had every week to supply Tycho with wood from the Imperial forest, and with charcoal for distilling water. Mühlstein therefore requested the President to consider all this; he would soon send a specification of the outlay already incurred.
The matter was referred by the Treasury to the Emperor, who from Pilsen on the 10th December issued a decree, countersigned by Barwitz, in which he informed the Treasury that he had taken the mathematician Tycho Brahe into his service, and granted him the Castle of Benatky for his use until further orders, and directed that he was to be paid one thousand florins annually from the 1st May 1599 from Benatky or Brandeis, and the cost of building some small rooms (but not more than already granted, as was known to the manager at Benatky).[1] This decree having pacified the conscience of Mühlstein, the building operations were proceeded with, and Tycho and he seem to have got on better afterwards; at least Tycho went to Prague in the following spring to attend Mühlstein's wedding.
While the new observing rooms were being prepared,[2] Tycho kept up his correspondence with scientific men, and endeavoured to enlist assistants for the new observatory. In the above-mentioned letter to Longomontanus, Tycho wrote (after requesting him to help in packing the instruments) that he hoped his old pupil would come back to him; he was expecting Johann Müller from Brandenburg, and he had got the Emperor to write to the Elector to permit Müller to go to Prague, as they had agreed at
- ↑ Hasner, p. 7 et seq.
- ↑ Where these were situated is not known, and there are no remains of Tycho's buildings or inscriptions, &c., as the Castle of Benatky has changed owners many times since then. In March 1801 Professor Aloys David determined the latitude of Benatky and found 50° 17′ 24″ (Tycho gives 50° 18′ 15″) and longitude 50m. 0s. east of Paris. Monatl. Correspondenz, vi. (1802), p. 477. Tradition attributes a still existing sundial at Benatky to Tycho, but there is no proof of its having been constructed by him.
