DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 69^ 



EROLtanus, " that astronomy and physics are so intimately 

 associated together, that neither can be perfected without the 

 other." The results of his researches on the structure of the 

 eye and the theory of vision, appeared in 1604 in the Para- 

 lipomena ad Vitellionem^nd in 1611* in theDioptrica. Thus 

 were the knowledge of the most important objects in the 

 perceptive world and in the regions of space, and the mode 

 of apprehending these objects by means of new discoveries, 

 alike rapidly increased in the short period of the first ten or 

 twelve years of a century which began with Galileo and Kep- 

 ler, and closed with Newton and Leibnitz. 



The accidental discovery of the power of the telescope to 

 penetrate through space, originated in Holland, probably in 

 the closing part of the year 1608. From the most recent 

 investigations it would appear that this great discovery may 

 be claimed by Hans Lippershey, a native of Wesel and a 

 spectacle-maker at Middleburg ; by Jacob Adriaansz, surnamed 

 Metius, who is said also to have made burning-glasses of ice ; 

 and by Zacharias Jansen.f The first-named is always called 



* See Sir David Brewster's judgment on Kepler's optical works, in 

 the "Martyrs of Science," 1846, pp. 179--182. (Compare Wilde, 

 Gesch. der Optik, 1838, th. i. s. 182-210.) If the law of the refraction 

 of the rays of light belong to Willebrord Snellius, professor at Leyden, 

 (1626), who left it behind him buried in his papers, the publication of 

 the law in a trigonometrical form was, on the other hand, first made by 

 Descartes. See Brewster, in the North British Review, vol. vii. p. 207; 

 Wilde, Gesch. der Optik, th. i. s. 227. 



f Compare two excellent treatises on the discovery of the telescope, 

 by Professor Moll of Utrecht, in the Journal of the Royal Institution, 

 1831, vol. i. p. 319; and by Wilde, of Berlin, in his Gesch. der Optik, 

 1838, th. i. s. 138-172. The work referred to, and written in the Dutch 

 language, is entitled "Geschiedkundig Onderzoek naarde eerste Uitfinders 

 der Vernkykers, uit de Aunekenningen van uryle den Hoogl. van Swin- 

 den zamengesteld door, G. Moll/' Amsterdam, 1831. Albers has given 

 an extract from this interesting treatise in Schumacher's Jahrbuch fur 

 1843, s. 56-65. The optical instruments with which Jansen furnished 

 Prince Maurice of Nassau, and the Archduke Albert, (the latter gave 

 his to Cornelius Drebbel), were (as is shown by the letter of the ambas- 

 sador Boreel, who, when a child, had been often in the house of Jansen, 

 the spectacle-maker, and who subsequently saw the instruments in the 

 shop), microscopes eighteen inches in length, " through which smalt 

 objects were wonderfully magnified when one looked djwn at them fron) 

 above." The confusion between the microscope and the telescope had 



