CHAPTER V.
THE ISLAND OF HVEEN AND TYCHO BRAHE'S OBSERVATORIES AND OTHER BUILDINGS—HIS ENDOWMENTS.
In the beautiful scenery along the coast of the Sound between Copenhagen and Elsinore, the isle of Hveen with its white cliffs, rising steeply out of the sea, forms a very conspicuous feature. It is about fourteen English miles north of Copenhagen, and about nine miles south of Elsinore, rather nearer to the coast of Scania than to that of Seeland. The surface is a nearly flat tableland of about two thousand acres, sloping slightly towards the east, and of an irregularly oblong outline, the longest diameter extending from north-west to south-east and being about three miles long. From time immemorial it was considered an appendage to Seeland, but in 1634 it was placed under the jurisdiction of the court of justice at Lund in Scania, because the inhabitants had complained of the long distance to their former court of appeal in Seeland.[1] In consequence of this change the island was ceded to Sweden in 1658, when the Danish provinces east of the Sound were conquered by the king of Sweden. Though there are no considerable woods on the island and the surface is but slightly undulated, the almost constant view of the sea in all directions, studded with ships and bounded by the well-wooded coasts
- ↑ There is still extant a Latin poem written by T. Brahe in 1592, "In itinere a Ringstadio domum," in which he charges the judge who had tried some lawsuit of his with injustice. Danske Magazin, ii. p. 279. About the change of jurisdiction see Bang's Samlinger, ii. p. 265 (Weistritz, ii. p. 226, and i. p. 56).
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