Note 136 — MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; ANTERIOR TO HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.

Mr. Jefferson remarks, in his Notes on Virginia, that “Mr. Rittenhouse’s model of the planetary system has the plagiary appellation of an Orrery.” This was, undoubtedly, a plagiary name, in its relation to Graham’s Planetarium, of which Lord Orrery was the supposed inventor: but the charge of plagiarism does not properly apply to the same name, when bestowed by Mr. Rittenhouse himself, on the grand machine of his own invention and construction. How improper soever this name may have been in its first application to a planetarium, it has since been generally applied to similar machines; and it has thus acquired an appropriate signification in relation to them. Mr. Rittenhouse did not choose to depart from the appellation in common use, in naming a machine for surpassing, in ingenuity of contrivance, accuracy and utility, any thing of the kind ever before constructed; yet, in all those points of excellence, he was the inventor of that admirable machine, which has been generally denominated, by others, “the Rittenhouse Orrery.”