Excerpt from The Story of Eclipses Inasmuch as the Earth and the Moon are for our present purpose pratically solid bodies, each must cast a shadow into space as the result of being illuminated by the Sun, regarded as a source of light. What we shall eventually have to consider is: What results arise from the existence of these Shadows according to the Circum stances under which they are viewed P But before reach ing this point, some other preliminary considerations must be dealt with. The various bodies which together make up the solar system, that is to say, in particular, those bodies called the planets - some of them primary, others second ary (alias Satellites or Moons - are constantly in motion. Consequently, if we imagine a line to be drawn between any two at any given time, such a line will point in a different direction at another time, and so it may occasionally happen that three of these ever-moving bodies will come into one and the same straight line. Now the consequences of this state Of things were admir ably well pointed out nearly half a century ago by a popu lar writer, who in his day greatly aided the development of science amongst the masses. When one of the ex tremes of the series of three bodies which thus assume a common direction is the Sun, the intermediate body de prives the other extreme body, either wholly or partially. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.