Show obscuration d s THERE is a frenchman in london who is sometimes referred to as a ta te e prophetic philosopher 1 I among his bis latest predictions said bald to be based on astrological str calculations la Is one to the met effect that a climax to the present season of floods will be a darkening of the sun he hons holds that the sun eun has dark and bright areas scattered over its great eur surface face at intervals the black scots or ray leea areas of burned out sun matter as aa he characterizes them are tun ed towards us every ten years a dark sun SUB surface of greater orlever or lesser magnitude is turned in our direction causing loss gloss of earth heat and a gathering of many vapors in support of this novel theory he be cites the fact that 1882 1872 1862 1862 1852 and so on back were ere seasons of great floods and general epidemics followed or immediately preceded by great wars wan As A a usual thing the earth only falls partially within the shadow of nf the burnt out areas arease the professor eMor mentions but once in about a century we are directly under the region of greatest blacke blackened surface which gives us sun of longer or shorter duration the editor of the st louis republic after reading the frenchmans French mans predictions investigated the matter with the following result plutarch says bays that I 1 the he year vear 44 BC the sun aun was visibly paler for a whole year but the next notice of a sun sun darkening occurred in AD af abera er a lapse ot of over years ers chronik der keuchen records dark days tor and which are surely not at regular intervals of about a century after the dark day of we read of the next occurring on the of august ba 33 which for once nearly hits Fondu point but the next record spoils his guess tor for after august no men lion ls is made of a dark day or days until the year when the sun lost its ordinary light and heat for months the next neit event of the kind is recorded in Hum boldis boldts cosmos as having occurred in september 21 or 29 in the year vear 1091 with as authority however it must be acknowledged that ahat it was exactly a century later almost to a month until the next dark day occurred this last sun darkening was in june 1191 and the next of any consequence on the last day of february in the year 1206 after a lapse of only X fifteen years then again al ain an fn jip 1241 but little more in ore than a third of a century afier theone the one last mentioned the sun darkened and the stars shone brightly at noon and up till about the third hour between 1241 and the celebrated dark day of new england may 19 1780 there are but three such phenomena recorded viz april 2325 23 25 1547 oct act 31 17 1716 16 ana and oct 19 1762 11 whatever may be the cause sun spots or anything else the atmosphere the world over is in a phenomenal phenomenal con in this section today the situ aaion is notable here is in the third of june with the air sufficiently chilly to suggest the propriety of wearing heavy oter overcoats coats the atmosphere overhead looks quite vapory and the light is far from brilliant seems out of sorts aorta |