and its shores and concealing the summits of the mountains. But it was
dispelled by the sun in a short time, and taking advantage of a fair
wind he weighed anchor and continued the voyage. A little circumstance
occurred this morning which was destined to be afterward painfully
remembered. The two savages, whom he held as hostages, made their escape
through the portholes of the vessel and swam to the shore, and as soon
as the ship was under sail they took pains to express their indignation
at the treatment they had received, by uttering loud and angry cries.
Toward night he came to other mountains, which, he says, "lie from the
river's side," and anchored, it is supposed, near the present site of
Catskill Landing. "There," says the journal, "we found very loving
people and very old men, where we were well used. Our boat went to fish
and caught great store of very good fish."
The next morning, September 16th, the men were sent again to catch fish,
but were not so successful as they had been the day before, in
consequence of the savages having been there in their canoes all night.
A large number of the natives came off to the ship, bringing Indian
corn, pumpkins, and tobacco. The day was consumed in trading with the
natives and in filling the casks with fresh water, so that they did not
weigh anchor till toward night. After sailing about five miles, finding
the water shoal, they came to anchor, probably near the spot where the
city of Hudson now stands. The weather was hot, and Hudson determined to
set his men at work in the cool of the morning. He accordingly, on the
17th, weighed anchor at dawn and ran up the river about fifteen miles,
when, finding shoals and small islands, he thought it best to anchor
again. Toward night the vessel, having drifted near the shore, grounded
in shoal water, but was easily drawn off by carrying out the small
anchor. She was aground again in a short time in the channel, but, the
tide rising, she floated off.
The two days following he advanced only about five miles, being much
occupied by his intercourse with the natives. Being in the neighborhood
of the present town of Castleton, he went on shore, where he was very
kindly received by an old savage, "the governor of the country," who
took him to his house, and gave him the best cheer he could. At his
anchorage also, five miles above this place, the natives came flocking
on board, bringing a great variety of articles, such as grapes,
pumpkins, beaver and otter skins, which they exchanged for beads,
knives, and hatchets or whatever trifles the sailors could spare them.
The next day was occupied in exploring the river, four men being sent in
the boat, under the command of the mate, for that purpose. They ascended
several miles and found the channel narrow and in some places only two
fathoms deep, but after that seven or eight fathoms. In the afternoon
they returned to the ship. Hudson resolved to pursue the examination of
the channel on the following morning, but was interrupted by the number
of natives who came on board. Finding that he was not likely to gain any
progress this day, he sent the carpenter ashore to prepare a new
foreyard, and in the mean time prepared to make an extraordinary
experiment on board.
From the whole tenor of the journal it is evident that great distrust
was entertained by Hudson and his men toward the natives. He now
determined to ascertain, by intoxicating some of the chiefs, and thus
throwing them off their guard, whether they were plotting any treachery.
He accordingly invited several of them into the cabin and gave them
plenty of brandy to drink. One of these men had his wife with him, who,
the journal informs us, "sate so modestly as any one of our countrywomen
would do in a strange place"; but the men had less delicacy, and were
soon quite merry with the brandy. One of them, who had been on board
from the first arrival of the ship, was completely intoxicated, and fell
sound asleep, to the great astonishment of his companions, who probably
feared that he had been poisoned, for they all took to their canoes and
made for the shore, leaving their unlucky comrade on board. Their
anxiety for his welfare, however, soon induced them to return, and they
brought a quantity of beads, which they gave him, perhaps to enable him
to purchase his freedom from the spell that had been laid upon him.
The poor savage slept quietly all night, and when his friends came to
visit him the next morning they found him quite well. This restored
their confidence, so that they came to the ship again in crowds, in the
afternoon, bringing various presents for Hudson. Their visit, which was
one of unusual ceremony, is thus described in the journal: "So, at
three of the clock in the afternoon, they came aboard and brought
tobacco and more beads and gave them to our master, and made an oration,
and showed him all the country round about. Then they sent one of their
company on land, who presently returned and brought a great platter full
of venison, dressed by themselves, and they caused him to eat with them.
