486 Dr. Moll on the Invention of Telescopes. 



spy-glasses (lunettes), with which a ivriting may be read at the 

 distance of a league, which we do not easily believe here*.' 



And in another place I he says, ' We are told marvellous 

 things here about the inventions of Cornelius Drubelsius Alk- 

 mariensis, who is in the service of the King of Great Britain, 

 and who lives in a house near London ; amongst others, a 

 covered boat, which goes between two waters ; a glass globe, 

 which he makes to represent the tides, by a perpetual motion, 

 regulated like the natural tide of the sea, and of a spy-glass, 

 which makes one read a writing at more than a league (or a 

 mile) distance. I beg you to write me a word about the truth 

 of each of these inventions. We have here those small glasses 

 (lunettes), by which insects and mites appear as large as flies, 

 which is certainly admirable ; but I should like to know what is 

 true respecting these other inventions.' 



It would appear that the invention was attributed by some 

 persons to the soldier of Sedan, whose name appears to have 

 been CrepiJ. He left, as we have seen, the Low Countries 

 in December, 1608, and in May following, 1609, we find a 

 Frenchman in Milan making telescopes. Sirturus gives us 

 the following account of this transaction : 



* A Frenchman hurried to Milan in May, 1609, who offered 

 a telescope to the Count de Fuentes. He called himself a 

 partner of the Dutch inventor. The Count gave the instru- 

 ment to a silversmith, to have it included in a silver tube ; it 

 fell into the hands of Sirturus, who handled and examined it, 

 and made a similar one (if his assertion is to be believed) ; but 

 perceiving that much depended on the glass, he went to Venice 

 to get some at the workmen.' 



Simon Marius, who disputed the discovery of the satellites 

 of Jupiter with Galileo, speaks of another Dutch telescope, 

 which came into foreign parts at a very early stage of the inven- 

 tion. He says that, in 1608, at the autumnal Franckfort mass 

 or fair (usually held in September), a certain General Fuchs 

 de Bimbach, an amateur of mathematics, heard from a Dutch- 



* Gul. Caradenii et ill. viror. ad Camden. Epistol. London, 1691. p. 333. 



t Page 387. 



J Borel de verotelescopii inventore, p. 19. 



Sirturus de telescopio. Edit, Franckf. 1618, 4to. minori, p. 25. 



