16 COSMOS. 



was distinctly visible to the naked eye, would have attracted 

 attention sooner.* 



The first isolated nebula which was observed and recog- 

 nized by the telescope as wholly starless and as an object of 

 special nature was the nebula near v Andromeda^, which, like 

 that last mentioned, is also visible to the naked eye. Simon 

 Marius [Mayer], of Gunzenhausen, in Franconia, originally 

 a musician, and subsequently court mathematician of one of 

 the Margraves of Colmbach, the same person who saw the sat- 

 ellites of Jupiter nine days earlier than Galileo,! has also the 

 merit of having given the first, and, indeed, a very accurate 

 description of a nebula. In the preface to his Mundus Jovi- 

 alis,X he relates that, " on the 15th of December, 1612, he 

 observed a fixed object differing in appearance from any he 

 had ever seen. It was situated near the 3d and northern 

 star of Andromeda's girdle ; seen with the naked eye, it ap- 

 peared to him to be a mere cloud, and by the aid of the tel- 

 escope he could not discover any signs of a stellar nature, a 



* Sir John Herschel, Observations at the Cape, § 132. 



t Op. cit., p. 357, 509 (note 43). Galileo, who endeavored to refer 

 the difference in the days of discovery (29th of December, 1609, and 

 7th of January, 1610) to a difference in the calendar, maintained that he 

 had seen the satellites of Jupiter one day earlier than Marius, and even 

 allowed himself to be so far carried away by his indignation at " the 

 falsehood of the heretical impostor of Gutzenhausen" (bugia del im- 

 postore eretico Guntzenhusa?io") as to declare his belief " that very prob- 

 ably the heretic, Simon Marius, never observed the Medicean planets" 

 (" che molto probabilmente il eretico, Simon Mario, non ha osservato gi- 

 ammai iPianeti Medicei"). — See Operedi Galileo Galilei, Padova, 1744, 

 torn, ii., p. 235-237; and Nelli, Vita e Commercio letterario di Galilei, 

 1793, vol. i., p. 240-246. The "heretic" had nevertheless expressed 

 himself very pacifically and modestly in reference to the extent of merit 

 due to his discovery. "I simply affirm," says Simon Marius, in the 

 preface to the Mundus Jovialis, "haec sidera (Brandenburgica) a nullo 

 mortalium mihi ulla ratione commonstrata, sed propria indagine sub ip- 

 sissimum fere tempus, vel aliquanto citius quo Galilaeus in Italia ea pri- 

 mum vidit, a me in Germania adinventa et observata fuisse. Merito 

 igitur Galilgeo tribuitur et manet laus primae inventionis horum side- 

 rum apud Italos. An autem inter meos Germanos quispiam ante me 

 ea invenerit et viderit, hactenus intelligere non potui." " I simply af- 

 firm that I was led to the discovery of these stars, not by any reason- 

 ings of others, but by the result of my own investigations, and that they 

 were observed by me in Germany about the very same time, or a lit- 

 tle sooner, than Galileo first saw them in Italy. To Galileo, among the 

 Italians, is therefore due the merit of having first discovered these stars. 

 But whether, among my own countrymen in Germany, any person be- 

 fore me has discovered and seen them, I have not as yet been able to 

 ascertain." 



X Mundus Jovialis, anno 1609, deteclus ope pertpicilli Belgici. (Nori 

 bergae, 1614.) 



