Perpetual Motion

Transcribers' Note
Cover created by Transcriber, using an illustration from the original book, and placed in the Public Domain.
Comprising a History of the Efforts to Attain Self-Motive Mechanism with a Classified, ILLUSTRATED Collection and Explanation of the Devices Whereby it Has Been Sought and Why They Failed, and Comprising Also a Revision and Re-Arrangement of the Information Afforded by Search for Self-Motive Power During The 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, London, 1861, and A History of the Search for Self-Motive Power from the 13th to The 19th Century, London, 1870, by Henry Dircks, C. E., LL. D., Etc.
BY PERCY VERANCE
Copyright 1916 By 20th Century Enlightenment Specialty Co.


The author has no apology to offer for the production of this book. He has spent his life in environments that have brought him into constant contact with mechanics, artisans and laborers as well as professional men, engineers, chemists and technical experts of various types. He knows a great many men—young men, for the most part—are constantly working on the old, old problem of Perpetual Motion; that much money, and much time are being spent in search of a solution for that problem which all scientific and technical men tell us is impossible of solution.
It is believed by the author that a classification and presentation of selected groups of the devices produced in the past by which it was by the inventor believed, self-motive power had been attained, will save much work in fields already thoroughly exploited.
So far as the author knows no book on the subject has appeared since 1870. The various encyclopedias published contain articles on the subject, but they are necessarily brief, and not satisfying to young men who have become interested in the subject.
In 1861, Henry Dircks, a civil engineer, of London, published a work entitled Perpetuum Mobile; or, Search for Self-Motive Power, During the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. The book contains 599 pages, and was followed in 1870, by a second series by the same author entitled Perpetuum Mobile, or a History of the Search for Self-Motive Power from the Thirteenth, to the Nineteenth Century. In these two books there is amassed a wonderful amount of material showing on the part of the author diligence, great patience and wide and thorough search.