Then they made him reverence, and departed, all save the old man that
lay aboard."
At night the mate returned in the boat, having been sent again to
explore the river. He reported that he had ascended eight or nine
leagues, and found but seven feet of water and irregular soundings.
It was evidently useless to attempt to ascend the river any farther with
the ship, and Hudson therefore determined to return. We may well imagine
that he was satisfied already with the result of the voyage, even
supposing him to have been disappointed in not finding here a passage to
the Indies. He had explored a great and navigable river to the distance
of nearly a hundred forty miles; he had found the country along the
banks extremely fertile, the climate delightful, and the scenery
displaying every variety of beauty and grandeur; and he knew that he had
opened the way for his patrons to possessions which might prove of
inestimable value.
It is supposed that the highest place which the Half Moon reached in the
river was the neighborhood of the present site of Albany, and that the
boats being sent out to explore ascended as high as Waterford, and
probably some distance beyond. The voyage down the river was not more
expeditious than it had been in ascending; the prevalent winds were
southerly, and for several days the ship could advance but very slowly.
The time, however, passed agreeably in making excursions on the shore,
where they found "good ground for corn and other garden herbs, with a
great store of goodly oaks and walnut-trees, and chestnut-trees,
ewe-trees and trees of sweetwood in great abundance, and great store of
slate for houses, and other good stones"; or in receiving visits from
the natives, who came on the ship in numbers. While Hudson was at anchor
near the spot where the city bearing his name now stands, two canoes
came from the place where the scene of the intoxication had occurred,
and in one of them was the old man who had been the sufferer under the
strange experiment. He brought another old man with him, who presented
Hudson with a string of beads, and "showed all the country there about,
as though it were at his command." Hudson entertained them at dinner,
with four of their women, and in the afternoon dismissed them with
presents.
He continued the voyage down the river, taking advantage of wind and
tide as he could, and employing the time when at anchor in fishing or in
trading with the natives, who came to the ship nearly every day, till on
October 1st he anchored near Stony Point.
The vessel was no sooner perceived from the shore to be stationary than
a party of the native mountaineers came off in their canoes to visit it,
and were filled with wonder at everything it contained. While the
attention of the crew was taken up with their visitors upon deck, one of
the savages managed to run his canoe under the stern and, climbing up
the rudder, found his way into the cabin by the window, where, having
seized a pillow and a few articles of wearing-apparel, he made off with
them in the canoe. The mate detected him as he fled, fired at and killed
him. Upon this, all the other savages departed with the utmost
precipitation, some taking to their canoes and others plunging into the
water. The boat was manned, and sent after the stolen goods, which were
easily recovered; but as the men were returning to the vessel, one of
the savages, who were in the water, seized hold of the keel of the boat,
with the intention, as was supposed, of upsetting it. The cook took a
sword and lopped his hand off, and the poor wretch immediately sank.
They then weighed anchor and advanced about five miles.
The next day Hudson descended about seven leagues and anchored. Here he
was visited in a canoe by one of the two savages who had escaped from
the ship as he was going up. But fearing treachery, he would not allow
him or his companions to come on board. Two canoes filled with armed
warriors then came under the stern and commenced an attack with arrows.
The men fired at them with their muskets and killed three of them. More
than a hundred savages now came down upon the nearest point of land to
shoot at the vessel. One of the cannon was brought to bear upon these
warriors, and at the first discharge two of them were killed and the
rest fled to the woods.
The savages were not yet discouraged. They had doubtless been instigated
to make this attack by the two who escaped near West Point, and who had
probably incited their countrymen by the story of their imprisonment, as
well as by representing to them the value of the spoil, if they could
capture the vessel, and the small number of men who guarded it. Nine or
ten of the boldest warriors now threw themselves into a canoe and put
off toward the ship, but a shot from the cannon made a hole in the canoe
and killed one of the men. This was followed by a discharge of musketry,
which destroyed three or four more. This put an end to the battle, and
in the evening, having descended about five miles, Hudson anchored in a
part of the river out of the reach of his enemies, probably near
Hoboken.
