Chapter X

The Alleged Inventions of Edward Sommerset, Sixth Earl and Second Marquis of Worcester, and of Jean Ernest Eli-Bessler (Councillor) Orffyreus

More interest has been taken, and more has been said and written concerning the claimed inventions of the men forming the subject of this chapter than of all other Perpetual Motion devices known to history. The reason is not difficult to explain. It was the rank and eminence of the inventors and of others whom they induced to take an interest in their inventions, and to proclaim them to the world. Intrinsically, neither their claims nor their devices are entitled to any more notice than are those of the humblest mechanic that ever labored to attain Perpetual Motion. However, so much has been said and written concerning them that they have an historical value and interest. Then, too, the interest taken in their inventions brought forth some splendid discussions which necessarily involve in a general way, at least, the entire question of Self-Motive Power. The historical interest attaching to their inventions and the discussions concerning them, entitles them to more than a passing notice in this book.

They were not co-laborers; they were not even compatriots, nor contemporaries. Worcester was an Englishman and Orffyreus a Frenchman, though most of his labors were in what is now Germany. The former died thirteen years before the latter was born.

Edward Sommerset, of England, Sixth Earl and Second Marquis of Worcester, was born in the year 1601, and died in 1667. He was famous not only for his noble birth and family rank, but for personal attainments. He was the author of a work entitled "Century of Names and Scantlings of Such Inventions as at Present I Can Call to Mind Have Tried and Perfected" (1663), which has often been reprinted, and is usually referred to simply as "Century Inventions." He was very prominent in public life; was greatly interested in mechanical experiments, and made valuable suggestions, inventions and improvements in connection with the use of steam as a motive power.

Henry Dircks, who is so frequently mentioned in this book, wrote a book which was published in 1865, entitled "Life, Times and Scientific Labors of the Second Marquis of Worcester." The Marquis appears to have been all his life greatly interested in science, mechanics and mathematical contrivances. His first wife died in 1635, and it seems probable that thenceforth he became and remained more than ever devoted to mechanics, and sometime after that period announced a successful Perpetual Motion machine, the gist of all known information concerning which appears from the articles and discussions hereinafter set forth in this chapter.

Jean-Ernest Eli-Bessler (Councillor) Orffyreus was born in 1680, near Zittan, Alsace, France. He was a man of great ability and attained an eminent place in public life. The title "Councillor," he acquired by having been selected Councillor to the Prince of Hesse Castle. The best information concerning him indicates that he was of very erratic temperament, given to fits of melancholy and extreme anger. In early life he was a student of theology and medicine, but his penchant was really for mechanics. He claimed that in his search for whatever might prove curious and valuable he had discovered Perpetual Motion, and that between the years 1712 and 1719 he had made two successfully working machines on his system. The following discussions disclose all that is known of the claimed inventions of these two distinguished Perpetual Motion workers.

The alleged inventions of the Marquis of Worcester is stated by him in the 56th article of his book entitled "Century of Names and Scantlings of Such Inventions as at Present I Can Call to Mind to Have Tried and Perfected," and translated from the ancient English style in which his book is written into modern style of English, reads as follows:

The inventor offers the accompanying sketch, with description of an Hydraulic Mover, for communicating power to machinery, and recently invented by him:--

"To provide and make that all the weights of the descending side
of a wheel, shall be perpetually farther from the center, than
those of the mounting side, and yet equal in number and heft to
the one side as the other. A most incredible thing, if not seen;
but tried before the late King (of blessed memory) in the Tower
by my directions, two extraordinary ambassadors accompanying his
Majesty, and the Duke of Richmond, and Duke of Hamilton, with
most of the Court attending him. The wheel was fourteen foot
over, and had forty weights of fifty pounds apiece. Sir William
Balfore, then Lieutenant of the Tower, can justify it, with
several others. They all saw, that no sooner these great weights
passed the diameter line of the lower side, but they hung a foot
farther from the center; nor no sooner passed the diameter line
of the upper side, but they hung a foot nearer. Be pleased to
judge of the consequence."

