Opera mechanica, geometrica, astronomica et miscellanea

HUGENII VITA.

For it is known that the long-desired—and perhaps still to be desired—solution to this useful problem of longitudes depends on the exact measurement of time.

However, it was not enough to have bound the motion of the clocks to fixed laws; but, as he himself noted, to maintain an even motion while the ship was tossed by the winds, this was the task, this was the labor. He always hoped, however, that the difficulty could be overcome; he attempted much, and until almost his death he strove for new things to reach the goal. But although he could not reach this, those who read the first volume of these works will judge with what genius and with what insight he pursued the matter; not all attempts, however, were made public.

See page 527. In the year 1659, he published his Systema Saturnium System of Saturn, in which he provided the true cause of the "handles" original: "ansarum" (referring to the rings of Saturn) of this planet, which no one before him had been able to touch upon, not even in suspicion, and he fortified this with invincible arguments.

The following year he went to France for a second time, from where he traveled to England in 1661. There he demonstrated his art of working glass, since it was agreed among all that the telescopes of Huygens, which did not exceed twenty-four feet in length at that time, were more perfect than all others.

A new invention at that time was the air pump original: "Antlia pneumatica"; this, upon his return from England, he...