Hudson had now explored the bay of New York and the noble stream which
pours into it from the north. For his employers he had secured a
possession which would beyond measure reward them for the expense they
had incurred in fitting out the expedition. For himself he had gained a
name that was destined to live in the gratitude of a great nation
through unnumbered generations. Happy in the result of his labors and in
the brilliant promise they afforded, he spread his sails again for the
Old World on October 4th, and in a little more than a month arrived
safely at Dartmouth, in England.
The journal kept by Juet ends abruptly at this place. The question
therefore immediately arises whether Hudson pursued his voyage to
Holland, or whether he remained in England and sent the vessel home.
Several Dutch authors assert that Hudson was not allowed, after reaching
England, to pursue his voyage to Amsterdam; and this seems highly
probable when we remember the well-known jealousy with which the
maritime enterprises of the Dutch were regarded by King James.
Whether Hudson went to Holland himself or not, it seems clear from
various circumstances that he secured to the Dutch Company all the
benefits of his discoveries, by sending to them his papers and charts.
It is worthy of note that the earliest histories of this voyage, with
the exception of Juet's journal, were published by Dutch authors.
Moreover, Hudson's own journal, or some portion of it at least, was in
Holland, and was used by De Laet previously to the publication of Juet's
journal in _Purchas' Pilgrims_. But the most substantial proof that the
Dutch enjoyed the benefit of his discoveries earlier than any other
nation, is the fact that the very next year they were trading in Hudson
River, which it is not probable would have happened if they had not had
possession of Hudson's charts and journal.
GALILEO OVERTHROWS ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
THE TELESCOPE AND ITS DISCOVERIES
A.D. 1610
SIR OLIVER LODGE
When the Copernican system of astronomy was published to the
world (1543) it had to encounter, as all capital theories and
discoveries in science have done, the criticism, and, for some
time, the opposition, of men holding other views. After
Copernicus, the next great name in modern science is that of
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), who rejected the theory of Copernicus
in favor of a modified form of the Ptolemaic system. This was
still taught in the schools when two mighty contemporaries,
geniuses of science, rose to overthrow it forever.
These men were Galileo Galilei--commonly known as Galileo--and
Kepler, both astronomers, though Galileo's scientific work
covered also a much wider field. He is regarded to-day as
marking a distinct epoch in the progress of the world, and the
following account of his work by the eminent scientist, Sir
Oliver Lodge, expresses no more than a just appreciation of his
great services to mankind.
Galileo exercised a vast influence on the development of human thought.
A man of great and wide culture, a so-called universal genius, it is as
an experimental philosopher that he takes the first rank. In this
capacity he must be placed alongside of Archimedes, and it is pretty
certain that between the two there was no man of magnitude equal to
either in experimental philosophy. It is perhaps too bold a speculation,
but I venture to doubt whether in succeeding generations we find his
equal in the domain of purely experimental science until we come to
Faraday. Faraday was no doubt his superior, but I know of no other of
whom the like can unhesitatingly be said. In mathematical and deductive
science, of course, it is quite otherwise. Kepler, for instance, and
many men before and since, have far excelled Galileo in mathematical
skill and power, though at the same time his achievements in this
department are by no means to be despised.
Born at Pisa on the very day that Michelangelo lay dying in Rome, he
inherited from his father a noble name, cultivated tastes, a keen love
of truth, and an impoverished patrimony. Vincenzo de Galilei, a
descendant of the important Bonajuti family, was himself a mathematician
and a musician, and in a book of his still extant he declares himself in
favor of free and open inquiry into scientific matters, unrestrained by
the weight of authority and tradition. In all probability the son
imbibed these precepts: certainly he acted on them.
