Page:Tycho brahe.djvu/282

258 On the 25th January 1598, the Elector of Brandenburg (who had just succeeded to this dignity on the death of his father) wrote to King Christian enclosing Tycho's letter, which he asked his son-in-law to consider favourably. He also wrote to his daughter, and asked her to put in a good word for Tycho. These letters were sent under cover to Friis and Valkendorf, with a short note asking them to do whatever they could in this matter. On the 4th February the Electress wrote to the king asking him to give a gracious answer to Tycho Brahe's petition, and to her daughter the queen she wrote in nearly the same terms, asking her to use her influence with the king to that effect. What answers were sent to these letters is not known, but at any rate they did not lead to anything.

In the meantime Tycho had resumed the observations at Wandsbeck, the first being made on the 21st October 1597. During the first few months he only employed a radius, as in the early days of his youth, before he had got a number of good instruments together, and he was even obliged to observe the important opposition of Mars in this manner, as he had not yet got the heavier instruments transported to Wandsbeck and erected in suitable places. By the beginning of February 1598 this was done, and he was again able to use quadrants for determining the time by altitude observations, instead of (as during the previous months) by watching when the pole-star and another star were in the same vertical. He also laid aside the radius for the more accurate sextant, and set up an equatorial armilla for observing the sun. On the 25th February 1598 a solar eclipse took place, which was total in the middle of Germany, while in Holstein about nine-twelfths of the solar diameter was eclipsed. Tycho observed this eclipse, and