Lawrence democrat. (Lawrenceburg, Tenn.) 1884-1925, 1890-11-14
AT THE PATENT OFFICE.
Perpetual Motion Cranks are Nu-
merous Among the Visitors.

A few weeks ago white-headed,
gray-bearded old man appo4:o2 ii She
front-door Of the White House, with .
little pine box under his arm. He APP
preached Colonel Dinsmore, the giant
like guard who presides over the vesti-
bule, and asked to see the President.
what is your name and what do
you want to see him for?" asked the
Colonel.
Whereupon the old man, por ting to
his box, said that he had discovered the
secret Of perpetual motion, and he
wanted to show it to President Harri.
son. Colonel Dinsmore told him that
he had better take his invention to
the Patent Office, and the old man
started off down Pennsylvania avenue.
1t is estimated that at least ten thou
sand American citizens are expert
menting to-day upon plan of produc-
ing perpetual motion. These ten thou
sand are scattered throughout the
United States, and several of them find
their way, each week, to the Patent
Of1:co at Washington. Some of them
are insane, others are full of common
sense on every other subject but this,
and all are disguised when they find
that the Patent Office demands work.
ing-model of their machines. Such a
model has never been produced, and,
however attractive the scheme may APP
pear on paper all such invention must
necessarily fail when they come to this
test.
Not long ago an Associated Press dis
patch was published in nearly every
daily newspaper in the United States
stating that an Ohio man had at last
produced such an invention, and few
weeks ago furniture-carver in Balti-
more claimed he had made the dis
covery. His machine was set of al
most perfectly-balanced weights con-
nected with leaden ball which, roll
ing up one gutter and down another,
produced power which operated the
machine for a time, but which was, of
course, lost as soon as friction began to
act upon it. His idea he considered
new, but 1t is the same that one of the
Brahmins OF India conceived three
thousand years ago and described in the
Vedas. 1t Is much the same as that of
an Italian inventor who in 1878 had q
hollow wheel with weights attached to
itwhich fell down as the wheel passed
central point and were expected to
close up to the wheel as it went on
around, thus apparently making the
weight on the descending side of the
wheel greatly exceed that on the as
cending. The Marquis of Worcester,
who had much to do with inventing
steam engine, got up hollow wheel
fitted with cannon balls and having
curbed spouts. The idea was that the
balls would run to the rim of the wheel
on the falling side, set it in motion and
then run back to the center as it turned
on. A practical model, however, showed
that the greater part of the balls soon
got to the outer edge Of the wheel, and
the motion stopped.
About hundred years ago, a Con-
necticut Yankee, named Harris Ran
som, asked the General Assembly of
that State for a monopoly Of his discov-
, cry of the "art or mystery of making
perpetual motion of water, whereby he
is able and can raise the water from any
river, pond, spring or fountain to the
height of thirty feet perpendicular and
convey the same to any parks Of any
towns or cities, or return the same to
the original fountain or head, which
said performance will be Of great ad-
vantage, not only to the petitioner, but
to the public in general, by affording
them at all times good and wholesome
water at a very trifiing expense"
Eight men signed this petition, but as
there is no perpetual water-machine
running to-day, 1t is evident that Ran
som made nothing out of it
Three years before the Declaration OF
Independence, John Shipman applied
for patent on mills to be run by the
ebb and tlow of the tide, and got mo-
nopoly for forty years to run his tide
mills anywhere in the town of Say
brook. Benjamin Hanks, of Litchfleld,
Conn, claimed that he had invented a
clock that wound itself up with the mo-
ton OF the air, and that would continue
to do so without any other aid or assist
ance until its parts were worn out. This
was generations ago, and il an air-clock
ever existed, we find no record of it to-
day. A Mr.. Jennings, of New York, has
constructed more than ninety models
worked on more than sixty different
princi eles in his attempts 10 invent per-
petual motion. He has been working
on it for thirty-one years, has spent tor-
~ thousand dollars, and now thinks he
has succeeded. lie has not, however