Chapter XXIX: Appendix: III

Some faint idea of the infinite patience which the nature of Keely's work requires may be gained by a knowledge of his process of converting straight tubes into resonating rings. The tubes, in sections long enough to form a semicircle, are passed between triple rollers, which are set to give them a slight bend. They are then fastened to a bed-plate, and a steel ball, the exact diameter of the interior of the tube, is passed into it and forced through it. It is then passed between the rollers again; which are set so as to slightly increase the curvature, and again the interior of the tube is corrected by the steel ball. This process is intermittently continued until the semicircle is reached. Each process of bending and correcting requires over two hours. Eighty bends are sometimes necessary for the completion of the full circle. When the two semicircles, which form the circle, are finished, they are placed in a steel mould and kept under hydraulic pressure for two or three days, to correct any lateral deflection which has taken place in bending them. They are then taken out of the moulds and screwed rigidly to a face-plate, and joined together by a solder of refined brass and silver. Next they are placed in a hot sand bath of sufficient volume to require seventy-two hours to cool down. This corrects the differentiation in their molecular groupings. They are then submitted to a vibratory flow from the sympathetic negative transmitter, until their intonation, by percussion, represents a pure unmixed chord. The indicator, attached to the rings, denotes when this condition is attained. They are then centred on a steel shaft and rotated at the rate of 2000 revolutions per minute, surrounded by the triple circuit ring. If the indicator, on the circuit ring, should vary five degrees on a subdivision of 8000, the process for correcting has to be repeated until the variations are reduced to three; which is near enough to be considered perfect, inasmuch as the circular resonator will then hold the neutral focalization intact during the graduation of the full ninths, or triple triplets, for sympathetic association to polar negative attraction.

Professor Dewar's recent brilliant achievements, in his line of experimental research, not only have an important bearing upon one of the greatest problems of modern science, but upon the science of the future, as forecast by Keely.

Thermal radiation (and its negative, cold), the field of Professor Dewar's researches, in Keely's system comes below the first atomic; while celestial sympathetic radiation comes as the fountain head; the compound inter-etheric, from which all aggregated matter springs, the governing force of all aggregations. If there were no sympathetic radiation from the great celestial centre, space would be void of suspended, or floating, earthy and gaseous matter; consequently, planetary worlds would never have had their birth and growth.

The suggestion of Professor Dewar, that an increase in low temperatures might lead to the liquefying of hydrogen, is an admission that hydrogen may be a compound; for no simple can ever be condensed into a visible form. Keely's experimental researches have proved, to his own satisfaction, that all known gases are compounds, inasmuch as, when the intensity which accompanies sympathetic vibration, in his process, is brought to bear upon any gas, it submits to dissociation.

The low temperatures with which Professor Dewar is dealing cause molecular motion to cease; but the matter thus experimented upon is not "dead matter" after this cessation of motion. Nothing can rob matter of the latent energy which it contains; water is not robbed of it by being frozen. The oxygen and hydrogen still occupy their relative positions and conditions, without depreciation of their vitality. Were water dead matter when frozen, its molecular activity could not be restored by elevating its temperature. Matter can never be robbed of its soul by any conditions of intensity of heat nor of cold that could be brought to bear upon it.

When Professor Dewar uses the term "dead," in regard to matter, it is purely in reference to the present orthodox theory of heat energy. Take the analogy of a tuning fork or a bell; both are dead, so far as sound is concerned, if they are not in vibration;--they can be examined at rest or in motion, but science has not yet been able to do the same thing with those general motions of a molecular nature called heat. This is what Professor Dewar means by the term "dead," knowing well that the molecular activity can return alike to the fork or the molecule; only the energy must be supplied from some other source. Such are the conditions with which orthodox science is dealing, without acknowledging Deity as the fountain head of all force.

Not until Professor Dewar has witnessed the dissociation of hydrogen will he be able to judge of the truth of the claim, that for nearly twenty years Keely has been researching the nature of the product of this dissociation: leading him to define and classify force and energy very much as Grant Allen has done in his heretical work, on this subject, published by Longmans & Co., in 1887.

James B. Alexander, in his book on "The Dynamic Theory," [32] makes this distinction between Force and Energy:

"Energy is simply the motion of material bodies, large or small. Force is the measure of energy, its degree or quantity.... The ether is the universal agent of Energy, and the medium in all motion and phenomena. It may with propriety be called the Soul of Things."

TO JOHN ERNST WORRELL KEELY.

"Palmam qui meruit ferat."

Prized secret of aerial space
Is thine! Not firmly caught
Without long years of patient toil--
Of more than giant thought.

