GALILEO AND THE TELESCOPE

 GALILEO AND THE TELESCOPE 

WHEN the great Italian astronomer was on a visit to Venice in 1609, he heard that Prince Maurice of Nassau had been presented by a Dutch man with an instrument which had the curious power of making distant objects seem near to the observer. Galileo at once set to work with the object of making such an instrument. Two spectacle glasses, both plain on one side, but one having its other side convex, and the other that side concave, were fixed one at each end of a metal tube. On placing his eye to the concave glass he saw objects magnified and brought nearer. His instrument only magnified three times. but when shown in Venice, it created great interest. Crowds flocked to the inventor's house to see the curious toy; and the Senate caused it to be known that they would like to possess it.
 Galileo at once presented them with the telescope and received substantial rewards in return.

Sisturi who also constructed one  of these instruments, ascended the tower of St. Mark at Venice, in order to use it without hindrance from curious citizens. But the people in the streets, observing him with the telescope, mounted the tower and deprived him of it until they all had satisfied their curiosity. They even wished to secure the same pleasure for their friends the next day; but Sisturi, in order to avoid them, left Venice the same night. 

Galileo was the most skillful maker of these instruments, and at last he constructed one which magnified more than thirty times, with which he made some important discoveries, connected with the moon. 

A.R.B.

References:

American Chatterbox 1882