Mexico weekly ledger., 1891-01-29
PERPETUAL MOTION
Has Been Sought by Many but
Never F0und-Jones, Of
This City, Is Sure
He Has 1t.

Vintage deTdtU, referring 10
perpetual motion inventors, one of
whom lives in Mexico, says:
The death of John L. Gouley, the
inventor, philanthropist and Christ
ian worker, which occurred at Will
mington recently, removed from earth
still another being who was just on
the point of discovering a motor to be
run by perpetual motion. He was a
bachelor, successful in business, noted
for his hberality and kindness, and
seemed to possess more than ordinary
intelligence, and yet for twenty years
he was afflicted with the perpetual
motion lunacy. He spent his evenings
i'll a garnet workshop, where he labor
ed diligently upon his motor, seldom
going to bed before midnight. He cur
tanned the windows and closed up key
holes and took every preeaution posi-
BILE to keep the world from discovering
his secret. Alas, that he should have
guarded it 80 closely, for since his
death the machine has been found
just as he left it, all taken apart, SO
that apparently no one can discover
how the sections were arranged.
And so the world is still as it always
has been and as the laws of nature
prove that it always must be-witnout
perpetual motion. The secret of his
life as disclosed by his death goes to
show that the ignus fatus that began
haunting mems visions more that
seven centuries ago has not yet paled
in the light of reason.
1t may be safely said that there are
! to-day as many minds afflicted with
this mild form of insanity as there
have been at any time in the past.
Every city, town and hamlet possesses
its would-be inventor who is striving
to achieve the end that is to startle
the world. Many who will not open
ly admit that they believe perpetual
motion is possible are secretly think
ing upon the matter and entertaining
the hope that they may yet do what
50 many have failed in doing. No
other fallacy has been so popular or
has so long withstood the light OF
reason as has perpetual motion. AL
chemy and the transmulation Of met
ais, which for a season so occupied the
minds of men, passed away to return
TO more. The philosophers stone and
the elixir vitae were believed in and
earnestly sought after by the really
scientific men of a few generations
but the search was finally given up
The phantom of perpetual motion
however, will not down, but beckon.
men Oh and on, leading them all to tn.
same inevitable result-total failure
Men are as far from the discovery O
the secret to-day as they were sever
, centuries ago, and they will get NJ
, nearer to it until a weight placed upol
the ground can lift itself up, or, as thu
idea is sometimes more strikingly pre-
sented, until one can lift himself of
, the floor by pulling his boot straps.
:. More than a century ago the AGA
/ demie Royale DIES Sciences at Pari
f passed a resolution that they woult
no longer entertain communication
about discoveries of perpetual motion
: They included in the same prohibition
, "the duplication of the cube, the tri
section of the angle and the quadratur
of the circle" Men had worked TO
centuries on the theory that the dis
. covery of perpetual motion was pos
= sible, nor did this authoritative opin
: ton to the contrary alter their views
And they are still working at it, ant
probably will to the end of time
: Hundreds of patents have been grant
! ed for machines for the purpose, an,
6 the widespread and continued ex
~istence of the fallacy is clearly show
q by the scores of designs and incom
plete models in the patent office a
Washington.
AS is generally known, a perpetua
. motion machine is one to be moved b,
3 a power furnished by the machin
0 itself and not from any source outsid
S of it. A mill or a clock run by tn
/, incessant rise and fall OF the tide i
not perpetual motion. Neither is
Q machine That runs by the power c
. terrestrial or other magnetism, or c
the wind, or of variations in tn
weight of the atmosphere, or by cleo
0 tricity coming from outside of tn
4 machine, or by the force of heat CON
ing from the sun. A wheel that coul
e always of itself keep more weight a
one side than at the other and thu
n turn so long as its materials last
e ed would be perpetual motion, an
such has been the form of most of tn
machines invented for the purpose.
Honecourt, a Flemish architect {
the thirteenth century, left a DRAWN
of a wheel that was to solve tn
problem, with this memorandum
"Many a time have skillful workme
tried to contrive a wheel that sha.
! turn of itself. Here is a way to max
such a one, by an uneven number {
mallets or by quicksilver" But, ur
fortunately, he did not leave tn
wheel.
From his time on seekers after pei
Z petual motion have beed numerous
? many of them supposed to be yer
respectable and intelligent mer
2 Among the receivers of eighty-si
English and twenty-three Frenc
patents taken out for perpetual mo
tons between 1860 and 1869 were
+, colonial bishop, a professor of philost
d ply, one of languages, two barons,
Knight Templar, a doctor of medicine
two civil engineers, several mechani
. cal engineers, etc.
Arkwright, the celebrated Englis.
g inventor lin his younger days., an,
even Sir Isaac Newton, believed Der
petual motion might be discovered
All so-called perpetual motion ma
chimes that have run have been imposi
tons with secret clockwork or som
o other hidden source of propulsion
Fulton one time went to see a s'perpet
ual notion machine, having a frien,