United States or Christmas Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Tycho Brahe had tried to explain the blaze of the star of 1572 as due to a sudden concentration of nebulous material in the Milky Way, even pointing out the space left dark and void by the withdrawal of the luminous stuff; and Kepler, theorising on a similar stellar apparition in 1604, followed nearly in the same track.

It will be remembered that when Burke formally appointed Brahé as officer in command of the depôt until Wright should arrive, he was told to await his leader's return to Cooper's Creek, or not to leave it until obliged by absolute necessity. Day after day, week after week passed, and Wright, with the rest of the stores from Menindie, never came.

The opinion that the earth was a globe, which had been conjectured or inferred prior to the voyage of Magellan, was placed beyond a doubt by that voyage. The heavenly bodies were subjected to the calculations of man by the labours of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Galileo.

We trace the progress of astronomy through Hipparchus and Ptolemy; and, after a long halt, through Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler; while from the high table-land of thought occupied by these men, Newton shoots upwards like a peak, overlooking all others from his dominant elevation. But other objects than the motions of the stars attracted the attention of the ancient world.

On Brahe's return he made an extraordinary display of energy, and returned with him to the depot on Cooper's Creek, at which place they arrived on the 8th of May, whilst Burke and Wills were making their futile attempt to reach Mount Hopeless. Wright and Brahe came to the conclusion that no one had visited the cache since Brahe's departure, although the fact seems almost incredible.

The latter formed the front line behind the rampart, their spears forming a close hedge around it, while the musketeers prepared to fire between them. By the order of Count Brahe not a trigger was pulled until the cavalry were within fifty yards, then a flash of flame swept round the rampart, and horses and men in the front line of the cavalry tumbled to the ground.

During the construction of his catalogue of 1,000 stars he prepared and used accurate tables of refraction deduced from his own observations. Tycho Brahe was able to correct the lunar theory by his observations.

In later days two mighty swans have been seen to fly from the nest. A light shone far through the air, far over the lands of the earth; the swan, with the strong beating of his wings, scattered the twilight mists, and the starry sky was seen, and it was as if it came nearer to the earth. That was the swan Tycho Brahe. "Yes, then," you say; "but in our own days?"

He believed in the music of the spheres, and assigned alto, bass, tenor, and treble to certain stars. Tycho Brahe, another astronomer, kept an idiot, whose disconnected and meaningless words he carefully set down, and then put them together in such manner as to make prophecies, and then waited patiently to see them fulfilled.

We climbed the Strahow, inspected the monastery that crowns its summit, admired the fine library, and gazed with reverence on the autograph of Tycho Brahe; we wandered round the ramparts; we surveyed the field of the battle of Prague; we examined more minutely the ground on which Ziska had fought and conquered; we left nothing unexplored, in short, which we found that it was possible to bring within the scope of general observation; nor permitted any matter, concerning which curiosity had been excited, to pass without investigation.