In October of 1719, Orffyreus published a small book, or pamphlet, both in German and Latin, entitled "Perpetual Motion Triumphant, by Orffyreus." The book commences:

It is a notorious fact that Perpetual Motion has not only been
sought after by ingenious mathematicians and artists with more
or less expense, but many have arisen here and there pretending
that they have made the discovery. Nevertheless, it appears
that to carry out this most subtle mechanical idea, namely, to
make a dead material not only move itself, but lift weights and
perform work, even the most profound mathematicians and the most
learned people have continually fallen into error. It is no
less notorious that those who have so sought, not only refuse
their consent, but have set their seal on the discovery as an
unsolvable problem.

On a subsequent page he proceeds thus:

When I, at last, an unworthy man, was made an instrument in God's
hands to solve this long-looked-for and valuable secret, and to
give a representation, proposition and instruction on this rare
invention; also to publish and propound it to all the world,
no longer do I doubt, nay I presume, that as the discoverer I
possess it, after many years of scrupulous doubts, much calumny
and exasperation from all my enemies.

He speaks of his opponents under four divisions: First, the scientific world; second, persons in high authority; third, the public in general; and fourth, the press;--observing--

Now my wish was to convince the world that this illiberal,
rude and inhuman treatment was false, yet God's providence has
brought to my help, protection and succour the mighty Prince Lord
Charles, Landgrave of Hesse.

On a subsequent page he indulges in the following sycophantic adulation of the Prince of Hesse Castle, and suggestion of the description of his claimed device:

It has not only pleased this mighty Prince to protect me against
my numerous enemies, but also to give me house-room in his
princely Castle of Weissenstein, near Cassel; to name me one of
his most honored servants, and restore me in a measure all the
honor and means that I had lost in my native country; wishing
no doubt to give to Hessin Cassel the high honor which belonged
to Saxony by right. In gratitude for all these gracious acts, I
consented to give another example of my Perpetuum Mobile machine.
I put all in fresh order, and began work in all possible haste,
doing everything in the manner of those I had already made and
destroyed, with only a few changes in the dimensions of the
so-named turning-wheel. For as a grindstone may be called a
wheel, so may the principal part of my machine be named. The
outward part of this wheel is drawn over or covered with waxed
linen in the form of a drum. This cylindrical basis was 12
Rhenish feet in diameter, the thickness from 15 to 18 inches,
the middle axle 6 feet long and 8 inches in thickness. It is
supported in its movement on two pointed steel balance-pegs,
each 1 inch thick; and the wheel is vertically suspended. The
movement is modified by two pendulums, as shown in the engraving
at the end of this book. The inward structure of the wheel is of
a nature according to the laws of mechanical perpetual motion,
so arranged that by disposed weights once in rotation they
gain force from their own swinging, and must continue their
movement as long as their structure does not lose its position
and arrangement. Unlike all other automata, such as clocks or
springs or other hanging weights which require winding up or
whose duration depends on the chain which attaches them, on the
contrary, these weights are the essential parts and constitute
perpetuum mobile itself; as from them is received the universal
movement which they must exercise so long as they remain out of
the center of gravity; and when they come to be placed together,
and so arranged one against another that they can never obtain
equilibrium, or the _punctum quietus_ which they unceasingly seek
in their wonderous speedy flight, one or other of them must apply
its weight vertically to the axis, which in its turn will also
move.

The author and inventor then suggests the following uses of his machine: "raising weights, raising stampers, water," etc. He criticises all critics of his scheme and denounces them as cunning rogues, and fools who are contemptibly endeavoring to overthrow an incontestable fact. He makes a quadrupled dedication of his device:

1. To God,
2. To the Public in General,
3. To Men of Learning,
4. To Himself as Discoverer,

and he very modestly suggests a method by which he could be approached on the subject of selling the secret of his machine for one hundred thousand rix-thalers, and points out the great importance to the public of such an acquisition. The book contains a cut of his device with the following very brief explanation:

Number 1 shows the entire size of the wheel; 2, a cord wound
round the principal axle; 3, the wheel or pulley to guide the
cord; 4, the cord passed through a window and over 5, another
pulley; 6, the box of stones raised or lowered; 7, the lock
to prevent motion; 8, the pendulum with three weights; 9, a
winch-handle acting on the pendulum; and 10, shows above and
below transparent, so that the machine stands clear and can be
moved about.

