ORDEAL. See this article in the Encyclopaedia, at the end of which we have given, from Dr Henry's History of England, some strong reasons for suspecting that the ordeal, by fire at least, was a gross imposition on the credulity of an ignorant and superstitious age. This suspicion of imposture is raised to certainty by Professor Beckmann, who, in his History of Inventions, gives us the whole process by which the clergy conducted the trial, and brought proofs of innocence or of guilt at their pleasure. The person accused was put entirely under their management for three days before the trial, and for as many after it. They covered his hands (when he was to lift red-hot iron) both before and after the proof; sealed and unsealed the covering. The former was done, as they pretended, to prevent the hands from being prepared any how by art; the latter, that it might be accurately known whether or not they were burnt.
Some artificial preparation was therefore known, else no precautions would have been necessary. It is highly probable, that during the three first days the preventative was applied to those persons whom they wished to appear innocent; and that the three days after the trial were requisite to let the hands resume their natural state. The sacred sealing secured them from the examination of presumptuous unbelievers; for to determine whether the hands were burnt, the three last days were certainly not wanted. When the ordeal was abolished, and this art rendered useless, the clergy no longer kept it a secret. In the 13th century, an account of it was published by Albertus Magnus, a Dominican monk (A). If his receipt be genuine, it seems to have consisted rather in covering the hands with a kind of paste than in hardening them. The sap of the althaea (marshmallow), the slimy seeds of the flea-bane, which is still used for stiffening by the hat-makers and silk-weavers, together with the white of an egg, were employed to make the paste adhere. And by these means the hands were as safe as if they had been secured by gloves.
ORFFYREUS'S WHEEL, in mechanics, is a machine so called from its inventor, which he asserted to be a perpetual motion. This machine, according to the account given of it by Gravefande, in his Oeuvres Philosophiques, published by Allemand, Amst. 1774, consisted externally of a large circular wheel, or rather drum, 12 feet in diameter, and 14 inches deep; being
very light, as it was formed of an assemblage of deals, Orffyreus's having the intervals between them covered with waxed Wheel, cloth, to conceal the interior parts of it. The two Orffyreus's extremities of an iron axis, on which it turned, rested Wheel, on two supports. On giving a slight impulse to the Wheel, in either direction, its motion was gradually accelerated; so that, after two or three revolutions, it acquired so great a velocity as to make 25 or 26 turns in a minute. This rapid motion it actually preserved during the space of two months, in a chamber of the Landgrave of Hesse, the door of which was kept locked, and sealed with the Landgrave's own seal. At the end of that time it was stopped, to prevent the wear of the materials. The Professor, who had been an eye witness to these circumstances, examined all the external parts of it, and was convinced that there could not be any communication between it and any neighbouring room. Orffyreus, however, was so incensed, or pretended to be so, that he broke the machine in pieces; and wrote on the wall, that it was the impertinent curiosity of Professor Gravefande which made him take this step. The Prince of Hesse, who had seen the interior parts of this wheel, but sworn to secrecy, being asked by Gravefande, whether, after it had been in motion for some time, there was any change observable in it, and whether it contained any pieces that indicated fraud or deception? answered both questions in the negative, and declared, that the machine was of a very simple construction.