A MARTYR TO SCIENCE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 179, 5 January 1875, Page 3

A MARTYR TO SCIENCE.

“ Perpetual motion” has been discovered by an old negro in Kentucky, who has fallen a victim to his own invention. It appears from the account given by the Franldin (Kentucky) Patriot, that the old negro some little time ago constructed a waggon, so arranged that it runs by itself by virtue of the fact that the weight of gravitation is 'thrown forward of the centre of motion, and the machine is consequently compelled to run. It was his intention to exhibit his waggon at the fair at Franklin on the 9th ult, so that its value might be tested in presence of the thousands of people there assembled, and on Wednesday, the 2nd ult, he mounted the machine, adjusted the bands, tipped the balance-weight over the centre of motion, gave the driving-wheel a shove, and started for Franklin to report to Mr John B. Montague, secretary of the association, and have the machine regularly entered upon the books. The waggon went humming along the smooth sandy road at the rate of fifteen miles per hour; close behind it, at a rattling pace, in an ordinary vehicle, came Coroner Hartfield and a jury, who, anticipating some fatal accident, took the precaution to follow the waggon. This anticipation was unfortunately realised, for in making a turn at the noted point called “ Red Pond,” at the forks of the Cross Plains and Springfield roads, the starboard front wheel “collided” with a heavy set post oak sapling, and the rebound was so powerful that the old negro was thrown forward over the dash board, and was at the same time struck by the flangs of the driving wheel, and precipitated with such violence against the fence panel on the opposite side of the road, that he was killed instantaneously. The machine after the accident, struck out with freedom, but near the residence of a Captain Lea its progress was arrested by a large log which tilted the balance weight back of the centre of motion, and when overtaken by the coroner and his party the wild waggon was standing quietly at rest. Since the death of the luckless old negro no one has dared to mount the waggon, but it was exhibited at the fair, and a general impression prevailed that it was a wonderful machine, distined to play an important part in the history of locomotion.