In 1720 the following article was contributed to and published in the "Gentleman's Magazine," concerning the Orffyrean Wheel:

MR. URBAN: Being an admirer of improvements in mechanics and
desirous of seeing the perpetual motion discovered, I was much
pleased on reading, some time ago, an account of the automaton
constructed by Orffyreus in two letters, one from Professor 's
Gravesande to Sir Isaac Newton, the other from Baron Fischer
to Dr. Desaguliers, with the testimonial of the Landgrave of
Hesse-Cassel (who had seen the inside of it) in favor of its
construction. To which are added some remarks by William Kenrick,
the writer of the pamphlet, who takes that opportunity to propose
a subscription for a similar machine, which he says he has
contrived and denominated a Rotator.

It is much to be lamented that the learned did not examine
more strictly into the merit of Orffyreus's wheel; but,
on the contrary, being prepossessed with a notion of the
impracticability of the perpetual motion, suffered it to be
neglected, and at last destroyed by the hands of a disappointed
mechanic, who, with unwearied application and steady
perseverance, had brought it to perfection. I wish we may not
again let slip an opportunity of becoming acquainted with an
invention, which, when made public, will reflect honor on the
inventor, and be of the utmost utility to the world. Such, I
would hope, is the rotator mentioned by W. Kenrick; for, unless
his discovery were real, I cannot think that he would have taken
the liberty to express himself as he does in p. 26, etc., "The
inventor flatters himself that, if the contents of the foregoing
pages are seriously attended to, and it be farther considered,
that not a penny of the proposed premium is required, till the
subscribers are fully satisfied of the reality and utility of the
invention, his proposal will not be treated with so mortifying
a neglect as that of Orffyreus." Again he says, "If it does not
supply the place of a first mover, at the expense only of the
construction and repair of a simple wheel subject to very little
friction, and that in all such engines and machines, even from
the slightest piece of clockwork to the waterworks of Marli or
London-bridge, he expects nothing for his discovery, but to stand
exposed to the contempt that will be justly thrown on him for
having so miserably misspent his time, and frivolously engaged
the attention of the public."

Now, I think that W. Kenrick's proposals are very fair; and
should be glad to be informed, whether any attention has been
paid to them, and whether Sir Isaac Newton took any notice of the
letter addressed to him by Professor Gravesande. I shall consider
it as a favor if any correspondent will oblige me with an answer
to these particulars.

A CONSTANT READER.

In 1721 Rev. Dr. J. T. Desaguliers, LL.D., F.R.S., contributed to an English periodical entitled "Philosophical Transactions," the following article concerning the device of the Marquis of Worcester, and the Orffyrean Wheel:

REMARKS ON SOME ATTEMPTS MADE TOWARDS A PERPETUAL MOTION; BY THE
REVEREND DR. DESAGULIERS, F.R.S.

The wheel at Hesse-Cassel, made by Monsieur Orffyreus, and by
him called a perpetual motion, has, of late, been so much talked
of on account of its wonderful phenomena, that a great many
people have believed it to be actually a self-moving engine;
and accordingly have attempted to imitate it as such. Now, as a
great deal of time and money is spent in those endeavours, I was
willing (for the sake of those that try experiments with that
view) to show that the principle which most of them go upon is
false, and can by no means produce a perpetual motion.

They take it for granted that if a weight descending in a wheel
at a determined distance from the center, does, in its ascent,
approach nearer to it; such a weight in its descent will always
preponderate and cause a weight equal to it to rise, provided it
comes nearer the center in its rise; and accordingly as itself,
rises, will be overbalanced by another weight equal to it; and,
therefore, they endeavour by various contrivances to produce that
effect as if the consequence of it would be a perpetual motion.