Vincenzo, having himself experienced the unremunerative character of
scientific work, had a horror of his son's taking to it, especially as
in his boyhood he was always constructing ingenious mechanical toys and
exhibiting other marks of precocity. So the son was destined for
business--to be, in fact, a cloth-dealer. But he was to receive a good
education first, and was sent to an excellent convent school.
Here he made rapid progress, and soon excelled in all branches of
classics and literature. He delighted in poetry, and in later years
wrote several essays on Dante, Tasso, and Ariosto, besides composing
some tolerable poems himself. He played skilfully on several musical
instruments, especially on the lute, of which indeed he became a master,
and on which he solaced himself when quite an old man. Besides this, he
seems to have had some skill as an artist, which was useful afterward in
illustrating his discoveries, and to have had a fine sensibility as an
art critic, for we find several eminent painters of that day
acknowledging the value of the opinion of the young Galileo.
Perceiving all this display of ability, the father wisely came to the
conclusion that the selling of woollen stuffs would hardly satisfy his
aspirations for long, and that it was worth a sacrifice to send him to
the university. So to the university of his native town he went, with
the avowed object of studying medicine, that career seeming the most
likely to be profitable. Old Vincenzo's horror of mathematics or science
as a means of obtaining a livelihood is justified by the fact that while
the university professor of medicine received two thousand scudi a year,
the professor of mathematics had only sixty; that is thirteen pounds a
year, or seven and a half pence a day. So the son had been kept
properly ignorant of such poverty-stricken subjects, and to study
medicine he went.
But his natural bent showed itself even here. For praying one day in the
cathedral, like a good Catholic as he was all his life, his attention
was arrested by the great lamp which, after lighting it, the verger had
left swinging to and fro. Galileo proceeded to time its swings by the
only watch he possessed--viz., his own pulse. He noticed that the time
of swing remained, as near as he could tell, the same, notwithstanding
the fact that the swings were getting smaller and smaller.
By subsequent experiment he verified the law, and the isochronism of the
pendulum was discovered. An immensely important practical discovery
this, for upon it all modern clocks are based; and Huyghens soon applied
it to the astronomical clock, which up to that time had been a crude and
quite untrustworthy instrument.
The best clock which Tycho Brahe could get for his observatory was
inferior to one that may now be purchased for a few shillings; and this
change is owing to the discovery of the pendulum by Galileo. Not that he
applied it to clocks; he was not thinking of astronomy, he was thinking
of medicine, and wanted to count people's pulses. The pendulum served;
and "pulsilogies," as they were called, were thus introduced to and used
by medical practitioners.
The Tuscan court came to Pisa for the summer months--for it was then a
seaside place--and among the suite was Ostillio Ricci, a distinguished
mathematician and old friend of the Galileo family. The youth visited
him, and one day, it is said, heard a lesson in Euclid being given by
Ricci to the pages while he stood outside the door entranced. Anyhow, he
implored Ricci to help him into some knowledge of mathematics, and the
old man willingly consented. So he mastered Euclid, and passed on to
Archimedes, for whom he acquired a great veneration.
His father soon heard of this obnoxious proclivity, and did what he
could to divert him back to medicine again. But it was no use.
Underneath his Galen and Hippocrates were secreted copies of Euclid and
Archimedes, to be studied at every available opportunity. Old Vincenzo
perceived the bent of genius to be too strong for him, and at last gave
way. With prodigious rapidity the released philosopher now assimilated
the elements of mathematics and physics, and at twenty-six we find him
appointed for three years to the university chair of mathematics, and
enjoying the paternally dreaded stipend of seven and a half pence a day.
Now it was that he pondered over the laws of falling bodies. He
verified, by experiment, the fact that the velocity acquired by falling
down any slope of given height was independent of the angle of slope.
Also, that the height fallen through was proportional to the square of
the time.
Another thing he found experimentally was that all bodies, heavy and
light, fell at the same rate, striking the ground at the same time. Now
this was clean contrary to what he had been taught. The physics of those
days were a simple reproduction of statements in old books. Aristotle
had asserted certain things to be true, and these were universally
believed. No one thought of trying the thing to see if it really were
so. The idea of making an experiment would have savored of impiety,
because it seemed to tend toward scepticism, and cast a doubt on a
reverend authority.
