SOME TRUTHS ABOUT KEELY.
By MRS. BLOOMFIELD MOORE.
New York Home Journal, Volume II, January, 1896
Long ago Mr. Keely said: "Science must hold the helm before the
commercial value of my discoveries can be made known and comprehended."
The speculative management prevailing has seized the reins of guidance
so often that it has now become necessary to place the helm beyond its
reach, in order that this richly freighted barque may not again be
diverted from its proper course. Mr. Keely has been accused of refusing
to teach his processes, but until within five years he had nothing to
teach. It was Natures secrets that he was doing battle with and daily
risking his life to conquer.
Since 1892 he has held himself in readiness to instruct Professor
Dewar (the resident physicist of the Royal Institution of Great
Britain) in his process of dissociation; one of our best known American
physicists having refused to receive this instruction, simply because
of the "stock-booming" operations that have invariably followed upon
all efforts of men of science (or of capital) to acquaint themselves
with the merits of the claims made by others for Keely.
The article prepared in 1893, by the Rev. Dr. Plumb of Boston, in
its description of what lh called "a subsidiary engine," brought fresh
discredit on Keely in the opinion of educated and able men, and
avalanches of ridicule from the ordinary journalists. The wheel
described by Dr. Plumb was not an engine in any sense of the word. It
was a machine that is a marvel of construction, entirely independent of
centrifugal action, for diverting the polar current of apergy to do its
work on its mechanical harness.
The Philadelphia Inquirer gave out, in printing this paper, that it
had been written by an eminent scientist of Boston. The statements made
therein were sufficient to establish in the minds of men of science the
conviction that Keely, whom they held responsible for them all, was the
"perpetual motion crank" he had been called, and too darkly ignorant of
the simplest canons of orthodox physics to know the blunders he was
making in his statements.
W. L. S., a Boston man of science, resenting this assertion of the
Inquirer, undertook to reply in behalf of his maligned associates,
succeeding - so well that all men unacquainted with the system of
vibratory physics considered Keely completely annihilated and thought
he would never be heard from again. Said W. L. S.: "Take the
description of the seventy-two pound wheel, with eight spokes and a
hollow hub, but no rim, running at a speed so fast that the camera
could not catch it and obtain a sharp image. If we estimate, from this
and the description, the probable speed and then allow twenty-five per
cent for safety, and figure out the centrifugal tension in the spokes,
assuming both spokes and hub made of the best wrought iron, we find it
would come out something like one hundred and fifty times the breaking
strength of the iron; so it seems to me it would be exceedingly
dangerous to stay long within range of that wheel . . . . . I will end
by calling Dr. Plumbs attention to the fact that there is in Boston,
not half a mile from the post office, a perpetual motion machine now on
exhibition; where the unwary are invited to enter, examine and
subscribe. It is a waste of time to go to Philadelphia." -W. L. S.,
Jan. 17th, 1894.
It is no matter of surprise that, after such an apparent exposure
of Keelys ignorance, New Eng-land journals which had up to that time
printed articles defending Keely, refused them afterwards. A brief
mention of the helpers on this underground road, which Keely had so
long been traveling without gaining a ray of light, should be of
interest, now that the labyrinth is lighted with the effulgence of "The
Dawn," in his discovery of the current of apergy.
About fifteen years ago H. O. Ward became interested in Keelys
discoveries by hearing two Englishmen on board of a steamship
discussing the nature of the mysterious force which they had been sent
over by the English Government to investigate. Possessing certain
eccentricities of character, such as persistency of purpose and a
determination to reach the root of things before adopting the opinions
of others regarding them, a visit was made in time to Keelys workshop,
which eventually led to the forming of a conjecture that Keely might
have dissociated hydrogen. Upon suggesting this possibility to him, he
replied: "Perhaps so, I do not know," but the suggestion fell on
pregnant soil and started Keely into making efforts to vibrate
hydrogen, with such results that his field of experiment was greatly
widened. The same possibility named to Lord Rayleigh brought this
answer: "I will bet you ten thousand pounds he has not; hydrogen is an
element." "I know it is classed with the elements," was the answer,
"but science, starting with three only, now has over seventy. Why may
not more compounds be found?" Lord Rayleigh a few years later refused
to repeat his bet.
In 1884, Macvicars "Sketch of a Philosophy" was brought to the
notice of H. O. Ward (by Dr. Andrew of Kings College Belfast), who
compiled from it "Ether, The True Protoplasm."
The late Robert Browning, before reading the monograph, remarked to
its writer that the word "protoplasm" was not a suitable one to employ
in connection with the ether. The writer replied: "I am hoping to
convince the world of science that ether is matter."[1] Dr.
