No doubt the cross-staff is a very primitive contrivance, but when handled by one so skilful as Tycho it afforded results of considerable accuracy.  I would recommend any reader who may have a taste for such pursuits to construct a cross-staff for himself, and see what measurements he can accomplish with its aid.

To employ this little instrument Tycho had to evade the vigilance of his conscientious tutor, who felt it his duty to interdict all such occupations as being a frivolous waste of time.  It was when Vedel was asleep that Tycho managed to escape with his cross staff and measure the places of the heavenly bodies.  Even at this early age Tycho used to conduct his observations on those thoroughly sound principles which lie at the foundation of all accurate modern astronomy.  Recognising the inevitable errors of workmanship in his little instrument, he ascertained their amount and allowed for their influence on the results which he deduced.  This principle, employed by the boy with his cross-staff in 1564, is employed at the present day by the Astronomer Royal at Greenwich with the most superb instruments that the skill of modern opticians has been able to construct.

[Plate:  Tycho’s TRIGONIC sextant.  (The arms, ab and AC, are about 5 1/2 ft. long.)]

After the death of his uncle, when Tycho was nineteen years of age, it appears that the young philosopher was no longer interfered with in so far as the line which his studies were to take was concerned.  Always of a somewhat restless temperament, we now find that he shifted his abode to the University of Rostock, where he speedily made himself notable in connection with an eclipse of the moon on 28th October, 1566.  Like every other astronomer of those days, Tycho had always associated astronomy with astrology.  He considered that the phenomena of the heavenly bodies always had some significance in connection with human affairs.  Tycho was also a poet, and in the united capacity of poet, astrologer, and astronomer, he posted up some verses in the college at Rostock announcing that the lunar eclipse was a prognostication of the death of the great Turkish Sultan, whose mighty deeds at that time filled men’s minds.  Presently news did arrive of the death of the Sultan, and Tycho was accordingly triumphant; but a little later it appeared that the decease had taken place before the eclipse, a circumstance which caused many a laugh at Tycho’s expense.

[Plate:  Tycho’s astronomic sextant.  (Made of steel:  the arms, ab, AC, measure 4 ft.)

Plate:  Tycho’s equatorial armillary. 
(The meridian circle, E B C A D, made of solid steel,
is nearly 6 ft. in diameter.)]