February, 1564. He was the man who discovered some of the fundamental
principles governing the movements, habits, and personal peculiarities
of the earth. He discovered things with marvelous fluency. Born as he
was, at a time when the rotary motion of the earth was still in its
infancy and astronomy was taught only in a crude way, Galileo started in
to make a few discoveries and advance some theories which he loved.

He was the son of a musician and learned to play several instruments
himself, but not in such a way as to arouse the jealousy of the great
musicians of his day. They came and heard him play a few selections, and
then they went home contented with their own music. Galileo played for
several years in a band at Pisa, and people who heard him said that his
manner of gazing out over the Pisan hills with a far-away look in his
eye after playing a selection, while he gently up-ended his alto horn
and worked the mud-valve as he poured out about a pint of moist melody
that had accumulated in the flues of the instrument, was simply grand.

At the age of twenty Galileo began to discover. His first discoveries
were, of course, clumsy and poorly made, but very soon he commenced to
turn out neat and durable discoveries that would stand for years.

It was at this time that he noticed the swinging of a lamp in a church,
and, observing that the oscillations were of equal duration, he inferred
that this principle might be utilized in the exact measurement of time.
From this little accident, years after, 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