THE YOUTH'S CABINET. 93
| 1, 8, 5,7; that is, that if a body falls

fifteen Paris feet (about sixteen English)
in one second, it will fall forty-five in
two, seventy-five in three, and so on,
Some think that he invented the ther-
mometer. This is not certain, however ;
though if he did not invent, he improved
it, and brought it to a higher state of
perfection. The telescope remained a
useless instrument, until Galileo turned
it toward the heavens, Ina short time,
he made some of the most important
discoveries, in relation to the heavenly
bodies. He found that the moon, as
well as the earth, has an uneven sur-
face; and he taught his disciples to
measure the height of its mountains by
the height of their shadow. His most
remarkable discovery was that of Jupi-
ter’s satellites and Saturn’s ring. He it
was, too, who noticed the sun’s spots
for the first time.

In 1610, he was appointed grand-
ducal mathematician and philosopher,
He now became a prominent man in the
eyes of the whole civilized world. But
narrow-minded and bigoted men were
more engaged than ever to overthrow
his philosophy, and humble him in the
dust. The monks preached against
him. He was, in fact, obliged to go to
Rome, to make his peace with the Pope
and the cardinals. This he could only
accomplish by promising that he would
maintain his system no farther, either by
his words or his Writings. It was with
the utmost difficulty that he escaped
falling into the hands of the Inquisition,
even after this promise.

Some years after he published a work,
which drew down upon his head un-

numbered vials of wrath. This time he
in equal times, increase as the numbers | was not so successful with the ecclesias-

V 2 J¥

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
   
  

 

HIS most remarkable man was born
at Pisa, in Italy, in the year
1564. When he was only nine-
teen, the swinging of a lamp
suspended from the ceiling of the cathe-
dral in Pisa, led him to investigate the
laws of the swinging of a pendulum,
which he was the first to apply as a
measure of time. His active mind was
constantly occupied with the great laws
of nature, and he found out a great many
of those which, until his time, were un-
known. Some of the opinions which he
maintained were not only new, but ex-
tremely obnoxious to the disciples of the
Romish church—a church which, you
know, insists on deciding what a man
may believe, and what he may not be-
lieve. For asserting, especially, that
the earth and other planets revolved, in
Separate orbits, around the sun, he was
severely persecuted. He was, indeed,
obliged to give up the professorship of
mathematics, a post to which he had
been elected when quite a youth, on
account of this and similar notions, which
were regarded as intolerable heresies,
It was Galileo who discovered that
the spaces through which a body falls,