The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-05-26
PERPETUAL MOTION.
Ingenuity That Has Been Wasted Upon
This Delusiye Problem.

VI DuSy pTdlIlS, anu UIe ndIneS Oh bne III
ventors who have tried their hands at the
subject is legion. Like the search after
the elixir vitae, the Communication of the
baser metals into the noble, and the
quadrature of the circle, perpetual mo-
ton, says the London Standard, is sub
ject eminently suitable for constitutional
wonderers and half-learned mechanics.
All the would-be inventors of this easily
demonstrated impossibility, however,
have not been Learned by any means.
Witness that famous poet, sculptor, and
general genius, Leonardo da Vinci. The
British Museum contains rough sketch
from the painter of the Last Supper of
perpetual motion machine, arranged as
the majority of them are, on the principle
of hinged weights round the periphery of
wheel
Arkwright again was certainly not
fool nor half learned mechanic, but he
believed in the possibility of perpetual
motion and made several models Of his
ideas-which, it is almost needless to
state, failed to Worthwhile Sir Christie
pher Wren took out patent for similar
machine. But perpetual motion was in
vented before the time of Christopher
Wren or even Leonardo da Vinci. That
is the subject not the fact was invented,
The earliest known example was in the
Thirteenth century. Wilars de
Honecort, Flemish artist and architect
who died at Paris in the year 1890, was
CO SC IND hn TUnTp-
rial Library in Paris big quarto sketch
book which once belonged to this gentle
man, and which contains, among various
sketches of landscapes, buildings and
decorations, sketch of a perpetual-mo-
ton machine, with the note: Many
people have for long time past tried to
produce a machine which will go of its
own accord and continue to go until it is
stopped-here is such a machine, which,
with movable maliets arranged round a
wheel, will go for ever"
The machine itself is of the pattern
jority of perptual motion cranks. 1t is
merely a wheel hung on an axle and
has arranged aorund its periphery several
mallets at equal distances from each
other in such way that the weight shall
always be on one side, and SO keep pull
ling the wheel over. It's only fault was
that the weights did not act as desired
the machine looked very well on paper,
but was a good illustration of the defini-
ton once given of theory; that it is an
"impracticable method of doing that
which is impossible" In 100 a gentle
man of the name Of Orffyrus claimed to
have invented perpetual motion ma
chine. The Landgrave of Hesse Cassel
granted him the Castle of Weissenstein
as residence while he built his contri-
vance. This, when it was finished, re-
sembled in shape a gigantic cheese,
twelve feet across and two and q half feet
thick. 1t was hung upon an axle eight
feet long and eight inches in diameter,
and was set into a solid oak frame.
When the whole was ready the Landgrave
came to see it, and it was set going.
Then the room was sealed up, and the
Landgrave returned in eight weeks, the
room was opened, and the machine found
to be still going. Thereupon the Land
grave declared that Orffyrus had invented
perpetual motion, for had he not seen
the proof thereof with his own eyes! But
this evidence was not sufficient for pro-
fessor of philosophy at Berlin. He came
to see the machine, and asked its inven
tor SO many awkward questions that
OrffyruS refused to let him examine it.
The professor published his report upon
the machine, and said that he could not
say where the fraud precisely lay, because
he was not permitted to examine the in
vention closely. This report SO angered
poor Orffyrus that he took his machine to
pieces and never set it up again, and
when he died, in 1745, his secret of per-
petual motion-if he possessed it-died
with him.
1t is not, we believe, very far from the
truth to state that every individual who
has had to DO with machinery or mechan-
les has given at least passing thought
to the solution Of perpetual motion. We
do not mean to say that he has actually
given up his mind to it at any period of
his life, but only that he has wondered if
such and such an arrangement would
act. After all, it is not to be marvelled
at if every body has, for the subject is a
particularly fascinating one, and almost
every force known has been pressed into
the service. The most usual method en-
ployed by would-be inventors of perpet-
ual motion is, as we have remarked
above, a wheel with hinged weights
round its periphery. But there have been
many other ways Of arriving at failure.
The inclined plane, with spheres of iron
running up and down on it, or rather in
a groove in it, is also very usual and per-
cussion, magnetism and electricity have
played important parts in the straining
after perpetual motion. A curious
machine was invented in America some
time since. 1t acted, or rather should
have acted, by capillary attraction. A
piece of cloth, endless, like an ordinary
roller towel, was so arranged that one
side of it could take up water from a
trough. This would cause the cloth to
shrink, and SO pull up the piece at the
bottom, causing a continuous motion,
claimed the Inventor. 1t didn't. Anoth-
er curious machine was built as follows:
An endless pipe in the shape of an oval
was stood erect on one side, and one-half
of it was filed with water, the other half
being empty. Then balls heavier than
air, but lighter than water, were dropped
through the part only occupied by air,
and popped through valve at the bottom
of the pipe, so entering the half of the
tube occupied by water Of course they
then rose by their own buoyancy, came
through another valve into the air space,
fell down and repeated the operation.
There is great virtue in an eff, accord
ing to high authority, but there was the
opposite in it in this instance. If the
water in the tube had been obliging
enough to Stay in IFS DrODer Mace the Der-