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ter, came the clock, one of the most useful of man's dumb friends. And yet there are people who will read this little incident and still hesitate about going to church. Galileo also invented the thermometer, the microscope, and the proportional compass. He seemed to invent things, not for the money to be obtained in that way, but solely for the joy of being first on the ground. He was a man of infinite genius and perseverance. He was also very fair in his treatment of other inventors. Though he did not personally invent the rotary motion of the earth, he heartily indorsed it and said it was a good thing. He also came out in a card in which he said that he believed it to be a good thing, and that he hoped some day to see it applied to the other planets. He was also the inventor of a telescope that had a magnifying power of thirty times. He presented this to the Venetian senate, and it was used in making appropriations for river and harbor improvements. By telescopic investigation Galileo discovered the presence of microbes in the moon, but was unable to do anything for it. I have spoken of Mr. Galileo all the way through this article informally, calling him by his first name, but I feel so thoroughly acquainted with him, though there was such a striking difference in our ages, that I am almost justified in using his given name while talking of him. Galileo also sat up nights and visited with Venus through a long telescope which he had made himself from an old bamboo fishing-rod. But astronomy is a very enervating branch of science. Galileo frequently came down to breakfast with red, heavy eyes; eyes that were swollen full of unshed tears. Still he persevered. Day after day he worked and toiled. Year after year he went on with his task till he had worked out in his own mind the satellites of Jupiter and placed a small tin tag on each one, so that he would know it readily when he saw it again. Then he began to look up Saturn's rings and investigate the freckles on the sun. He did not stop at trifles, but went bravely on till everybody came for miles to look at him and get him to write something funny in their albums. It was not an unusual thing for Galileo to get up in the morning, after a wearisome night with a fretful new-born star, to find his front yard full of autograph albums. Some of them were little red albums with floral decorations on them, while others were the large plush and alligator albums of the af
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