Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1899-04-06
KELLY AND HIS cosMIc FORCE.
His Obscure Explanations andy Cauz
tious Exhibitions.


prejudice scientific people against
Kelly as the peculiar phraseology en-
ployed by him and by his champion,
Mrs Bloomfield Moore. Mrs. Moore.
in raphsodic effusion entitled The
veif1 Withdrawn" printed in a maya
zine more than three years ago, had a
good deal to say about Sympathetic
physics" polar negative attraction"
''the latent current of the triune polar
| flow" celestial outreach," etc. The
reader felt at moments as IL there
might possibly be some sense to this
sort of thing. There would be glim-
merings of an idea here and there in
this singular talk. but by those who
were accustomed to the use of terms
whose significance was well under
stood by the persons addressed, such
language was naturally received with
| impotence. Moreover, Kelly himself
seemed to change his ground from time
to time, his explanations and appara-
tus varying more or less at successive
exhibitions.
But, reduced to plain English, his
pretense was this: If one piece of ma
chinery were devised that would pro-
duce vibrations, and another that was
sensitive to vibrations, the latter
might be made to respond to the ex-
element of the former. Now, within
certain limits, this was Ineligible and
! reasonable tank The principle of
resonance in sound and electricity is
well established. Maraconi uses appa-
ratus to produce electromagnetic
waves, and another device, a "coher-
err" picks them up at distance. And
that is the essence of wireless telegra-
ply. Again, the musician sets up two
tuning forks whose rates of vibration
are exactly alike, and when he strikes
one the other Immediately cmits the
same note, in sympathy.
But there is one unique point of diff
ference between these two instances
of sympathetic vibration and Keely's.
The Marconi apparatus and the tun-
ing fork do not develop more force
than is employed in the exciting pro-
cess. There is merely transfer Of
energy, and, usually with more or less
| loss; but Keely pretended to think
that he obtained vastly greater
amount of force than he used to start
his machinery. In other words, he
assumed the existence of an additional
store of energy in the ether, and al
legged that his mechanism liberated
the stored-up force. Putting the gen.
orator, or transmitter, of his appara-
| tus in operation was like pulling the
| trigger of loaded gun. The results
were entirely disnroportionate to the
effort required to ignite the c7rtridge.
and depended Upon something 1lready
confined, as Il were, under pressure,
and needing only some trifling vibra-
| tory excitement to release it.
Sometimes Keelys language sug-
| gested the idea that this force resided
in the ether itself; and as physicists
have been accustomed to think of the
ether as merely a medium for the
| transmission of energy-light from
the sun to the EARTH for instance. or
the attraction of gravitation from one
mass 10 another-they were indisposed
to accept, without proof, the theory
that the ether was a reservoir of ener-
gy too. Even had the suggestion of
Lord Kelvin and Helmholtz, that the
ether was attenuated matter, in the
form of vortex rings, been demon
strated to be fact, it would still be
question how any of that motion could
be extracted from the rings
There have been hints that Keely
might get his force from the vibra-
tons of atoms of matter; and, as the
notion that atoms are in a constant
state of vibration, in both solids and
liquids, is looked upon with favor by
many chemists, a superficial consider
alton of that doctrine would encour-
age the supposition that this motion
might somehow be translated into me.
chanical power. But no one has at
tempted to indicate how such an oper-
alton could be conducted. And in a
very recent statement of his theory
made last March, Kelly himself ig-.
nored the ether and the vibrations
of atoms as source of energy, and
explained the effects which he pro-
duced by calling in 'the earth's polar
negative currents" whatever these
may be. He never told anyone what
they were, though he insisted that his
cosmic force was altogether different
from electricity, magnetism and gray
ity.
1t does not seem probable that Keely
was more dishonest than the majority
of inventors. He may have resorted
to certain tricks as temporary subter-
fuges, and he doubtless experienced
many disappointments in his efforts to
harness what he believed to be force
never before recognized. But, grant,
ing the mans sincerity, it is credible
that he was deceived by phenomena
which he did not fully understand
Whether he really got hold, of an agent
which would have been available for
human use is a question about which
there is room for two opinions. How
New York and Buffalo men have or
ganized a company for the purpose of