangiuliano, and about two miles distant from the village of Villasmunda. A keen wind was blowing with considerable violence from the north-west, and the situation we had chosen being exposed to its full fury, we at first felt very uneasy with regard to our probable success, for we feared every moment that the telescope would be overturned and injured. A happy thought, however, soon extricated us from our dilemma. Causing our luckless coachman (who wept true Sicilian tears over the imaginary danger to his springless vehicle) to drive it, in the cause of Science, over the rock-sprinkled field, we utilised our carriage as a temporary shelter for ihe precious instrument, and were ready some time before the first contact took place. During the time occupied in perfecting the necessary preliminaries, I noted the position and the structure of the cloud-banks which were instilling into our minds feelings of the keenest anxiety. We were standing in the centre of what I may describe as a comparatively cloudless longitudinal “slit”in the sky, which was otherwise completely covered; so that, while over our heads the sun was shining brightly, its refulgence obscured only occasionally by light, fleecy, flying clouds; to our front and rear were lying parallel lines of heavily-banked “cumuli-strata” running from south-west south-east. Perhaps the accompanying rough diagram (Fig. 1) may serve to illustrate their position in relation to our own.
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SAMUELSON, H. An Account of the Eclipse as Seen From Villasmunda by an Unscientific Observer . Nature 3, 310–311 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/003310a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/003310a0