The Paradoxical Hydrostatic Balance
The following was contributed to an English scientific journal in 1831, the name of the author of the article is unknown to us, but here is what he wrote:
This hydrostatic balance, like the compound balance of Desaguliers, may be introduced to illustrate the impossibility of perpetual motion by a weight removed from the centre of a wheel.
Take the hollow-rimmed wheel A B; let it be air-tight and half filled with water. Let C be the axle; at B place a hollow ball loaded to near sinking. Such a wheel, however fine its axle may be, or however well lubricated, will not make a single revolution, though the weight B occupies that part at which every deluded perpetual-motionist is desirous it should be placed; concluding that, by such an arrangement, the production of another Orffyrean wheel must be inevitable.