The partial eclipse of the sun visible in Elizabeth City Monday afternoon passed unnoticed except by a few young folks who smoked pieces of glass and watched the little old moon, traveling 25 miles a minute, get in between the earth and the sun for a period of 169 seconds. Thru a smoked glass the sun looked to these Elizabeth City folks like a cheese that had been gnawed into by a big rat. In some other parts of the earth the eclipse was complete and the sun could not be seen at all for a time.
The moon was something like a child walking between you and your reading lamp. The eclipse was photographed by scientists on the earth and from flying machines, but only savages were agitated. We don’t believe as they once did, that a dragon is eating up the sun. And we don’t think that angry gods are warning us to behave ourselves.
In the old days they took eclipses so seriously that two armies, about to fight, turned tail and went home when the sun began to disappear. It was a poor ruler that didn’t have some kind of eclipse when he died.
From the first page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, Sept. 14, 1923
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