CHAPTER VIII.
FURTHER WORK ON THE STAR OF 1572.
After the publication, or rather the completion, of the second volume of his book Tycho pushed on the preparation of the first volume on the new star, of which the printing began long before the manuscript was approaching completion. From many direct or indirect allusions to time in various places in the book, it appears that it was written in the years 1588 to 1592,[1] and as Tycho had several times been inconvenienced by want of paper, he resolved to build a paper-mill on the south-western coast of the island, which could be driven by the water from the fish-ponds. This mill was finished in 1589 or 1590 and the same water-wheel which turned it could also be connected with a corn-mill and machinery for preparing skins.[2] It was, however, by no means only the want of paper which delayed the completion of Tycho's book; it had come to embrace
- ↑ See, e.g., Progym., i. pp. 34, 52, 102, 335, 559, 710, 721, 745. In the appendix written by Kepler it is stated that the book was written between 1582 and 1592, but the printing cannot have commenced before 1588, and that the first chapter was written in 1588 is evident.
- ↑ In a letter to Rothmann (24th November 1589) Tycho mentions the mill as having been for some time at work. The inscription on a slab in the wall of the mill is given slightly different by Resen., Inscript. Hafn., 1668, p. 335 (Weistritz, i. p. 69), and in the Danske Magazin, ii. p. 265 (Weistritz, ii. p. 198); and according to the former it was begun in 1589 and completed in 1590; according to the latter, commenced 1590, finished 1592. But the former dates must be correct, as they agree with Tycho's statement that the mill was at work in 1589; and in the meteorological diary we read under 22nd July 1590: "Abiit Valentinus opere aggeris apud molendinum confecto." In March 1590 the widow of Steen Bille was ordered to allow Tycho to cut down an oak in the wood at Heridsvad for use in the mill (D. Magazin, ii. 264).
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