PORTION OF THE COSMOS. NEBULA. 219 



vellers at the commencement of the 16th century, although 

 Northmen had advanced along the West Coast of Africa as far 

 as Sierra Leone in 8 J N. lat. nearly two hundred years before 

 ( 362 ). It might have been expected that a shining nebulous 

 mass of such great extent, and perfectly visible to the 

 unassisted eye, would have sooner attracted attention ( 363 ). 

 The first detached nebula which was seen and recognised 

 as such by telescopic observation, and commented upon as 

 being destitute of stars and as being an object of a peculiar 

 kind, was that near the star v Andromedse, and which, 

 like the Nubeculse, is visible to the naked eye. Simon 

 Marius (Mayer of Gunzenhausen in Pranconia), who was 

 first a musician and then court mathematician to a Margrave 

 of Culmbach, the same who saw Jupiter's satellites nine 

 days before they were seen by Galileo, ( 364 ) has also the 

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

 description of a nebula. In the preface to his Mundus 

 Jovialis, ( 365 ) he relates that, on the 15th of December, 

 1612, he discovered a fixed star different in appearance from 

 anything which he had ever before seen. It was situated 

 near the third and northernmost star in the girdle of 

 Andromeda : seen with the unassisted eye it appeared only 

 like a small cloud, and viewed through the telescope he 

 could find in it nothing resembling stars ; in which respect 

 it differed from the nebulous stars in Cancer, and from 

 other nebulous groups. All that could be distinguished was 

 a white shining appearance, brighter in the centre and fainter 

 towards the margin. The whole, which was about a fourth 

 of a degree in breadth, resembled a light seen from a distance 

 shining through semi-transparent horn (as in a lantern) : 

 " similis fere splendor apparet, si a longinquo candela arden 



