ening shout of applause, much in the way in which they would salute a military hero, or a popular actor. The moon gradually crept over the sun, and, for a considerable time, there was nothing observable but the ordinary loquacity of a French crowd. As the eclipse drew towards totality, the murmur of twenty thousand voices rapidly increased—each telling his neighbour of the strange feelings coming over him. Suddenly, the last filament of the sun's disc was covered, and, at that moment, a deep prolonged moan, as from one man, arose from that vast crowd. It was like the stifled groan of the multitude witnessing a public execution, at the moment that the axe or the drop falls. The moan, however, did not mark the climax of high-strained feeling. The dead silence that ensued was the culminating point. Not a whisper was heard, not an attitude was changed, as with the rigidity of a statue each man stood and gazed upwards. So unearthly was the silence, that the beat of the chronometers was heard with painful distinctness. The heart of the universe seemed to cease its throbbings. Nature had fallen into a state of syncope. For two and a half minutes this dreadful pause continued. At the end of this period a thread of light burst forth; the tension was at once relieved, and one loud burst of joy rent the heavens. The people could not restrain their transports of happiness, now that the dread, undefinable woe had passed over. They did not care now to look at the final phase of the eclipse,
