New Grand Observatory for the Russian Empire. 73 



in which he penetrated as far as Egypt, he announced himself 

 the Protector of Science. Nassireddin resorted to his court, 

 and the strictest friendship was forthwith established between 

 the Khan and Kodjah. Immediately after the capture of Bag- 

 dad, in 1258, the khan gave orders to the treasurer to pay over 

 to Nassireddin whatever sums he might demand for scientific 

 objects ; and the following year the foundation of the observa- 

 tory in the capital, Meragah, was laid, about seventy miles from 

 Tauris. The building was placed upon a hill in the neighbour- 

 hood of the town, and there Nassireddin made observations to 

 a very advanced age ; and the result of these labours is what is 

 now known under the name of the Tables of Ilekan, which for 

 a long time have been the most celebrated of the East. A de- 

 scription of this observatory of Meragah. still exists, which was 

 drawn up by Mujawad de Damas, the friend and assistant of 

 Nassireddin ; from which it appears that the establishment pos- 

 sessed four instruments of Grecian workmanship, and five of 

 Arabian invention, all of such dimensions as to require very sub- 

 stantial buildings for their accommodation. 



Previous to the revival of astronomy in Europe, it flourished 

 amongst the Usbek Tartars, whose prince, Ulugh-Bey, grandson 

 of Tamerlan, was beyond comparison the greatest astronomer of 

 the Middle Ages. Ulugh-Bey reigned at the commencement 

 of the fifteenth century, for forty years, and collected in Samar- 

 kand, his capital, the most able astronomers of Asia,— though, 

 more learned than any of them, they acted merely as his assist- 

 ants in his observatory. His instruments were magnificent, 

 and of a prodigious size. Amongst others he had a gnomon 

 180 feet high, by means of which was determined, by the sha- 

 dows, the latitude of Samarkand, and the obliquity of the ec- 

 liptic. The tables of Ulugh-Bey, and his catalogue of fixed 

 stars, are very properly considered as the principal work on 

 astronomy in the Middle Ages, and imply the taking of obser- 

 vations which surpass in accuracy all that had previously been 

 made. 



It is to these princes that astronomy owes its preservation of 

 the knowledge acquired by the Greeks, not less than its exten- 

 sion, and its conveyance into Europe. As early as the thir- 

 teenth century, the Emperor Frederick the Second caused the 



