Landgrave, Mästlin, and others, which Curtz inserted in this volume, are not without value and interest, but Tycho Brahe's observations are presented in so mutilated and distorted a shape as to be well-nigh useless. Not only is there no explanation why the volume begins with the year 1582 (which has led many writers to believe that Tycho had not observed regularly until then), but it is evident that the copy at the disposal of Curtz had never been finished nor collated with the originals. Frequently several consecutive pages have been passed over, so that the volume is very far from containing a complete record even for the years it pretends to cover. For instance, at the end of 1584, half the observations made by Elias at Frauenburg and all those he made at Königsberg are omitted. Again, in 1589 and 1591 there are several large gaps in the observations of fixed stars, similarly in 1595 and 1597, while the omissions of one or two nights' work are very numerous indeed. But this is far from being the worst fault. There is scarcely a column which is not full of errors, figures misplaced or left out, words like dexter and sinister, borealis and meridionalis, are interchanged; sometimes the signs of the zodiac have even been mistaken for figures, so that the sign of Cancer becomes 69, &c. In short, the work is not far from being an Augean stable. Unfortunately there is no other edition of Tycho Brahe's observations except of the observations of planets made in 1593[1] and of the observations of comets. The Historia Cœlestis gives the reader a fair idea of the general scope of Tycho's work, but it cannot be used for any scientific purpose.
In the meantime the original observations, of the existence of which Curtz was ignorant, were (at the latest in the beginning of 1662) by Ludwig Kepler sold to King Frederick III. of Denmark, who deposited them in the newly founded Royal Library at Copenhagen, where they are still preserved. King Frederick soon after decided to have them published under the direction of the mathematician Professor Erasmus Bartholin, under whom six students were employed in copying and collating, while the necessary pecuniary means were liberally supplied. A complete copy had been made and carefully read with the originals, when Bartholin heard of the publication of the Historia Cœlestis, and obtained a copy of it. As he found it extremely defective and erroneous, he pub-
- ↑ To account for the absence of these, Curtz invented a fable about the volume for 1593 having been sent to Cassel and thereby lost, which has been repeated by many writers.
