Galileo's first discoveries with this instrument were made in 1610, and it was not till nearly half a century later that any great improvement in telescopic construction was effected. In the middle of the seventeenth century Scheiner and Huygens made telescopes on the principle, suggested by Kepler, of using two double convex lenses instead of a convex and a concave, and the modern refracting telescope is still constructed on essentially the same principle, though, of course, with many minor modifications (Fig. 2). [Illustration: FIG. 2.--PRINCIPLE OF COMMON REFRACTOR.] The latter part of the seventeenth century witnessed the introduction of telescopes on this principle of the most amazing length, the increase in length being designed to minimize the imperfections which a simple lens exhibits both in definition and in colour. Huygens constructed one such telescope of 123 feet focal length, which he presented to the Royal Society of London; Cassini, at Paris, used instruments of 100 and 136 feet; while Bradley, in 1722, measured the diameter of Venus with a glass whose focal length was 212-1/4 feet. Auzout is said to have made glasses of lengths varying from 300 to 600 feet, but, as might have been expected, there is no record of any useful observations having ever been made with these monstrosities. Of course, these instruments differed widely from the compact and handy telescopes with which we are now familiar. They were entirely without tubes. The object-glass was fastened to a tall pole or to some high building, and was painfully man[oe]uvred into line with the eye-piece, which was placed on a support near the ground, by means of an arrangement of cords. The difficulties of observation with these unwieldy monsters must have been of the most exasperating type, while their magnifying power did not exceed that of an ordinary modern achromatic of, perhaps, 36 inches focal length. Cassini, for instance, seems never to have gone beyond a power of 150 diameters, which might be quite usefully employed on a good modern 3-inch refractor in good air. Yet with such tools he was able to discover four of the satellites of Saturn and that division in Saturn's ring which still bears his name. Such facts speak volumes for the quality of the observer. Those who are the most accustomed to use the almost perfect products of modern optical skill will have the best conception of, and the profoundest admiration for, the limitless patience and the wonderful ability which enabled him to achieve such results with the very imperfect means at his disposal.