Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Volume 2: Their History and Construction Including a Consideration of their Value as Aids in the Study of Geography and AstronomyStevenson, Edward Luther
History
Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Volume 2: Their History and Construction Including a Consideration of their Value as Aids in the Study of Geography and Astronomy
Stevenson, Edward Luther
Geography -- History; Globes
of the stars. The whole interior was lighted by two small lamps. At the
center of the sphere, the inner surface of which, as stated above,
represented the starry heavens, was placed a small ball, about 15 cm. in
diameter, representing the earth. The great globe, driven by water
power, was therefore made to appear to revolve around this central
terrestrial globe. A representation of the sun, made of glass, had its
own proper motion along the circle of the ecliptic, and a representation
of the moon likewise was made to move in its own proper course. This
globe, in the year 1713, was presented by the grandson of Duke Frederick
to Czar Peter the Great of Russia.
A note in the Royal Geographical Journal refers to this as a
seventeenth-century globe, adding in substance that the St. Petersburg
Academy of Sciences has lately installed at Tsarskoe Selo this large
globe, weighing some three and one half tons, constructed in the
seventeenth century for Duke Frederick of Holstein, under the
superintendence of Olearius, the astronomer and traveler. On its
completion it was placed in the castle of Gottorp, from which fact it
became known as the Gottorp globe. It was presented to the Academy in
the year 1725 and up to the present has remained in the Zoölogical
Museum.[64]
Information has been kindly given by the director of the National Museum
of Copenhagen that an exceedingly fine armillary sphere (Fig. 104) may
be found in the Museum of National History in the Friedricksborg Castle.
From the catalogue of this institution we learn that it was
constructed in the year 1657 by Andreas Busch, under the guidance of
Adam Olearius, for Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp. As will be noted
from the illustration it is an elaborately constructed piece of
mechanism. What we may term the globe proper is composed of six great
circles on which are the fixed constellations, having the several stars
represented in silver. Through the mechanism passes a steel bar which
carries a ball of brass representing the sun, which is at the center of
the complicated system of circles. Around the sun are six circles of
brass representing the orbits of the planets each carrying a small
silver angel. That part of the mechanism which represents the equator
and the zodiac is calculated to make one revolution in 25,000 years. In
the base of the globe has been placed the clockwork by which the several
movements of circles and planets are effected, and time is told by the
striking of hours and quarters. Topping the piece is a small armillary
sphere representing the Ptolemaic system.
[Illustration: Fig. 104. The Gottorp Armillary Sphere, 1657.]
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