162 Biographical Account of [March, 



was at that time but little known, though they have since become 

 very common in England under the name of Orreries ; because 

 the Earl ofOrrery employed Mr. Graham to construct one of the 

 first of these machines, which served afterwards as a model for 

 all subsequent ones. A machine of this kind constructed by 

 Mr. Roemer was exhibited to the French Academy in the year 

 1680.* But Dr. Hales was not aware of any such previous 

 invention when he constructed his own machine. 



Dr. Stukely, who afterwards settled in London as a physician, 

 was at that time in Cambridge, and in the same college with 

 Dr. Hales. These two young gentlemen had a similarity of 

 taste which soon rendered them mseparable companions. They 

 traversed the environs of Cambridge in search of plants, with 

 Mr. Ray's Description of the Plants which grow in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Cambridge, for their guide. This faithful guide 

 often led them into places very little frequented, where they 

 could obtain nothing to satisfy their thirst but sour small beer. 

 This beer Dr. Hales rendered drinkable on the spot by infusing 

 into it a quantity of wormwood or some other bitter plant, to the 

 great astonishment of his hosts. Thus the knowledge of plants 

 began already to reward him for the trouble which it cost him to 

 acquire it. 



To the study of botany was joined that of chemistry ; and our 

 two friends, not satistied with the ordinary lectures of the pro- 

 fessor, repeated in their own apartments various experiments of 

 Boyle, and attended with the greatest assiduity the chemical 

 processes carried on at Trinity College in a laboratory that had 

 belonged to Sir Isaac Newton, and in which the chemical 

 manuscripts of this great man had been burned by a fatal acci- 

 dent. Such was the ardour with which Hales devoted himself 

 to this study, that he seems already to have conceived that he 

 should on a future day have it in his power to repair this great 

 loss to the chemical world. 



Anatomy, which is so essential a part of science, was not 

 neglected by our two young gentlemen. Hales made such 

 progress in it that he even contrived a new mode of rendering 

 the vesicles of the lungs visible to the eye. He fixed a gun- 

 barrel to the windpipe still attached to the lungs. This barrel 

 was heated by passing it through a chatter, and he blew through 

 it; for several hours, into the lungs, a hot dry air, which dried 

 all the membranes and vesicles, keeping them still in a state of 

 distention. He then poured in a quantity of melted tin ; for this 

 metal melts at a temperature so low that when in fusion it does 

 not destroy the texture of animal bodies. When every thing was 

 cold, he destroyed the whole of the lungs by a long maceration, 

 there remained a fine anatomic tree, which not only represented 

 exactly the figure of the interior of the lungs, but enabled him 



* See Hist, de I'Acail. torn. i. p. 317. 



