OKR ORRERY. 



333 



liis doctrines, ami fables, thrown into a poetical form, 

 have been handed down by tradition. At a very 

 early period, poems ascribed to Orpheus were in cir- 

 culation throughout Greece; but, even in ancient 

 times, doubts were felt with regard to their authenti- 

 city ; and it is probable that, as early as the age of 

 Aristotle, none of them were entirely authentic, but 

 that they contained portions of the poet's doctrines. 

 We possess^ under the name of Orpheus, an Argonau- 

 tica (edited by Schneider, Jena, 1803) ; some sacred 

 hymns ; a work upon the properties of minerals, 

 probably of the fourth century after the Christian era 

 (edited by Tyrwhitt, London, 1781), and several 

 fragments. The best edition of these works is that 

 of Hermann (Leipsic, 1805). The Orphic poetry 

 embraces the whole cycle of the esoteric religious 

 doctrines, and the doctrines of the^mysteries. See 

 George Ffenry Bode's Orpheus, Poetarum Graecorum 

 antiquissimus, a prize essay (Gottingen, 1824, 4to). 



ORR, HUGH, was born January 13, 1717, at 

 Lochwinnoch, in the county of Renfrew, Scotland. 

 He was educated a gunsmith and house-lock filer; 

 and at the age of twenty went to America. One 

 year he resided at Easton, Massachusetts, and the 

 next he removed to Bridgewater. There he built a 

 shop, and set up the first tilt-hammer in that part of 

 the country, where he was for several years the only 

 maker of edge tools, of which he manufactured many 

 sorts. In 1748, he made five hundred muskets for 

 the province of Massachusetts Bay, and, during the 

 revolutionary war, commenced anew the manufactur- 

 ing of arms. In concert with a French gentleman, 

 he set up a foundery for the casting of cannon. These 

 were cast solid and bored : most of them were iron ; 

 a few were brass. A great quantity of cannon-shot 

 was also cast at the same furnace, and, together with 

 the cannon, formed a valuable acquisition to the 

 country at that period. Besides spreading the manu- 

 facture of edge tools through various parts of Massa- 

 chusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, Mr Orr 

 originated the business of exporting flax-seed from 

 the part of the country in which he resided, and 

 probably gave the first impulse to the manufacturing 

 of cotton. For several years, he was elected a sena- 

 tor for the county of Plymouth, and enjoyed the in- 

 timacy and confidence of governor Bowdoin. He 

 died in December, 1798, in the eighty-second year 

 of his age. In private life, he was exemplary ; and 

 his attachment to his adopted country was pure and 

 ardent. 



ORRERY, an astronomical instrument for exhi- 

 biting the motions of the heavenly bodies, was first 

 constructed by Graham ; but its name is derived 

 from one made by Rowley for the earl of Orrery, 

 which was supposed by Sir R. Steele to be the first 

 ever constructed ; and he therefore gave it the above 

 name, in honour of the earl, whose name it has 

 ever since retained, though the error on which it 

 was adopted has long been corrected. The principal 

 use of the orrery, is to illustrate the theory of the 

 earth and moon, and to render it obvious and intelli- 

 gible, to exhibit to our senses the manner in which 

 all these changes and phenomena take place, which 

 depend on the annual and diurnal revolution of the 

 earlh, and the monthly revolution of the moon. It 

 is so constructed, therefore, as to represent all the 

 variety of the seasons ; the vicissitudes and lengths 

 of days and nights, also the nature of eclipses of the 

 sun and moon, and various other phenomena. By 

 means of this apparatus, many individuals who have 

 not sufficient leisure to apply themselves to the study 

 of astronomy, may, in the course of a short time, at- 

 tain to a complete knowledge of several of the most 

 remarkable appearances of the heavenly bodies, 

 which otherwise might remain to them mysterious 



and inexplicable. Various forms of this instrument 

 have been invented ; but of these, the two that have 

 been most approved of are the whole and the half 

 sphere planetarium. At first this machine appears 

 to have been constructed without any sphere, and 

 with nothing more than the sun, having the earth 

 and moon revolving around it ; but soon after it was 

 invested with half a sphere, and then with a whole 

 sphere, in order to exhibit a more full and correct 

 representation of the celestial bodies and of the 

 whole solar system. 



An improved orrery was invented by Mr Huygen? ( 

 and is still preserved in the university of Leyden. It 

 represents the revolutions of the five primary planets 

 about the sun, and that of the moon about the earth, 

 so that the situations of the planets, with their con- 

 junctions and oppositions, are clearly seen and dis- 

 covered for any time past, present, or to come. 

 About the middle of the last century, Ferguson, the 

 self-taught astronomer, constructed a variety of or- 

 reries, much esteemed for their accuracy and inge- 

 nuity. In 1791, an elaborate machine of this sort was 

 exhibited in London, representing all the most re- 

 markable motions, revolutions, and phenomena of the 

 universe. This piece of mechanism exhibited the 

 whole phenomena of the solar system, with the sa- 

 tellites of the earth, Jupiter, and the other planets, 

 preserved in constant motion by a chronometer, even 

 to the very diurnal rotation of the planets, and the 

 unequal motions in their elliptic orbits. The merit of 

 this machine is due to the celebrated M. Hahn, of 

 the academy of sciences at Erfurt, who left it unfin- 

 ished, but it was afterwards completed by M. A. de 

 Mylius. This orrery was purchased by the British 

 government, and sent out with lord Macartney, 

 among other curiosities of his embassy, as a present 

 to the emperor of China. Within the present cen- 

 tury, many ingenious orreries have been constructed, 

 among which, that of Mr Fulton, a self-taught artist 

 in Fenwick, Ayrshire, may be considered the most 

 remarkable. His machine exhibits the annual and 

 diurnal motions of all the planets, the motions of the 

 satellites in their proper periodic times and due de- 

 grees of inclination. By means of an engraved plate, 

 all the planets and satellites may be placed in their 

 proper relative positions for any given time, and by 

 the application of a chronometer, this orrery may be 

 made to exhibit the real aspect of the solar system at 

 the exact period on which it may happen to be ex- 

 amined. Many attempts have been made to produce 

 what are called transparent orreries, by means of the 

 magic lantern ; but to say the least of it, these are 

 calculated if for any thing more to amuse than to 

 instruct. 



The difference between an orrery and a planeta- 

 rium is understood to consist in this, that a planeta- 

 rium exhibits by wheel- work the periodic or tropical 

 revolutions of the primary planets round the sun, 

 without any reference to their rotations, whereas the 

 orrery gives, besides the revolutions of the primary 

 planets, the revolutions of some or all of the second- 

 aries, and the rotation of the earth, together with 

 the moon's anomalistic revolution, and her revolution 

 with respect to the period of the retrograde motion 

 of the nodes. Hence the orrery, when constructed 

 on its most comprehensive plan, may be said to com- 

 prise within itself the planetarium, the tellarium, the 

 lunarium, and the machine for Jupiter's satellites. 



ORRERY (CHARLES BOYLE), earl of, second son 

 of Roger earl of Orrery, was born, in 1676, at Chel- 

 sea, and, at fifteen, entered at Christ-Church, Oxford. 

 While there, he published a new edition of the epis- 

 tles of Phalaris, of which doctor Bentley questioning 

 the authenticity, he wrote an answer entitled Doctor 

 Bentley's Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris 