But I shall show that they mistake one particular case of a
general theorem, or rather a corollary of it, for the theorem
itself. The theorem is as follows:

THEOR.--If one weight in its descent does, by means of any
contrivance, cause another weight to ascend with a less momentum
or quantity of motion than itself, it will preponderate and raise
the other weight.

COR. 1.--Therefore, if the weights be equal, the descending
weight must have more velocity than the ascending weight, because
the momentum is made up of the weight multiplied into the
quantity of matter.

COR. 2.--Therefore, if a leaver or balance have equal weights
fastened or hanging at its ends, and the brachia be ever so
little unequal that weight will preponderate which is farthest
from the center.

SCHOLIUM.--This second corollary causes the mistake; because
those who think the velocity of the weight is the line it
describes, expect that that weight shall be overpoised, which
describes the shortest line, and, therefore, contrive machines to
cause the ascending weight to describe a shorter line than the
descending weight. As for example, in the circle A D B _a_ (Fig.
3) the weights A and B being supposed equal, they imagine that if
(by any contrivance whatever) whilst the weight A describes the
arc A _a_, the weight B is carried in any arc, as B _b_, so as to
come nearer the center in its rising than if it went up the arc
B D; the said weight shall be overpoised, and consequently, by a
number of such weights a perpetual motion will be produced.

This is attempted by several contrivances, which all depend
upon this false principle; but I shall only mention one which
is represented by Fig. 4, where a wheel having two parallel
circumferences, has the space between them divided into cells,
which being curved, will (when the wheel goes round) cause
weights placed loose in the said cells to descend on the side A
at the outer circumference of the wheel, and on the side D to
ascend in the line B _b b b_, which comes nearer the center and
touches the inner circumference of the wheel. In a machine of
this kind the weights will indeed move in such a manner if the
wheel be turned round, but will never be the cause of the wheel's
going round. Such a machine is mentioned by the Marquis of
Worcester in his "Century of Inventions," in the following words,
No. 56:

"To provide and make that all the weights of the descending side
of a wheel shall be perpetually farther from the center than
those of the mounting side, and yet equal in number and heft to
the one side as the other. A most incredible thing, if not seen;
but tried before the late King (of blessed memory) in the Tower
by my directions, two extraordinary ambassadors accompanying his
Majesty, and the Duke of Richmond, and Duke of Hamilton, with
most of the court attending him. The wheel was fourteen foot
over and had forty weights of fifty pounds a piece. Sir William
Balfore, then Lieutenant of the Tower, can justify it with
several others. They all saw that no sooner these great weights
passed the diameter line of the lower side, but they hung a foot
farther from the center; nor no sooner passed the diameter line
of the upper side, but they hung a foot nearer. Be pleased to
judge of the consequence."

Now the consequence of this and such like machines, is nothing
less than a perpetual motion; and the fallacy is this: The
velocity of any weight is not the line which it describes in
general, but the height that it rises up to or falls from, with
respect to its distance from the center of the earth. So that
when the weight (Fig. 3) describes the arc A _a_, its velocity is
the line A C, which shows the perpendicular descent (or measures
how much it is come nearer to the center of the earth), and
likewise the line B C denotes the velocity of the weight B, or
the height that it rises to when it ascends in any of the arcs
B _b_, instead of the arc B D: so that in this case whether the
weight B in its ascent be brought nearer the center or not, it
loses no velocity which it ought to do in order to be raised up
by the weight A. Nay, the weight in rising nearer the center of
a wheel may not only lose of its velocity, but be made to gain
velocity in proportion to the velocity of its counterpoising
weights that descend in the circumference of the opposite side
of the wheel; for if we consider two radii of the wheel, one
of which is horizontal, and the other (fastened to and moving
with it) inclined under the horizon in an angle of 60 degrees
(Fig. 5) and by the descent of the end B of the radius B C, the
radius C D by its motion causes the weight at D to rise up the
line _p_ P, which is in a plane that stops the said weight from
rising in the curve D A, that weight will gain velocity, and in
the beginning of its rise it will have twice the velocity of the
weight at B; and consequently, instead of being raised, will
overpoise, if it be equal to the last mentioned weight. And this
velocity will be so much the greater in proportion as the angle
A C D is greater, or as the plane P _p_ (along which the weight
D must rise) is nearer to the center. Indeed, if the weight at B
(Fig. 3) could, by any means, be lifted up to β, and move in the
arc β _b_, the end would be answered; because then the velocity
would be diminished and become β C.