Unfaltering thy steadfast faith,
In all its wise control,
'Mid insults, taunts and sneers, enough
To crush the bravest soul.

Such the ordeal on the paths
Of Stephenson, Daguerre,
Of Fulton, Goodyear, Morse, to which
They gave no heed nor care.

Like them still fearless thou hast toiled
With heart and will intense,
Until discovery now brings
Its grandest recompense.

Displaced all powers known, before
This force of latest birth;
So great no mind can comprehend--
No being born of earth.

We hail thee, revolutionist
From every point of view;
For from the marvels thou hast wrought
Science must start anew.

Longed-for-attainment now is grasped,
Thy cherished hopes to bless;
And near at hand stands thy reward
In laurel crowned success!

Anonymous, in Cincinnati Illustrated News.

NOTES

[1] This electrician took the first box of stored electricity from Paris to Sir William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin) in Edinburgh; and as early as in 1884 he had convinced himself that Keely had grounds for his claims as a discoverer of an unknown force in nature.

[2] The stretching of a catgut chord over a resonator set to the chord of B flat is precisely the same in its resultant issue as the steel wire set over the same resonator.

[3] In Latin "circulator" means "quack."

[4] Keely was obliged to return to his former method soon after, for in overcoming one difficulty he found a more obstinate one to contend with.

[5] A system of Pendulums tuned to swing the various ratios of the musical scale, form a "Silent Harp" of extraordinary interest. This "Silent Harp," D. C. Ramsay, of Glasgow, has shown to his students of harmony for many a year. A pen, placed by means of a universal-jointed arrangement between any two pendulums of this "Silent Harp," so as to be moved by a blend of their various motions, writes, with all the precision of gravitation, a portrait of the chord which two corresponding strings of a sounding harp would utter to the ear. This spiral writing is a Pendulograph; exquisite forms such as no human hand could trace.

[6] By his advocacy of Keely's claims, as a discoverer, Major Ricarde-Seaver had reason to fear that he would lose his election to membership of the Athenæum Club in London; as he was notified by Sir William Thomson (who had proposed him for membership in or about the year 1873) that such would probably be the case. The members however, rallied in force and, led by one of the Major's oldest friends Prince Lucien Buonaparte, he was elected by an overwhelming majority.

[7] The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 30, 1890, copied this article from Anglo-Austria, headed "The Keely Motor: some observations on the invention from a foreign publication."

[8] From the Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, April 13th, 1890: headed "Professor Leidy's Adherence to the New Force."

[9] From Lippincott's Magazine, July, 1890. Edited by J. M. Stoddart.

[10] Quotation from one of Keely's letters in 1885.

[11] The steam engines of the world now represent the work of 1,000,000,000 men, or more than double the working population of the earth, whose total population is about 1,500,000,000 inhabitants. Steam has accordingly trebled man's working power, enabling him to economize his physical strength while attending to his intellectual development. Our race, which seems to have reached its limit of physical development, is ready to enter upon the foretold stage of psychical evolution.

[12] Carried out in the taking of the forts one after another during our civil war, which other generals had been unable to do.

[13] The paper which Mr. J. F. Nisbet was commissioned to write, in behalf of this discoverer's claims on the world for patience, while pursuing his researches (and paid in advance for writing), illustrates the truth of this assertion. Mr. Nisbet's essay, entitled "The Present Aspect of the Molecular Theory, or Mr. Keely's Relations to Modern Science," closes with these lines:--"If science looks askance at Mr. Keely's professions, therefore, it has its reasons for doing so. These reasons, as I have shown, are not mere prejudices. In more than one line of inquiry they have, what seems to be, a substantial basis of fact, which must be explained away before Mr. Keely's theory of 'etheric force' can commend itself to the mind of the impartial observer."

Fortunately, for the interests of science and of humanity, the threatened prosecution of Mr. Keely (for obtaining money under false pretences) was checkmated by Provost Pepper's action, early in January, before Mr. Nisbet wrote to America that he could not commence his paper until he had received more information; sending a series of questions to be answered by Mr. Keely. The superficial character of the essay will be seen, when printed, as well as that Mr. Nisbet promised more than he was able to perform when he accepted the cheque in order to enable him to devote time to the writing of a paper, for an influential quarter, which it was hoped would enlist public sympathy in Keely's behalf. But that power which is mightier than the sword, in putting down error and injustice, has hitherto turned its weapons against Keely (with some rare exceptions) as Mr. Nisbet did in his essay.--C.J.M.

[14] This is effected by polarization and depolarization, and the rotation of a non-magnetic needle by molecular differentiation: both needles revolving about 120 times in a second.

