The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-02
ALMOST PERPETUAL
BRIDGEPORT MAN THINKS HE HAS
FOUND MEANS TO MULTIPLY
POWER.
MAKES A GIGANTIC CLAIM.
WITH HIS NEW MACHINE A SMALL
ENGINE WILL RUN LARGE
MILLS.
Air COmpressOrs Store Away Motion
and Power in "a Large.
Tank.


Hidden away inside a vast, barn-like
building on the manufacturing out
skirts of Bridgeport, Conn, is a strange
machine unlike anything that a man
ever built before.
The building is of heavy boards,
tightly joined, and in color is like
gray day in the fall A lettered warn
ing to the passerby to keep his distance
unless he has q permit to enter is on
the door next the street. High up on
the face of the great grim structure is
painted: 1.-The Chaquette Power Com
pany."
The letters are immense and the leg
end reaches away across the building.
But no sound of grooming machinery
comes from "Chaquette's Power Fac
tory" such as the name would sug-
gest Silence reigns there. There are
no smut-faced engineers or stokers 60
ing in and out, ne column cf smoke
whirled from the tall chimneys by the
September wind.
To the Woodworking people In the
great factories which made the dis
trict ChaQuette's is a mystery. They
hear tinkering there, and sometimes at
night the "chug' of a small engine
They have felt
TREMBLING OF THE GROUND
as they passed there in the darkness
on their homeward ways. They are
right. There is mystery there-a
mystery over which one man has been
burning midnight oil for years He is
not the only one. Engineers and math-
ematicians ever since force was discov-
cred have been hammering away at
the problem of perpetual motion-try-
ing in vain to counterfeit in feeble
human measure the power which keeps
the planets in their places.
AT last he is on the verge of the dis
covery. He has found something
something that it will be we'll worth
his while to guard carefully
1t is not the perfect force. It will
not roll the stars in their course. nor
make the ocean tides ebb and flow. It
is limited by the durability of matter
But it is multiplication of the
power of engineering by multiplier
which a quarter of a century-yes, or
decade-ago, wise men would have
thought impossible
1t is not fabric which once put in
motion will run until. the stars grow
cold and the last man has carefully
FOLDED up his Sunday Journal and put
II IN his pocket in anticipation of de-
parture to the land of future reference
But 1t fuIf1lls the expectations of it's
builder; If its final performance is as
MARVELLOUS AS ITS TRIALS
nave been, it will orevolutionize manu-
1acture and make the twin giants.
steam and electricity, mere hall boys
In the great service of mankind.
xryf1I i
man knows it. And not he alone. but
the smart capitalists who, having seen
the machine and studied through both
mechanical and financial eyes its work
lnSs, nave put up their good, hard dol
lars to build in steel and iron what was
pG1lt years ago in the brain Of the in
gen1ous Frenchman, and expect with
it TO provide power to run the whole
enormous factory system of Bridge
pert, and, for that matter, eventually
all the rest of the world.
IL the Frenchman's idea works mil
mems is a meager word to denote the
money they will coin in return for their
investment
And, although he does not claim It
elthough he makes no boasts of what
ne or his machine will do in the future
II is easy to learn from what little talk
ing ne does-in fact, he is on record as
having said to the representative of a
h1s new piece of machinery the seeds
yes, the living growth-of perpetual
motion. and that future development
ALONE WAS LACKING
For fifteen, sixteen, seventeen wears
III Canaoa ana In this country, he has
carried his germinal idea with him
and studied it, knowing that some day
lt would all come clear to him in an in.
slant 40 GIL iii-
on engineering jobs in California
where he built the longest tunnel in
ciple. sa@- - ~
1T is the only thing to build tunnels
WITH he cried to the Sunday Journal
man. Work is nothing if you use this
principle" LILO
About a year ago Chaquette decided
that his machine was perfect. He had
a big model of it, which worked like a
charm. He had patent on it. and
then he had people who would helm
him to build it,
Through the winter months he per-
fected the plans, and in February the
great, shedlike building on Crescent
avenue began to rise From that dav
to this the big iron castings have van
lshed into the dim recesses of the big
Duiiolng. A few workmen have gone
quietly about, and up to a month ago
there was no clang of hammers upon
the steel But not ten persons out of
Bridgeport's $4,000 probably. have
known what was going on there.
Last week the great machine was
painted. Today 1T is finished. Within
fortnight the big doors which have
been so long mysteriously closed will
be opened, and the whole world. or so
much of 1t as can crowd in there, will
be asked to come and see for itself
that the old man has discovered how
to sHlv,
MULTIPLY POWER
by something like rs, without the ex
penditure of an additional penny be-
sides what it cost to build the ma
chine and roof to cover it.
MT. Chaquette has an Office at 100
State street, Bridgeport but he is
seldom, if ever there
The elevator boy tells you that "you
will always find Mr.. Chaquette at the
works I"
This modest French inventor is a fine.
gray-bearded man of sixty or more.
His eyes are kindly, deep set, thought
ful. His shoulders are stopped with
much study and work over modelers
table. yss 4-f 2naft.''
He paused from the making Of care
fully considered marks upon the broad,
white board, from, which he was plan
ming to saw pattern.
When you enter the building it Is i'm
possible at first to discern much Of any
thing in the shadow. There is an in
distinct knowledge that overhead is an
airy structure of iron Orders and
wooden beams with long. weblike
braces.
1t is & wheel, huge one and in ef-
feet q simple one, which Chaquette has
relied on for solution of the great