GUERICKE (Otto or Otho)

, counsellor to the elector of Brandenbourg and burgomaster of Magdebourg, was born in 1602, and died in 1686 at Hambourg. He was one of the greatest philosophers of his time. It was Guericke that invented the air-pump; the two brass hemispheres, which being applied to each other, and the air exhausted, 16 horses were not able to draw them asunder; the marmouset of glass which descended in a tube in rainy weather, and rose again on the return of serene weather. This last machine fell into disuse on the invention of the barometer, especially after Huygens and Amontons gave theirs to the worldGuericke made use of his marmouset to foretell storms; from whence he was looked upon as a sorcerer by the people; so that the thunder having one day fallen upon his house, and shivered to pieces several machines which he had employed in his experiments, they failed not to say it was a punishment from heaven that was angry with him.——Guericke was author of several works in natural philosophy, the principal of which was his Ex<*> perimenta Magdeburgica, in folio, which contains his experiments on a vacuum.