Microcosm was a unique

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the ...

made by Henry Bridges of Waltham Abbey, England. It stood 10–12 feet high, and six across the base, it toured

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and possibly

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as a visual and musical entertainment as well as demonstrating

astronomical Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies ...

movements. It was first advertised for exhibition in 1733, but it is also claimed that Sir

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

, who died in 1727, checked the mechanism. Several prints survive of Microcosm including one of 1734 showing Newton and Bridges. When Henry Bridges died in 1754 he left the clock to his three youngest children to be sold. It is unclear when the clock left the Bridges family but it continued touring until 1775 when it vanished. Parts of the astronomical clock were found in Paris in 1929 and are now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. When on tour, the entrance fee was 1s, which was high for the time. Souvenir pamphlets were also sold. It had 4 parts, from the top: #Three scenes which alternated: nine muses playing musical instruments, Orpheus in the forest, and a grove with birds flying and singing #Beneath a grand arch were two astronomical clocks, one showing the Ptolemaic system, the other Copernican. #Two planetariums, one showing the Solar System, showing 10 months move in 10 minutes, Another showing Jupiter and its four satellites, and on the front face was a seascape with ships sailing and in the foreground, horse-drawn carriages galloping and a gunpowdermill and a windmill turning, swans swimming #In the pedestal was a working carpenters’ yard The machine played mechanical music but the organ could also be played by hand. The music was mostly new, some composed especially for it. John R Milburn stated: ‘There were other broadly similar though less comprehensive devices in existence in the first half of the eighteenth century… The importance of Bridges’ ‘Microcosm’, however, lies in the nature of its displays (combining automated pictures to attract the multitude with educational astronomical models) and the widespread publicity that accompanied it on its travels’.John R Milburne, 'the Meandering Microcosm, A Chronological Account of the Travels of this "Matcheless Pile of Art" in England, Scotland, Ireland and America 1733-1775, Aylesbury, UK, 1995 It was viewed by

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

, and by members of the Lunar Society; Richard L Edgeworth left an account of seeing it at Chester in his biography, so links it with the notions of child-centred education promoted by Rousseau. The mechanism was constantly being updated, so was part of the circuit of travelling science shows of the early to mid 18th century, providing education to the public who could afford it.

References

{{Reflist Individual clocks Astronomical clocks Collection of the British Museum