(Athanasius), a famous philosopher and mathematician, was born at Fulda 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 Würzburg, with great applause till the year 1641. He went to France on account of the ravages committed by the Swedes 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