SCHEINER (Christopher)

, a considerable German mathematician and astronomer, was born at Mundeilheim in Schwaben in 1575. He entered into the society of the Jesuits at 20 years of age; and afterwards taught the Hebrew tongue and the mathematics at Ingolstadt, Friburg, Brisac, and Rome. At length he became confessor to the archduke Charles, and rector of the college of the Jesuits at Neisse in Silesia, where he died in 1650, at 75 years of age.

Scheiner was chiefly remarkable for being one of the first who observed the spots in the sun with the telescope, though not the very first; for his observations of those spots were first made, at Ingolstadt, in the latter part of the year 1611, whereas Galileo and Harriot both observed them in the latter part of the year before, or 1610. Scheiner continued his observations on the solar phenomena for many years afterwards at Rome, with great assiduity and accuracy, constantly making drawings of them on paper, describing their places, figures, magnitude, revolutions and periods, so that Riccioli delivered it as his opinion that there was little reason to hope for any better observations of those spots. Des Cartes and Hevelius also say, that in their judgment, nothing can be expected of that kind more satisfactory. These observations were published in one volume folio, 1630, under the title of Rosa Ursina, &c; almost every page of which is adorned with an image of the sun with the spots. He wrote also several smaller pieces relating to mathematics and philosophy, the principal of which are,

2. Oculus, five Fundamentum Opticum, &c; which was reprinted at London, in 1652, in 4to.

3. Sol Eclipticus, Disquisitiones Mathematicæ.

4. De Controversiis et Novitatibus Astronomicis.