Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/201

§§ 119—121], the largest being estimated by him to be about four miles high, a result agreeing closely with modern estimates of the greatest height on the moon. The large dark spots he explained (erroneously) as possibly caused by water, though he evidently had less confidence in the correctness of the explanation than some of his immediate scientific successors, by whom the name of seas was given to these spots (chapter, § 153). He noticed also the absence of clouds. Apart however from details, the really significant results of his observations were that the moon was in many important respects similar to the earth, that the traditional belief in its perfectly spherical form had to be abandoned, and that so far the received doctrine of the sharp distinction to be drawn between things celestial and things terrestrial was shewn to be without justification; the importance of this in connection with the Coppernican view that the earth, instead of being unique, was one of six planets revolving round the sun, needs no comment.

One of Galilei's numerous scientific opponents attempted to explain away the apparent contradiction between the old theory and the new observations by the ingenious suggestion that the apparent valleys in the moon were in reality filled with some invisible crystalline material, so that the moon was in fact perfectly spherical. To this Galilei replied that the idea was so excellent that he wished to extend its application, and accordingly maintained that the moon had on it mountains of this same invisible substance, at least ten times as high as any which he had observed.

120. The telescope revealed also the existence of an immense number of stars too faint to be seen by the unaided eye; Galilei saw, for example, 36 stars in the Pleiades, which to an ordinary eye consist of six only. Portions of the Milky Way and various nebulous patches of light were also discovered to consist of multitudes of faint stars clustered together; in the cluster Præsepe (in the Crab), for example, he counted 40 stars.

121. By far the most striking discovery announced in the Sidereal Messenger was that of the bodies now known as