during his surveying works. In the preface to the 1591 Pantometria, (a book on measurement, partially based on his father's notes and observations) Leonard's son Thomas lauded his father's accomplishments. Some of the praise of the son for the father appears to be extravagant exaggeration, while other claims appear more credible. On the fifth page of the preface, Thomas Digges provides a remarkable account of his father's accomplishments: [H]is divine mind aided with this science of Geometrical mensurations, found out the quantities, distances, courses, and strange intricate miraculous motions of these resplendent heavenly Globes of Sun, Moon, Planets and Stares fixed, leaving the rules and precepts thereof to his posterity. Archimedes also (as some suppose) with a glass framed by revolution of a section Parabolicall, fired the Roman navy in the sea coming to the siege of Syracuse. But to leave these celestial causes and things done of antiquity long ago, my father by his continual painful [painstaking] practices, assisted with demonstrations Mathematical, was able, and sundry times hath by proportional Glasses duly situate in convenient angles, not only discovered things far off, read letters, numbered pieces of money with the very coin and superscription thereof, cast by some of his friends of purpose upon downs in open fields, but also seven miles off declared what hath been done at that instant in private places. The writings left by Digges' colleague William Bourne contain further detail on the experiments with lenses and mirrors conducted by Leonard Digges and his son. It is these details which led some researchers, most notably Colin Ronan, to claim that Leonard Digges invented a functioning telescope sometime between 1540 and 1559. The description seemed to suggest that Digges created a rudimentary instrument incorporating lenses and a concave mirror, in a manner rather different from a modern reflecting telescope. However, the construction of lenses to the required optical precision would have been very difficult in the 16th century, and the construction of an adequate mirror would have been much harder still. It is doubtful that Digges built a successful instrument, and the optical performance required to see the details of coins lying about in fields, or private activities seven miles away was far beyond the technology of the time. Honours Digges Cove in Antarctica is named after Leonard Digges. Notes References Johnson, Francis R. (January 1936). "The Influence of Thomas Digges on the Progress of Modern