EXPERIMENT (Fig. 5).--Take the leaver B C D, whose brachia
are equal in length, bent in an angle of 120 degrees at C and
moveable about that point as its center: in this case a weight of
two pounds hanging at the end of B of the horizontal part of the
leaver will keep in equilibrio a weight of four pounds hanging
at the end D. But if a weight of one pound be laid upon the end
D of the leaver, so that in the motion of D along the arc _p_ A,
this weight is made to rise up against the plane P _p_ (which
divides in half the line A C equal to C B) the said weight will
keep in equilibrio two pounds at B, as having twice the velocity
of it when the leaver begins to move. This will be evident, if
you let the weight 4 hang at D, whilst the weight 1 lies above
it: for if then you move the leaver the weight 1 will rise four
times as fast as the weight 4.

In 1770 Dr. William Kenrick published "A Lecture on the Perpetual Motion." In it he has the following to say concerning the alleged inventions of the Marquis of Worcester, and Councillor Orffyreus, and Perpetual Motion in general. The following excerpts of and comments on the lecture are taken verbatim from Dircks:

The mere exhibition of a self-moving machine without a display
of its mechanism, or the principles on which its motion is
begun and continued, could produce no conviction. The fate of
Orffyreus and his machine is a proof of this. Scarce fifty years
ago that whimsical mechanician exhibited a perpetual motion at
Hesse Cassel, the constancy of whose operation was experienced
for many weeks under the most exact caution of the Landgrave of
that Principality, whose testimony of such operation, as well
as in favor of its construction (to the secret of which he was
admitted), was given in the most explicit and determinate form.
And yet, because Orffyreus could not display the mechanism
without the previous assurance of a premium of 200,000 florins
(near twenty thousand pounds), or because he would not or could
not discover the principles on which it acted, his pretensions
were neglected, his machine was destroyed by his own hands,
and his life made a sacrifice to the chagrin attending his
disappointment. Twenty years had he racked his brains for
invention, and expended a patrimonial competence with parsimony
in prosecuting his design. And when success inspired the hope of
reward, he found his ingenuity suspected of imposture, and his
industry rewarded with contempt.

Whether any of his successors in the same pursuit will meet with
a better fate is at length to be determined. One species of our
predecessor's merit, however, I (adds Dr. Kenrick) presume myself
at least entitled to, that of perseverance; it being now fifteen
years since I first engaged in this undertaking, which I have
since pursued with almost unremitted assiduity, and that not
only at a considerable waste of time and expense, but under the
constant mortification of hearing it equally ridiculed by those
who do know, and by those who do not know, anything of the matter.

It is, indeed, generally supposed, and as confidently affirmed,
that the mathematicians have published demonstrations of the
impossibility of a perpetual motion. But I can safely take upon
me to affirm that no such demonstration was ever published by
any. Within these twelve years past the mathematicians who deny
the possibility of a perpetual motion have been repeatedly and
publicly called upon, both in the foreign and English prints, to
produce a single instance of these demonstrations. They have not
done it. They might have produced, indeed, the demonstrations of
Huygens, De la Hire, and others to prove, as Desaguliers very
properly expresses it the fallacy of the schemes of most of the
pretenders to the perpetual motion. They proved nothing more;
and this was so far unnecessary in that the fallacy evidently
appeared in the discovery of the principle on which they were
founded.

