The Glory of the Orrery

In 1771, a college without an orrery* was as behind the times as a modern university without a cyclotron. So, for -L-229 115. 6d., the College of New Jersey bought one of the mechanical planetariums from a Philadelphia clockmaker and installed it in Nassau Hall. When it worked, students of "Natural Philosophy" watched planets on long arms circle about a 4 ft. universe. The sun and moon moved in their appointed orbits; hands pointed to the proper phase of the zodiac marked on a brass ring that encircled the painted, deep-blue sky. Near the top, an inset dial indicated the day, the year and the hour. To Scottish-born John Witherspoon, Presbyterian theologian and sixth president of the college, the ornate mechanism both illustrated the majesty of the Lord's work and satisfied scientific inquiry.

But the glory of the New Jersey orrery was short-lived. During the Revolution, the troops of King George almost "liberated" it as a trophy of war. Then American militia, who thought the funny little wheels made "handsome curiosities," ravaged its clockwork. At the turn of the century, loyal students rescued it from a fire that destroyed the books in the college library, only to have a later generation deface it with penciled signatures.

Somehow, as the College of New Jersey grew up into Princeton University, the once-famed instrument disappeared. Not until last year was it rediscovered in the dusty basement of McCosh Hall. On display last week in Princeton's handsome new library, the antique wreck still puzzles Princeton's learned faculty. Not quite sure what to do with the astronomical marvel, Princeton's astronomers have not yet discovered how to make it perform.

* A model of the solar system, designed about 1700 by George Graham, an English clockmaker, and named after Charles Boyle, fourth Earl of Orrery.

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