[15] Electricians are now admitting that, in electric currents the energy does not flow through, or along the wire, itself; but is actually transmitted by the ether vibrations outside of the wire, just as in Keely's experiments, running his musical sphere with a fine "thread" of silk, the energy is not transmitted through the sewing-silk, which acts only as the medium that makes the transfer of energy in this way possible; though not itself transferring it.

[16] See "Jacob Böhme, his Life and Teaching; or, Studies in Theosophy," by Dr. Hans Lassen Martensen.

[17] The apparent comprehension of Keely's discovery by Mr. Nisbet, was what led the compiler of this work to apply to him for help, in making known the nature of the researches which Keely is pursuing, at the time that Keely was threatened with imprisonment, in 1890, for obtaining money under false pretences.

[18] Mr. Keely explains the energy he is handling to be a condition of sympathetic vibration, associated with the Polar stream of our planet, positively and negatively.

[19] Mr. B. (not Browne) was afterwards discovered to be an inventing journalist, who had been "disappointed of gain," and whose statements concerning Dr. Leidy had to be corrected.

[20] Professor Dewar's visit to Keely's workshop has been delayed until he goes to America as Royal Commissioner this year.

[21] One of Keely's researching instruments.

[22] The universal physical law of molecular vibration is finely illustrated in the carbon pencils of the electric arc light used in some of the largest lighthouses. The molecular stir set up in the armatures of the dynamo machines by rapid magnetization and demagnetization is transmitted to the carbon points of the lantern, and reappears as a distinct musical tone.

[23] It will be a matter of interest to those who have given attention to the laws of heredity to know that John Ernst Worrell Keely is a grandson of a German composer, Ernst, who led the Baden-Baden orchestra in his day; and that Keely's experiments in vibration had their origin in his knowledge of music, and were commenced in his childhood.

[24] See "Untrodden Ground in Astronomy and Geology."

[25] There are some paradoxical conditions shown up in the disintegration of water which require further research to get at the solution. In disintegrating, say five drops of water in a steel bulb of two cubic inches volume of atmospheric air, the force generated by the triple order of vibration, when weighed on a lever, shows ten tons pressure per square inch. In using the same number of drops in the same bulb, and associating it with a tube of two hundred cubic inches, the result is the same in the force developed per square inch as is shown on the volume of the one of two cubic inches. The solution of this problem seems to rest in the fact that the gaseous element thereby induced even in minute quantities, must possess the property of exciting atmospheric air to that extent as to force it to give up, to quite an extended degree, the latent energy that is held in its corpuscular depths. This introductory medium seems to act on the air in the same manner that a spark of fire acts on a magazine of gunpowder.

[26] The ether is the capsule to the molecules and atoms all the way up to the perfect stream of structural ether.

[27] A volume of pure ether equivalent to the atmospheric displacement caused by our Earth, could be compressed and absorbed in a volume of one cubic inch, by the velocity and sympathetic power of the etheric triple flows, focalizing toward the neutral centre, at the birth of the molecule.

[28] This is what Keely terms "sympathetic outreach."

[29] A facetious journalist commenting on this paper reprints its last paragraphs as "the only part that is perfectly lucid to the lay mind," continuing:--"We trust Keely will continue to bombard his corpuscles until he accomplishes it. And when he does, all other scientific men of this or any other age will sink by comparison into insignificance. Let no man say he cannot do it. Mr. Keely, the world is still waiting for you."

[30] Platina wires the thickness of a fine hair associated with each of the nine nodal beads, and concentrated towards a general centre of localization, attaching the other end of the wires to the focal centre, will determine, by the magnetic conduction, the number of corpuscular oscillations per second induced by a thought, either positive or negative, in the central centres. These are the only conditions--those of magnetic conduction--whereby the evolution of a thought can be computed in regard to its force under propagation, as against the amount of latent energy set free to act as induced by such thought on the physical organism.

[31] It is always interesting to trace the germ of a scientific idea, hypothesis, or established truth. A writer in La Lumière Electrique, vol. xlv., has drawn attention to the fact that Descartes gave a theory of magnetism, in 1656, which resembles the modern conception of lines of stress in the ether. He considers that all magnets are traversed by a subtle fluid which flows out at the North Pole, and curving round, in the ether, re-enters at the South Pole, thus completing the circuit. Some of the greatest doctrines of science have recurred again and again, like the motif of a piece of music, until they finally assume a definite shape and become a working part of human progress; as will be seen when Keely's system is recognized.

[32] "The Dynamic Theory of Life and Mind." The Housekeeper Press, Minneapolis, Minn.