KIRCHER, ATHANASIUS, a famous philosopher and mathematician, was born at Fulde in 1601. In 1618, he entered into the society of the Jesuits, and taught philosophy, mathematics, the Hebrew and Syriac languages, in the university of Witzburg, with great applause, till the year 1631. He went to France on account of the ravages committed by the Sweden in Franconia, and lived some time at Avignon. He was afterwards called to Rome, where he taught mathematics in the Roman College, collected a rich cabinet of machines and antiquities, and died in 1680.—The quantity of his works is immense, amounting to 22 vols in folio, 11 in quarto, and 3 in 8vo; enough to employ a man for a great part of his life even to transcribe them. Most of them are rather curious than useful; many of them visionary and fanciful; and if they are not always accompanied with the greatest exactness and precision, the reader, it is presumed, will not be astonished. The principal of his works are, 1. Præclusiones magneticae. 2. Primitivæ gnomonicae catoptricae. 3. Ars magna lucis et umbræ. 4. Musurgia universalis. 5. Obeliscus Pamphilus. 6. Obeliscus Egyptiacus, four volumes, folio. 7. Itinerarium exactum. 8. Obeliscus Egyptianus, in four volumes, folio. 9. Mundus subterraneus. 10. China illustrata.