Reinhold rendered to astronomy the extremely important service of calculating, on the basis of the _De Revolutionibus_, tables of the motions of the celestial bodies, which were published in 1551 at the expense of Duke Albert of Prussia and hence called _Tabulæ Prutenicæ_, or _Prussian Tables_. Reinhold revised most of the calculations made by Coppernicus, whose arithmetical work was occasionally at fault; but the chief object of the tables was the development in great detail of the work in the _De Revolutionibus_, in such a form that the places of the chief celestial bodies at any required time could be ascertained with ease. The author claimed for his tables that from them the places of all the heavenly bodies could be computed for the past 3,000 years, and would agree with all observations recorded during that period. The tables were indeed found to be on the whole decidedly superior to their predecessors the _Alfonsine Tables_ (chapter III., § 66), and gradually came more and more into favour, until superseded three-quarters of a century later by the _Rudolphine Tables_ of Kepler (chapter VII., § 148). This superiority of the new tables was only indirectly connected with the difference in the principles on which the two sets of tables were based, and was largely due to the facts that Reinhold was a much better computer than the assistants of Alfonso, and that Coppernicus, if not a better mathematician than Ptolemy, at any rate had better mathematical tools at command. Nevertheless the tables naturally, had great weight in inducing the astronomical world gradually to recognise the merits of the Coppernican system, at any rate as a basis for calculating the places of the celestial bodies. Reinhold was unfortunately cut off by the plague in 1553, and with him disappeared a commentary on the _De Revolutionibus_ which he had prepared but not published. 95. Very soon afterwards we find the first signs that the Coppernican system had spread into England. In 1556 _John Field_ published an almanack for the following year avowedly based on Coppernicus and Reinhold, and a passage in the _Whetstone of Witte_ (1557) by _Robert Recorde_ (1510-1558), our first writer on algebra, shews that the author regarded the doctrines of Coppernicus with favour, even if he did not believe in them entirely. A few years later _Thomas Digges_ (?-1595), in his _Alae sive Scalae Mathematicae_ (1573), an astronomical treatise of no great importance, gave warm praise to Coppernicus and his ideas. 96. For nearly half a century after the death of Reinhold no important contributions were made to the Coppernican controversy. Reinhold’s tables were doubtless slowly doing their work in familiarising men’s minds with the new ideas, but certain definite additions to knowledge had to be made before the evidence for them could be regarded as really conclusive.