"It was now quick work. Each observer at the telescopes gave a furtive
glance at the un-sunlike sun, moved the dark eye-piece from the
instrument, replaced it by a more powerful white glass, and prepared to
see all that could be seen in two minutes forty seconds. They must note
the shape of the corona, its color, its seeming substance, and they must
look all around the sun for the 'interior planet.'
"There was certainly not the beauty of the eclipse of 1869. Then immense
radiations shot out in all directions, and threw themselves over half
the sky. In 1869, the rosy prominences were so many, so brilliant, so
fantastic, so weirdly changing, that the eye must follow them; now,
scarcely a protuberance of color, only a roseate light around the sun as
the totality ended. But if streamers and prominences were absent, the
corona itself was a great glory. Our special artist, who made the sketch
for my party, could not bear the light.
"When the two minutes forty seconds were over, each observer left her
instrument, turned in silence from the sun, and wrote down brief notes.
Happily, some one broke through all rules of order, and shouted out,
'The shadow! the shadow!' And looking toward the southeast we saw the
black band of shadow moving from us, a hundred and sixty miles over the
plain, and toward the Indian Territory. It was not the flitting of the
closer shadow over the hill and dale: it was a picture which the sun
threw at our feet of the dignified march of the moon in its orbit.
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