Note 70 — CHAP. XVIII. Of Eclipses: Their Number and Periods. A large Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Eclipses.
Reading edition
The reader may probably find it difficult to understand why Mr. Smith should reckon this Eclipse to have been in the 4th year of the 48th Olympiad; as it was only in the end of the third year: and also why the 28th of May, in the 585th year before Christ should answer to the present 10th of that month. But we hope the following explanation will remove these difficulties.
The month of May (when the Sun was eclipsed) in the 585th year before the first year of Christ, which was a leap-year, fell in the latter end of the third year of the 48th Olympiad; and the fourth year of that Olympiad began at the Summer Solstice following: but perhaps Mr. Smith begins the years of the Olympiad from January, in order to make them correspond more readily with Julian years; and so reckons the month of May, when the Eclipse happened, to be in the fourth year of that Olympiad.
The Place or Longitude of the Sun at that time was ♉ 29° 43ʹ 17ʺ, to which same place the Sun returned (after 2300 years, viz.) A. D. 1716, on May, 9d. 5h. 6m. after noon: so that, with respect to the Sun’s place, the 9th of May, 1716 answers to the 28th of May in the 585th year before the first year of Christ; that is, the Sun had the same Longitude on both those days.