Page:Tycho brahe.djvu/123

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THE ISLAND OF HVEEN.
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it. The three other rooms were guest-rooms, but the south-west room, in which a large quadrant was attached to the west wall, was probably also used as a study. In the storey above there were the red room to the north east, the blue room to the south-east, the yellow room (a small octagonal one) over the porch on the east side, and on the west side one long room, the green one, with the ceiling covered with pictures of flowers and plants. Tycho specially mentions the beautiful view from this room of the Sound, with its numerous sails, particularly in summer. Above the second storey there were eight little rooms or garrets for students and observers. The south tower contained in the basement a chemical laboratory with furnaces, &c., above that on the ground floor was the library, and above that the larger southern observatory. In the north tower the centre of the basement was occupied by a deep well built round with masonry, which reached to the kitchen above.[1] Over the kitchen was the larger northern observatory.

In the library the great globe from Augsburg was mounted. It was five feet in diameter, the inside made of wooden rings and staves firmly held together. When returning to Augsburg in 1575, Tycho found that it was not perfectly spherical and showed some cracks, but after it had in the following year been brought to Denmark, the cracks were stopped and the sphericity made perfect by covering it with numerous layers of parchment. It was then left to dry for two years, and as the figure remained perfect, it was covered with brass plates, on which two great circles were engraved to represent the equator and the zodiac, divided into single degrees, and by transversals into minutes. Gradually the stars and constellations were laid down on it as their positions resulted from the observations, and not

  1. This well, from which the water could be pumped up and sent to the various rooms by concealed pipes, is still in existence.