On a scorching July afternoon in 1878, at the dawn of the Gilded Age,  the moon’s shadow descended on the American West, darkening skies from  Montana Territory to Texas. This rare celestial event―a total solar  eclipse―offered a priceless opportunity to solve some of the solar  system’s most enduring riddles, and it prompted a clutch of enterprising  scientists to brave the wild frontier in a grueling race to the Rocky  Mountains. Acclaimed science journalist David Baron, long fascinated by  eclipses, re-creates this epic tale of ambition, failure, and glory in a  narrative that reveals as much about the historical trajectory of a  striving young nation as it does about those scant three minutes when  the blue sky blackened and stars appeared in mid-afternoon.

 Copies of the book will be available at the library; new members always welcome!