Richard Garnett, the learned librarian of the British Museum, sent the
manuscript to the late Dr. Chapman, then editor of the The Westminster,
who gave his opinion that it was fifty years too soon for its
publication. The Home Journal of iiew York then became one of the
helpers on the road and published it entire.
Those who constitute the vanguard of science are now ready to
receive many of Dr. Macvicars views, which were not appreciated in his
lifetime. Keely at once understood them, and knew that he had
imprisoned the ether; though making the error of thinking that it was
the force itself, instead of the always necessary medium of its
manifestation in our atmosphere.
This was four years before the distinguished Henri Hertz, late
professor of physics in Bonn University, announced in the Revue
Scientifique that all our electro-magnetic engines held the ether fast
bound without this fact having been so much as suspected. Then, one of
the best-known British physicists said; "If we have done this, why is
it not possible that Keely has done the same?"
A copy of "Ether the True Protoplasm," published in 1884, in
galley-proof slips, was sent, in 1885, to Professor Rueker, of the
Kensington School of Science, who paid no attention to it, much to the
disappointment of its writer at the time; but in 1889, in an address
delivered at Cardiff before the Royal Association, he remarked that men
of science were then investigating the structure of the ether, which
might prove to be the source of all matter, and which might yet be used
and controlled as we now use and control steam.
Prof. Dewar sent a copy of this paper to H. O. Ward, who replied
with a request that the professor would inform the learned physicist
that Keely had spent years of his life in vain attempts to use and
control it in engines only to find that this can never be accomplished.
The next helper on the road was the late Mrs. F. J. Hughes, a
grand-niece of Erastus Darwin, whose book on "The Evolution of Tones
and Colours," Mr. Keely says saved him years of research in the realm
of inaudible sounds.
Yet, with all this assistance, which seemed to come by chance, the
goal of Keelys stupendous efforts would never have been reached, so
dark was the labyrinth in which be was wandering, had not one of the
books of our late townsman, Dr. Seth Pancoast, been brought it to his
notice. It was on a page of this record of the wisdom of the ancients
that Keely learned he had captured one of the currents of a triune
polar stream of force; and from that hour be abandoned all efforts to
imprison the ether in a metallic structure; devoting his days, and
often his nights, to the gaining of a knowledge of the operations of
apergy in nature. In 1893 he succeeded in demonstrating to his own
satisfaction that he had fastened his machinery to the very wheelworks
of the universe.[2]
Until this time he held this "secret of nature" locked within his
own breast; for never once, in his nearly quarter of a century of
research, has Mr. Keely broached a theory until he has proved it by
demonstration.
The position taken at the last stockholders meeting gives evidence
that Keelys magnanimity of character has never been appreciated by
those who have taken advanatage of it in their business transactions
with him. But he cannot be forced into further concessions nor into
further delay. The ultimatum is reached. The risk of the loss of these
discoveries to the world is too great to admit of giving one thought to
mistaken and short-sighted counsels. Science must not be robbed of her
birthright to satisfy the greed of Mammon.
There are from twenty to thirty instruments to be patented in
Keelys system of sympathetic vibratory physics. Months of valuable time
are lost, which might have been occupied in preparations for the taking
out of patents, had Keelys generous proposition been accepted as
promptly as it deserved to be. The spiro-vibrophonic system alone
requires eight or ten patents; the resonating five or six more; the
vitalizing six, which must be preceded by the setting up of a vibratory
dynamo that would take weeks to construct and graduate. The sympathetic
transmitting system will require months, with its adjuncts, to get into
a patentable condition; and the sympathetic governor of course must be
patented if the other instruments are.
Mr. Keely will not again yield his judgment to the wishes of
others, as he did in this instance to his co-worker; for both have seen
the folly of it. From the first he has maintained his convictions that
no physicist will be able to stand by him until his work is completed;
owing to the manipulations in stock that have followed any consent from
distinguished men of science to witness his processes, each time H. O.
Ward has announced that they were going to do so within the last seven
years. Keelys systems will now be brought out on royalties for the
benefit of the shareholders and of the world, instead of for monopolies.
A New York journalist recently, in an article headed "Keelys Motor
and its Future," tells his readers that "Keely finally settled" in
Philadelphia. Born in this city, he has steadfastly abided here, using
a stable as his workshop.
In conclusion, it may be stated that the force named in this paper
Apergy, known to the ancients, and rediscovered by Keely, will
hereafter be given the appropriate title of Keel, after the name of its
latest discoverer.
1) In vibratory physics spirit is matter.
2) See a work by Prof. Kedzie, of Chicago, on "Solar Heat,
Gravitation and Sun Spots," showing how this everlasting and important
"etheric vibration" is manifested in nature.
