His whole life
may be said to have been devoted to astronomy.
A small work that he
published when a young man brought him under the notice of the King
of Denmark, with whose assistance he constructed, on the small
island of Hulln, a few miles north of Copenhagen, the celebrated
Observatory of Uranienburg. Here, seated in "the ancient chair"
referred to in the text, and surrounded by numerous assistants, he
directed for seventeen years a series of observations, that have
been found extremely accurate and useful. On the death of his
patron he retired to Prague in Bohemia, where he was employed by
Rodolph II. then Emperor of Germany. Here he was assisted by the
great Kepler, who, on Tycho's death in 1601, succeeded him. - ED.
{17} The fisheries of Iceland have been very valuable, and indeed
the chief source of the commerce of the country ever since it was
discovered. The fish chiefly caught are cod and the tusk or cat-
fish. They are exported in large quantities, cured in various ways.
Since the discovery of Newfoundland, however, the fisheries of
Iceland have lost much of their importance. So early as 1415, the
English sent fishing vessels to the Icelandic coast, and the sailors
who were on board, it would appear, behaved so badly to the natives
that Henry V. had to make some compensation to the King of Denmark
for their conduct. The greatest number of fishing vessels from
England that ever visited Iceland was during the reign of James I.,
whose marriage with the sister of the Danish king might probably
make England at the time the most favoured nation.
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