See Martin’s _Philosophia Britannica_, lect. xi. note 141. Though “_Orrery_” be a modern name, the invention of such machines as it is now applied to, is of a very early date. The first _planetarium_ or _orrery_, of which we have any account, was the famous machine of Archimedes. This consisted, as Cicero (in his _Tusculan Questions_) asserts, of a sphere, of an hollow globular surface, of glass, within which was some ingenious mechanism, to exhibit the motions of the moon, the sun, and all the planets then known. Very imperfect as it must necessarily have been in other respects, it was radically erroneous, in being adapted to the _Ptolomaic_ system. This is described in Latin verse, by the poet Claudius Claudianus, of Alexandria, who flourished about four centuries after the Christian era, and more than six centuries after the Syracusean philosopher. Cicero, in his book _De Naturâ Deorum_, mentions one invented by Posidonius the Stoic, in his time, and about eighty years before the birth of Christ. He describes it as a “sphere,”—“in every revolution of which, the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets were the same as in the heavens, each day and night.” Nothing further is heard of orreries or spheres, until about five hundred and ten years after Christ, when Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Bœthius, the Roman Consul, (who was also a Christian, and a Peripatetic Philosopher,) is said to have contrived one. Theodoric, king of the Goths, calls it “_Machinam Mundo gravidam, Cœlum gestabile, Rerum Compendium_”: But Bœthius was, nevertheless, put to death by this Gothic king, A. D. 524. A long and dismal reign of barbarism and ignorance having succeeded this period, no further mention is made of any thing in the nature of a planetarium, for about one thousand years. See Note 95. ----- The Planetarium invented by Mr. George Graham,[132]—and a model of which was improperly retained by Mr. Rowley, its constructor,—had, long before the appearance of Mr. Rittenhouse’s machine, acquired the name of an Orrery; in compliment to Richard Boyle, Earl of Orrery,[133] who merely patronized the construction of one, from the artist Rowley’s pirated model. This complimentary appellation of Mr. Graham’s then newly invented Planetarium is said to have been bestowed upon it by Lord Orrery’s friend, Sir Richard Steele:[134] and, the name being thus applied to _that_ machine, all those of the nature of _Planetaria_, subsequently constructed,—however variant in usefulness or design, from the original one bearing the name of an “Orrery,”—were denominated _Orreries_.[135] In compliance, then, with long established usage, Mr. Rittenhouse modestly called his Planetarian-machine, from the first projection of it, an Orrery; although the entire merit, both of the invention and construction, belonged to himself.[136] ----- Footnote 132: