Admiral Smyth says—
“A man may prove a good astronomer without possessing a spacious observatory: thus Kepler was wont to observe on the bridge at Prague; Schröter studied the moon, and Harding found a planet from a gloriette; while Olbers discovered two new planets from an attic of his house.”[514]
It is probably not generally known that “some of the greatest astronomers of modern times, such as Kepler, Newton, Hansen, Laplace, and Leverrier, scarcely ever looked through a telescope.”[515]
Kepler, who always signed himself Keppler in German, is usually supposed to have been born on December 21, 1571, in the imperial town of Weil, but according to Baron von Breitschwert,[516] he was really born on December 27, 1571, in the village of Magstadt in Wurtemberg.
According to Lieut. Winterhalter, M. Perrotin of the Nice Observatory declared “that two hours’ work with a large instrument is as fatiguing as eight with a small one, the labour involved increasing in proportion to the cube of the aperture, the chances of seeing decreasing in the same ratio, while it can hardly be said that the advantages increase in like proportion.”[517]
The late Mr. Proctor has well said—
“It is well to remember that the hatred which many entertain against the doctrine of development as applied to solar systems and stellar galaxies is not in reality a sign, as they imagine, of humility, but is an effort to avoid the recognition of the nothingness of man in the presence of the infinities of space and time and vitality presented within the universe of God.”[518]
Humboldt says—
“That arrogant spirit of incredulity, which rejects facts without attempting to investigate them, is in some cases almost more injurious than an unquestioning credulity. Both are alike detrimental to the force of investigations.”[519]
With reference to the precession of the equinoxes and the changes it produces in the position of the Pole Star, it is stated in a recent book on science that the entrance passage of the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh is inclined at an angle of 30° to the horizon, and therefore points to the celestial pole. But this is quite incorrect. The Great Pyramid, it is true, is situated close to the latitude of 30°. But the entrance passage does not point exactly to the pole. The inclination was measured by Col. Vyse, and found to be 26° 45′. For six out of the nine pyramids of Ghizeh, Col. Vyse found an average inclination of 26° 47′, these inclinations ranging from 25° 55′ (2nd, or pyramid of Mycerinus) to 28° 0′ (9th pyramid).[520] Sir John Herschel gives 3970 B.C. as the probable date of the erection of the Great Pyramid.[520] At that time the distance of α Draconis (the Pole Star of that day) from the pole was 3° 44′ 25″, so that when on the meridian below the pole (its lower culmination as it is termed) its altitude was 30° - 3° 44′ 25″ = 26° 15′ 35″, which agrees fairly well with the inclination of the entrance passage. Letronne found a date of 3430 B.C.; but the earlier date agrees better with the evidence derived from Egyptology.