Four hundred years ago Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer, desired silversmiths to make him a globe on which should be represented, "with exactitude," the constellations of the stars. Silversmiths made the "undignified fanatic" his globe. It was about twelve inches in diameter; its surface was carved with those bizarre and threatening shapes with which the ancients first identified the golden processionals of the sky. No celestial beast was missing; goat, unicorn, fish, lion, hurrying crab crowds its shining convexity. After the death of the astronomer, his globe became famous in the country that had laughed at its inventor. A succession of noble...
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