The Times Retort
NYT - 11/18/1884 - It is unlikely that the ingenious Mr. Keely will be able to extort any further assessment from his stockholders. His reply to the criticisms made in THE TIMES upon his vibratory gun by a hard-headed and hard-hearted engineer in that Lieut. Zalinski is "jealous of him." "He feels, as well he may, that I soar far above him. The difference between us is that of the lion and the lamb." We do not clearly make out whether the lamb soars above the lion or the lion above the lamb. But when the lamb, if the Lientenant be the lamb, offers to affix a standard gauge to the lion's motor for the purpose of testing the lion's statement about the pressure developed by "vaporic force" and the lion declines to let him, things begin to look badly for the soaring lion. Mr. Keely appears to be a magnetic engineer. He has an explanation of his failures which is entirely honorable to his motor, but he will not or can not tell anybody what it is, and so his motor and his motives are the objects of cruel misconstruction. He never urges any man into a speculation, but the more he sees and knows of this motor the more confidence he feels in it. He is therefore filled with disgust when an unsympathetic engineer offers to repeat his experiments and produce his results with compressed air. When he announces that his motor will be completed "next February" the faith even of the most steadfast of his stockholders must begin to give way.
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