On the 6th of October, the commission declared the instrument of Lippershey to be useful to the nation, but demanded that it should be made for two eyes instead of one.
On the 9th of December, Lippershey, having announced that he had solved the problem, Van Dorth, Magnus, and Van der Au were ordered to verify the fact, which they did by making a very favourable report on the 11th of the same month. The binocular instrument was therefore found to answer.
In reading the extracts from the archives of the Hague, given by Moll, we may remark with great pleasure the promptitude with which the commissioners of the States-General examined Lippershey's instruments. But their satisfaction soon gave way to displeasure, when they found a large number of opticians making these instruments, and selling them to foreigners, like so much spice from the East Indies. Later on one feels indignant at finding the commissioners of the States-General to be so wanting in proper feeling as to decide that the telescope must be considered imperfect until it could be used with both eyes, without either winking or seeing the reflection of the pupils in the eye-pieces. Consequently, instead of being permitted to expend his talent on perfecting the optical powers of the single telescope, Lippershey saw himself condemned to waste his time upon the double instrument. The States-General finished by giving Lippershey 900 florins; but they refused him a patent, on the ground that it was already notorious that other opticians had commenced the manufacture of similar instruments.
Amongst others who were rivals of Lippershey, we must mention John Adrian Metius, the son of Adrian Metius, of Amsterdam, who discovered that the nearest relation of the circumference of a circle to its diameter was 355 to 113. He addressed a letter to the States-