Young Galileo, with all the energy and imprudence of youth--what a
blessing that youth has a little imprudence and disregard of
consequences in pursuing a high ideal!--as soon as he perceived that his
instructors were wrong on the subject of falling bodies, instantly
informed them of the fact. Whether he expected them to be pleased or not
is a question. Anyhow, they were not pleased, but were much annoyed by
his impertinent arrogance.
It is, perhaps, difficult for us now to appreciate precisely their
position. These doctrines of antiquity, which had come down hoary with
age, and the discovery of which had reawakened learning and quickened
intellectual life, were accepted less as a science or a philosophy than
as a religion. Had they regarded Aristotle as a verbally inspired
writer, they could not have received his statements with more
unhesitating conviction. In any dispute as to a question of fact, such
as the one before us concerning the laws of falling bodies, their method
was not to make an experiment, but to turn over the pages of Aristotle;
and he who could quote chapter and verse of this great writer was held
to settle the question and raise it above the reach of controversy.
It is very necessary for us to realize this state of things clearly,
because otherwise the attitude of the learned of those days toward every
new discovery seems stupid and almost insane. They had a crystallized
system of truth, perfect, symmetrical; it wanted no novelty, no
additions; every addition or growth was an imperfection, an excrescence,
a deformity. Progress was unnecessary and undesired. The Church had a
rigid system of dogma which must be accepted in its entirety on pain of
being treated as a heretic. Philosophers had a cast-iron system of truth
to match--a system founded upon Aristotle--and so interwoven with the
great theological dogmas that to question one was almost equivalent to
casting doubt upon the other.
In such an atmosphere true science was impossible. The life-blood of
science is growth, expansion, freedom, development. Before it could
appear it must throw off these old shackles of centuries. It must burst
its old skin, and emerge, worn with the struggle, weakly and
unprotected, but free and able to grow and to expand. The conflict was
inevitable, and it was severe. Is it over yet? I fear not quite, though
so nearly as to disturb science hardly at all. Then it was different: it
was terrible. Honor to the men who bore the first shock of the battle!
Now, Aristotle had said that bodies fell at rates depending on their
weight. A five-pound weight would fall five times as quick as a
one-pound weight; a fifty-pound weight fifty times as quick, and so on.
Why he said so nobody knows. He cannot have tried. He was not above
trying experiments, like his smaller disciples; but probably it never
occurred to him to doubt the fact. It seems so natural that a heavy body
should fall quicker than a light one; and perhaps he thought of a stone
and a feather, and was satisfied.
Galileo, however, asserted that the weight did not matter a bit; that
everything fell at the same rate--even a stone and a feather, but for
the resistance of the air--and would reach the ground in the same time.
And he was not content to be pooh-poohed and snubbed. He knew he was
right, and he was determined to make everyone see the facts as he saw
them. So one morning, before the assembled university, he ascended the
famous leaning tower, taking with him a one-hundred-pound shot and a
one-pound shot. He balanced them on the edge of the tower, and let them
drop together. Together they fell, and together they struck the ground.
The simultaneous clang of those two weights sounded the death-knell of
the old system of philosophy, and heralded the birth of the new.
But was the change sudden? Were his opponents convinced? Not a jot.
Though they had seen with their eyes and heard with their ears, the full
light of heaven shining upon them, they went back muttering and
discontented to their musty old volumes and their garrets, there to
invent occult reasons for denying the validity of the observation, and
for referring it to some unknown disturbing cause.
They saw that if they gave way on this one point they would be letting
go their anchorage, and henceforward would be liable to drift along with
the tide, not knowing whither. They dared not do this. No; they _must_
cling to the old traditions; they could not cast away their rotting
ropes and sail out on to the free ocean of God's truth in a spirit of
fearless faith.