1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class X.: Joseph Bateman
187. BATEMAN, JOSEPH, LL.D., East India Road — Designer and Proprietor.
Centrifugal machine, illustrating planetary motion.
The object of this machine is to exhibit the remarkable tendency of all bodies, having a longer and shorter axis, to revolve upon their shorter axis: a tendency common to all the planetary bodies, as far as we are acquainted with their motions, as well as to all bodies on or near the earth's surface. To illustrate this tendency, a model of the planet Saturn is suspended by its longer axis, and set in revolution by means of a machine which, in the present instance, is regulated by clockwork. A s soon as it is in motion, the model, of its own accord, quits its vertical position, and assumes a horizontal one, so as to spin on its shorter axis, and this it continues to do as long as the motion is kept up, just in the same way as the planet itself is revolving at millions of miles distance. The machine is fitted up in open brass-work, the escapement for which has been arranged by Mr. Jennings, of Birmingham. It is mounted on a kind of triumphal arch, executed by Mr. Flint and Mr. Stokes, of the same place. And the model planet revolves in a circular space, representing the solar system, surrounded by the signs of the zodiac, painted on glass by Mrs. Bateman, and Mr. Mason, of Exeter.