^* Wilkins, who was variously warden of Wadham College, Oxford, and master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was a polymath the like of which is little known today. Not only was he a practicing priest and college administrator, friend to such as Christopher Wren (St. Paul’s Cathedral) and Robert Boyle (of Boyle’s law in physics), but he had a great interest in science: he suspected there might be life on the moon, imagined the existence of new planets, devised plans for submarines and aircraft and perpetual motion machines, and, in the same book that proposed a metric system based on the pendulum, proposed the establishment of a new universal language, because of the deficiencies of Latin. Also, during his time at Wadham, he created transparent beehives so that honey could be harvested without disturbing the bees.