90 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. FT. in. 



He next turned his attention to Saturn, and before the 

 end of the year he had made out that this planet was not 

 single, but had something on each side of it which he thought 

 were two small stars. This was Saturn's ring, but Galileo's 

 telescope was not powerful enough for him to see it clearly. 

 In the year 1659 another famous astronomer, named 

 Huyghens, saw the ring through a much better telescope, 

 and described it (see Chapter XXI.) 



Sun-Spots. Galileo had now a great wish to go to 

 Rome, so that he might show the new wonders he had dis- 

 covered to the learned men who lived in that city. He 

 accordingly carried his telescope there in 1611, and set it 

 up in the Quirinal Garden. It was there that he first noticed 

 the dark spots on the face of the sun, and observed that they 

 were not always of the same shape, but that two or three 

 would sometimes run into one, or that one would divide it- 

 self into three or four. These spots, which even now can 

 only partly be explained by astronomers, were observed by 

 several other men, especially by an English astronomer 

 named Harriot, about the same time as by Galileo. But 

 Galileo made a special use of his discovery, for he pointed 

 out that the spots move round regularly in about twenty- 

 eight days, disappearing on one side of the sun and re- 

 appearing after some time on the other. This proved that 

 the sun turns round upon its own axis in twenty-eight days. 



Galileo before the Inquisition. And now we come 

 to the sad part of Galileo's history. He was well received in 

 Rome, and the Pop^ even gave him a pension of a hundred 

 crowns; but the judges of the Inquisition, who had caused 

 Bruno to be burnt alive, became uneasy that Galileo should 

 teach so many new things, and especially that he should 

 prove that our earth was not the centre of everything, but a 

 mere speck among the numberless stars and planets in the 



