LONG, Roger, master of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, Lowndes professor of astronomy in that university, rector of Cherryhinton in Huntingdonshire, and of Bradwell juxta mare in Essex, was author of a treatise of astronomy, and the inventor of a curious astronomical machine. The latter is thus described by himself: "I have, in a room lately built in Pembroke Hall, erected a sphere of eighteen feet diameter, wherein above thirty persons may sit conveniently. The entrance into it is over the south pole by six steps; the frame of the sphere consists of a number of iron meridians, not complete semicircles, the northern ends of which are screwed to a large round plate of brass, with a hole in the centre of it. Through this hole, from a beam in the ceiling, comes the north pole, a round iron rod about three inches long, and supports the upper part of the sphere to its proper elevation for the latitude of Cambridge. The lower part of the sphere, so much of it as is invisible in England, is cut off; and the lower or southern ends of the meridians, or truncated semicircles, terminate on and are screwed down to a strong circle of oak, of about thirteen feet diameter, which, when the sphere is put into motion, runs upon large rollers of lignum-vitæ, in the manner that the tops of some windmills are made to turn round. Upon the iron meridians is fixed a zodiac of tin painted blue, wherein the ecliptic and heliocentric orbits of the planets are drawn, and the constellations and stars traced. When it is made use of, a planetarium will be placed in the middle thereof. The whole, with the floor, is well supported by a frame of large timber." Dr Long published a Commencement Sermon in 1728, and an answer to Dr Galley's pamphlet on Greek Accents; and he died on the 16th of December 1770, at the age of ninety-one.