This was done in the last century by the celebrated Marquis
of Worcester, in the presence of the King and his Court, at
the Tower, by the exhibition of a wheel so contrived that in
revolving on its axis it carried up several weights nearer its
center on one side than they descended on the other. The scheme
was plausible and to appearance practicable; but, though the
wheel was polite enough to turn about while his Majesty was
present, it could not be prevailed upon to be so complaisant
in his absence. The mathematicians avenged themselves of the
short triumph of the mistaken Marquis, but were equally mistaken
themselves in thinking they had routed the problem or that
in hunting down the jackal they had destroyed the lion. The
perpetual motion survived; it had still its advocates; Professor
Gravesande and John Bernouille maintained its practicability,
the former giving his testimony in favor of Orffyreus's machine,
after a long and scrutinous examination. It is not twelve
years since this testimony was republished by Dr. Allaman, the
present Professor of Natural Philosophy at Leyden, whose own
opinion, given at the same time, is also greatly in favor of
the discovery. It is even some years later that a dissertation
still more in its favor, written, if I am not mistaken, by
the celebrated De Gorter of Petersburg, appeared in the
"Philosophical Transactions" of Haarlem. My end is not to amuse
or persuade, but, with due deference, to inform and convince. To
remove every cause of objection, I must beg leave to expatiate
somewhat at large on the theory of this discovery. It is with
the more propriety I presume on this method, as the discovery
to which I pretend has not been (as frequently happens) the
effect of mechanical accident, but the premeditated result of
mathematical reasoning and physical experiment. I shall proceed
to elucidate the principal arguments _a priori_, that prove
the practicability of a perpetual motion to be the necessary
consequence of the known and established laws of nature.

Having proceeded thus far, he opens his lecture at page 7 with the introduction; and first "On the Nature of Motion in General," which, in fourteen pages, being more metaphysical than mechanical, affords no extractable matter for our present object. Part I is "On the Cause and Effect of Motion." This elementary part is needlessly labored and elaborated through 27 pages. In the course of his remarks he states:

The discovery of a perpetual motion, says De la Hire, would be to
discover a body at once heavier and lighter than itself. But this
is not a fair state of the question. It is not necessary that
all the parts of a perpetually-moving machine should be attached
to, and inseparable from each other; which they must be, to
constitute one gravitating body of a determinate weight.

He proceeds to consider the nature of the circulation of the blood, pneumatic pressure, the steel-yard, real and relative weight, and spiral action. Again, we have Hobbes, Locke, and Stewart, in the same sentence with such language as--"I could almost as readily impute ingenuity to vegetables and fossils--to the sensitive plant and the loadstone--as mediation to muscles, or cogitabundity to cockles, periwinkles and rock oysters!" In conclusions he says:

I have endeavoured to make it appear that motion is the
mechanical effect of the physical action of the primary elements;
that the direction of motion only comes within the province of
animal intellect; that the vital system is supported by mere
mechanic motion, kept up by the elasticity of the solids and
the gravity of the fluids composing the animal body; that by
the same means a more simple inanimate system or machine may be
framed which may have the same property of continued action (or,
as it is called, self-motion). And this is all that is, or can
be, expected of a perpetual motion; the momentum of which may be
increased to any degree, according to the weight of the bodies
employed and the work required to be done.

The second part of this lecture commences with a Proem of thirteen pages:

I am induced (he says) to trespass farther by extending in like
manner the subsequent divisions of it; making the second and
third parts of my printed syllabus the topics of the present
reading, and reserving the last part, with the concluding
experiment, to the third and final lecture.

I pretend merely to the investigation of the general principles
of mechanics, and even to illustrate these so far only as I
conceive they relate to the immediate object of my lecture,
the discovery of an artificial perpetual motion; leaving the
application of such principles, in the solution of particular
phenomena, or the construction of particular machines, to such as
make the different arts and sciences their peculiar study.

He very prudently ends, observing:

But I beg pardon, gentlemen, for the length of this digressive
introduction, and shall proceed to the more immediate subject of
my lecture.