of the air between it and the earth, or a condensation of part of one of the spheres through which its light had to pass. The principal reason why some writers (e.g., Reisacher and Vallesius) adopted this explanation was, that God had ceased creating on the sixth day, and nothing new had been made since then. Reisacher had at first thought that the star was identical with κ Cassiopeæ, which had merely become brighter, but when the light of the star had become less dazzling he perceived that κ was still in the heavens, and that he had merely failed to see it hitherto owing to the overpowering light of the new star. More obstinate was Raimundus of Verona, who in two publications maintained that it was nothing but κ. He seems to have done so with unnecessary heat, and using contemptuous expressions about people who thought differently, as Tycho in reviewing his writings uses stronger language than usual, and Hagecius thought it necessary to publish a refutation full of the most violent invectives and written in a very slashing style.[1] Another Italian, Frangipani, also took the star to be κ Cassiopeæ, and as its place did not agree with that assigned to the latter by Ptolemy, he calmly assumed that the old star must have moved. He quotes the old story about the seventh star of the Plejades (Electra) having disappeared after the destruction of Troy, and asserts that the pole-star did the same for a while after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks.[2] All this is, however, very tame compared with the fancies of a German painter, Georg Busch, of Erfurt, who wrote two pamphlets "Von dem Cometen." According to him it was a comet, and these bodies were formed by the ascending from the earth of human sins and wickedness, formed into a kind of gas,
