THE KEELY MOTOR AGAIN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2117, 28 October 1890, Page 3

THE KEELY MOTOR AGAIN.

Mr Keely appears to have convinced some influential persons that his idea of sound being made to produce force of astounding intensity is capable of practical application if followed up He recently gave in New York a wonderful exhibition, before Professor Leidy, president of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and three or four others, of his " sympathetic transmitter,'' which is thus described by a witness of the experiments : " There was a cupboard about 30in high, on which stood a cylinder of what looked like bronze, fitted with a concentric series of upright tubes, one half-inch in diameter, also of the same metal, surrounded at its base with a series of graduated horizontal rods, selid, aud evidently of some resonont metal and capped by a bell-shaped metal cup, in which appeared to be several tuning forks, about 4in long, set parallel to each other. The cupboard door was open. Inside it appeared a curious-looking harp and a glass ball, to which Keely put his ear every now and then ; to see whether it had hit the proper sympathetic chord, on the resonant rods and on the harplike instrument. In front of the cylinder, above mentioned was a brass spindle, which was set in motion by a chord wound around it and suddenly pulled. The cylinder was connected by a silver plasinum wire to a copper weight, on which was placed a metal dish, and in the dish a magnetic needle. When the spindle had been aet spinning, Mr Keely began striking the strings of the harp and tentatively seeking with the other hand a responsive chord among the resonant rods on top of the cupboard. When what he called 'B flat' was touched on both rod and harp string, the magnetic needle gave a shiver, distinctly visible to everybody, and began slowly to revolve from left to right. In a halfminute it was going so fasp as to be almost invisible. Keely did not go near to it, but sat by tlie cupboard with his hands in his pockets. The spindle revolved all the while, and the echoes of the note came from the cupboard. "Mr Keely Baid that the force already generated was sufficient to keep the needle revolving at the rate of 120 revolutions per second for 14 weeks. " When the observers had done admiring this production of motive fore© out of nothing, Mr Keely took two glass jars filled with water. In one he put a hollow copper globe loaded with nails, weighing altogether 51b 6oz, and in the other three brass balk of somewhat less weight. Wire connections were made from the brass tops of these glass jarn to the cylinder on his motive anparatus. The spindle was whirled again, aod Koely again sounded the harp and the resonant bars.

"' What are you doing now ?' asked Dr Leidy. "'lsm trying,' said Keely, ' to get the mass-ohord of that copper sphere full of nails.' The search for the masschord continued on the harp and the resonant rods. A deep, clear note resounded from both at the same time, and at the inßtant it broke on the ear the heavy copper globe quivered as it lay at the bottom of the water, rolled over, and reluctantly, as it were, abandoning the ties by which gravity held it to the bottom of the jar, floated, at first slowly and then more swiftly and steadily, to the top of the jar, againat which it impinged with an audible concussion. Dr Leidy was asked this question: —Doctor, is it true that this unknown force, or what is here maintained to be such, has actually before our eyes overcome the force of gravity with which we are all familiar ? ' And the answer, slowly, deliberately, was —'I see no escape from that conclusion.' In a similar manner, the three brass balls were made to rise to the surface, and then descend half way and remain stationary at that point. There were more experiments of the same sort j including the transmission of the force by a silken thread from one room to another. When it was all over, Dr Leidy gave the alleged discovery his endorsement in the following words : — * You may announce to the world on my authority | that John E. W. Keely has discovered a new and wonderful force.'"

The publication of Professor L^idy's yerdict o$ the subject of Mr Keely'a discoveries has rendered hit*} great | service, for it has induced a Mr Ward I fa baud him the sum SQQQdoI where-

with to conduct bis experiments, and to secure to him by will a sufficient sum of money to render him independent of external assistance. It is claimed by the discoverer and his friends that after the first cost of the machine for generating this force, the production of the latter being inexhaustible and costing nothing, the discovery of " sympathetic vibration "will enable the world to dispense with steam, electricity, and all othep agencies for the production of force.— B.M. Herald correspondent.