104 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[May 1, 1900. 



above the statue, and plainly visible in the photogi-aph, 

 represents Galileo in the act of demonstrating the 

 merits of his newly constructed telescope to the 

 assembled senate at Venice. 



Ranged along the walls are glass cabinets, containing 

 man)' valuable instruments dating from the time of 

 Galileo and his School, but it is in the two cabinets on 

 either side of the statue that our chief interest centres. 

 In the one to the left of the spectator is preserved, care- 

 fully mounted in an elaborate hexagonal frame of 

 worked ivory and ebony, the object-glass which Galileo 

 fashioned with his own hands. This precious bit of 

 glass, if one may believe the Latin inscription on the 

 frame, aflForded the great astronomer his first glimpse 

 of Jupiter's satellites, and thus enabled him to announce 

 to the world the great discoveiy which firmly established 



served in the cabinet to the right of the spectator. 

 Mounted on a short marble pillar, adorned with the 

 usual allegorical Latin inscription, is a crj-stal vial con- 

 taining the index finger of one of Galileo's hands. It 

 was severed from his body just before the latter was 

 consigned to its last resting place beneath the grand 

 monument prepared for it in that 'Westminster Abbey 

 of Florence, the Church of Santa Croce. 



The remaining cases contain a valuable collection of 

 astronomical, nautical, and geodesical instruments 

 formerly belonging to the Accademia del Cimento, the 

 famous institution which, rising as it were, from the 

 ashes of Galileo, counted among its members such men 

 as Borelli, Viviani, and Redi, and which chose for its 

 motto the significant words, " Provando e Riprovando." 



Some old telescopes with wooden " bodies " by 



Tlie TribuDa di Galileo in the iluseum uf Physical Scienee at Florence. ^Photo bv Alinari, Florence.) 



the Copemican doctrine, and which elicited Kepler's 

 famous message of congratulation to his fellow worker, 

 parodying the last words of the Emperor Julian : 

 " Galileo vicisti ! "f The little lens, barely an inch and 

 a half in diameter, which sufficed to reveal the four 

 " Medicean Stars " to the eye of the " Tuscan ai-tist," 

 compares strangely with the great thirty-sis inch object- 

 glass on Mount Hamilton which, two hundred and 

 eighty-two years later, added a fifth member to the little 

 group forming ths Jovian system. Preserved in this 

 same cabinet, and just discernible in the photograph 

 above the frame containing the object-glass, are two 

 of the first telescopes which Galileo is said to have 

 constructed. 



A somewhat gruesome relic of the great man is pre- 



t "Gralilcan, thou hast couqiiereJl" 



Torricelli of Florence, dating from the year 1644, 

 together with othei-s in quaint leather coverings, em- 

 bossed with curious gilt ornamentations, constriicted by 

 Campani of Rome in 1666, are also preserved here and 

 serve to complete a collection which, alike to the student 

 and the antiquarian, is of absorbing interest through- 

 out. 



ASTRONOMY WITHOUT A TELESCOPE. 



By E. Walter Maunder, f.r.a.s. 



IV.— A TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE. 



It is the misfortune of the British Isles to be so com- 

 pletely shunned by total eclipses of the sun that a cen- 

 tury and three-foui-ths has passed since the last visible in 

 England, and more than a quai-ter of a ccntuiT has still 



