Page:The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus - Volume 1.djvu/23

 ame spread throughout Europe and the little island near Elsinore became the trysting place of savants from all lands. Even kings and princes did not think it beneath their dignity to make pilgrimages to the Isle of Hveen. Brahe made his name immortal through his services to astronomy. For thirty years he made regular and careful observations in regard to the movements of the planets, and it was only on the foundation of his vast preliminary labors, which in accuracy surpassed all that practical astronomy had previously achieved, that Keppler was able to produce his celebrated theories and laws. With perfect justice, it has been said, that Tycho Brahe made the observations, that Keppler discovered the law, and that Newton conceived the nature of the law.

Geology is at the present time a most highly developed science, but its devotees should not forget that the world’s first geologist was the Dane Niels Stensen, who was born in 1638. He was not only the most celebrated anatomist of his time, but he also laid the foundation of the science of geognosy and geology by studying the mountain formations and examining the fossils of Italy, and the result of his investigations were embodied in his De Solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus, a work which may rightly be regarded as the corner stone of geological science.

Archæology serves as a magnificent telescope by which we are able to contemplate social conditions far beyond the ken of ordinary historical knowledge and this valuable science was born and cradled in Denmark, where the renowned Christian Thomsen laid the foundation of the systematic study of all the weapons, implements and ornaments gathered from pre-historic times.

Then we have the science called comparative philology. Where did it begin? Who unravelled its first complicated threads? The answer comes from every philologist in the world. It shed its first rays in Denmark, and there Rasmus Rask discovered those laws and principles upon which the comparative study of languages is built. Rask found the laws and they were used as the corner stone of that beautiful