On the 15th of March 1858, occurred an annular eclipse of the sun, whose entral line of shadow passed near the village of Steeple Aston, a few miles orth of Oxford. Ample preparations were made for observing it by residents in Oxford, and they were met on the ground by many persons from distance; Mr. Lasseli being one of the party, there was no lack of telescopic power. The day was unfavourable—cold and cloudy, with some ccasional feeble and delusive gleams, scarcely permitting a sight of the rogress of the eclipse, which, however, was obvious enough by the grow-g and diminishing darkness. Under these circumstances I devoted my trincipal attention to three thermometers, carefully selected and compared forehand—one mercurial with blackened bulb, another mercurial with lear bulb (these were placed in an open space exposed to the sun); the third, minimum- spirit thermometer, tint red, was placed in a shaded situation. The observations began at 11
h
30
m
and lasted till 2
h
30
m
, thus including he whole period of the eclipse, which began at 11
h
35
m
, reached the maxium of obscuration at 0
h
54
m
, and ended at 2
h
11
m
. The apparent semi-ameters of the sun and moon were so nearly equal that the eclipse was lmost total (997/1000). The observations were recorded as follows:— During the late partial eclipse of the sun on the 6th of March 1867 observations of'the ingress of the moon were favoured at Oxford by brilliant weather; within fire minutes after the moment of maximum obscuration (742/1000) Clouds appeared; and from this time till the end of the eclips they never wholly disappeared, but did not prevent the progress of the moon and the degrees of obscuration from being correctly marked. At the very end it was only just possible to observe the egress by a momentary attenuation of the clouds; the remainder of the day was cold, cloudy, and finally snowy. The observations began at 8
h
and ended at 10
h
50
s
, thus including the whole period of the eclipse, which began at 8
h
12
m
15
s
, reached the greatest obscuration at 9
h
26
m
, and ceased at 10
h
45
m
8
s
. At the moment of greatest obscuration the light-giving area was reduced to one-third of the solar disk.
The Place Where the Sun Rises: An Application of IWRM at the Village Level
