Page:Tycho brahe.djvu/146

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122
TYCHO BRAHE.

remained until 1588, when he went abroad to continue his medical studies in Italy. Tycho gave him a letter for Rothmann, to whom he recommended Gellius as having assisted him both in astronomical and in chemical work.[1] We shall afterwards hear how he and Tycho got on together after his return.

We know much less about another assistant who observed at Hveen about the same time as Gellius, called Elias Olsen Cimber (or Morsing, i.e., from the Isle of Mors, in the Limfjord), although he must have spent a number of years with Tycho. When he first came to Hveen is not known, but he seems to have been there in April 1583, when his handwriting is believed to occur in the meteorological diary. This diary (of which the original is now in the Hofbibliothek at Vienna) was regularly kept from the 1st October 1582 up to the 22nd April 1597, about the time when Tycho left Hveen for ever.[2] It contains for every day short notes about the weather, stating whether it was clear or cloudy, hot or cold, rainy or dry, &c. These notes are always written in Danish, except where halos, auroras, or similar phenomena are described, which is generally done in Latin. But the principal interest attached to this diary arises from the numerous very short notes about the arrival or departure of Tycho, his pupils or visitors, which occur frequently from April 1585. These historical notes are always written in Latin; they are often very much abbreviated and difficult to decipher. This diary, which forms a most interesting record of the life at Hveen, was kept now

  1. Epist. Astron., p. 104.
  2. It was published at Copenhagen in 1876: Tyge Brahe's meteorologiske Dagbog holdt paa Uraniborg for Aarene 1582-1597. Appendice aux Collectanea Meteorologica publiés sous les auspices de l'Académie Rotyale des Sciences et des Lettres à Copenhague. The value of the diary (263 pp. 8vo) is greatly increased by an index to the historical names by a Danish historian, H. F. Rördam. There is also a discussion of the meteorological results by P. la Cour (with a French resumé).