206 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



' The Ptolemean system was too complicated, and the new one 

 which that great man Copernicus had proposed, following in the 

 footsteps of Aristarchus of Samos, though there was nothing in it 

 contrary to mathematical principles, was in opposition to those of 

 physics, as the heavy and sluggish earth is unfit to move, and the 

 system is even opposed to the authority of Scripture.' 



Dreyer, Tycho Brahe. 



URANIBORG. The observatory of Uraniborg the castle of 

 the heavens at Hveen was an extraordinary establishment. 



In a large square inclosure oriented according to the points of 

 the compass, were several observatories, a library, laboratory, 

 living-rooms and, later, workshops, a paper-mill and printing- 

 press, and even underground observatories. The whole estab- 

 lishment was administered with lavish extravagance, while Tycho 

 was neither careful of his obligations nor free from arbitrary ar- 

 rogance in his personal and administrative relations. In spite of 

 these difficulties " a magnificent series of observations, far transcend- 

 ing in accuracy and extent anything that had been accomplished 

 by his predecessors" was carried on for not less than 21 years. 

 At the same time medicine and alchemy were also cultivated. 



Concerned as he was to secure the greatest possible accuracy, 

 Tycho constructed instruments of great size; for example, a 

 wooden quadrant for outdoor use with a brass scale of some ten 

 feet radius, permitting readings to fractions of a minute. 



The best artists in Augsburg, clockmakers, jewellers, smiths, and 

 carpenters, were engaged to execute the work, and from the zeal 

 which so noble an instrument inspired, the quadrant was completed 

 in less than a month. Its size was so great that twenty men could 

 with difficulty transport it to its place of fixture. The two principal 

 rectangular radii were beams of oak; the arch which lay between 

 their extremities was made of solid wood of a particular kind, and the 

 whole was bound together by twelve beams. It received additional 

 strength from several iron bands, and the arch was covered with 

 plates of brass, for the purpose of receiving the 5400 divisions into 

 which it was to be subdivided. A large and strong pillar of oak, shod 

 with iron, was driven into the ground, and kept in its place by solid 



