which the planet's time of rotation might be determined. Up to then, Schroeter's value of about twenty-four hours had been accepted, on very slender evidence indeed, and passed into all the books. But when the planet came to be observed by noon, very definite markings stood out on its face, which showed its rotation to take place, not in twenty-four hours, but in eighty-eight days. By a persistence equal to his able choice of observing time, he established this beyond dispute. He proved the revolutionizing fact that Mercury's periods of rotation and of revolution were the same.
He detected, too, the evidence in the position of the markings of the planet's great libratory swing due to the eccentricity of its orbit, a result as remarkable as a feat of observation as it was conclusive as a proof.
If Schiaparelli had never done any other astronomical work, this study of Mercury would have placed him as the first observer of his day. For the observations are so difficult that the planet not only baffled all his predecessors, but has foiled many since who are credited with being observers of eminence.
In 1896 the study of Mercury was taken up at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona along the same lines that had proved so successful with Schiaparelli, but without using his observations as guide. Indeed, his papers had not then been read there. The two conclusions were, therefore, independent of one another.
