Other
Scientific paper
May 1904
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1904natur..70....6t&link_type=abstract
Nature, Volume 70, Issue 1801, pp. 6 (1904).
Other
Scientific paper
UNDER the date DCCCLXXIX, Asser, in his ``Life of King-Alfred,'' gives the following entry:-``Eodem anno eclipsis solis inter nonam et vesperam, sed proprius ad nonam, facta est.'' The oldest manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also notes an eclipse in 879, but it cannot be doubted that in each case the reference is to the eclipse of October 29, 878, which was total in South Wales and southern England. Particulars of the eclipse are given by Mr. Maguire in the Notices of the Astronomical Society, vols. xlv., 400, and xlvi., 26. The sun rose totally eclipsed in 73° N. and 42° 8' W. at about 9.53 local time, and the central line of the eclipse, after passing near Dublin, Aberystwith, Dover and Fulda, went off the earth at sunset, about 130 miles south of Moscow at 4.20 local time; St. David's, Winchester and London were within the limits of totality. With regard to the hour of the eclipse, it is needful to consider not only mean time and apparent time, but also natural time, which was the kind of time then in use, according to which the period between sunrise and sunset was conceived to be divided into twelve hours, which were, of course, much shorter in winter than in summer. As the sun rose at London on the day of the eclipse about 7.20, the natural hour would have contained only about 47 minutes of mean time. Mr. Maguire gives the middle of the eclipse at St. David's about 1.12, and at London about 1.18 mean time, and subtracting the equation of time, about 15 minutes, we have 12.57 and 1.3 for the apparent time as shown by a sundial; correcting for natural time, We obtain 1.13 for St. David's and 1.20 for London. Finally, making allowance for the difference of longitude, we see that totality occurred at St. David's at 12.46, and at London at 1.20, according to local time as shown by a waterclock, or some other time-keeper, properly regulated to mark the natural hours. We now have to consider what Asser meant by Nonam and Vesperam. Those who have written about the passage have taken Nonam to be identical with Nonam Horam, but probably they have not been right in doing so. It is shown in the ``Dictionary of Christian Antiquities'' (i. 793) that the day and night were divided into four equal parts, and that each quarter of the day was named after the last hour in it. ``None embraces the seventh, eighth and ninth hours; and the last called Duodecima contains the tenth, eleventh and twelfth, ending at Sunset.'' Asser, however, evidently uses Vespera for Duodecima. Nona is, in fact, noon, the point when the sun is on the meridian, the beginning of the seventh hour, and Vespera is the point half-way between noon and sunset, in this case 2.20 mean time and 3.0 natural time. Thus what Asser says is this, that the eclipse was total at a point of time between noon and 1.30 natural time, and we see that the statement is true for any point in England or Wales. If we could be sure that the sentence about the hour of the eclipse was written by Asser of St. David's, it would be a very strong argument, indeed, for the genuineness of the book which is called by his name, for it fixes the moment of the eclipse correctly to within seventy minutes of mean time for any place at which it is possible that the book could have been written.
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