"This instrument ruptures the luminous envelopes of the hydrogen corpuscles, liberating the mysterious substance, which is put into such high rotation that it forms its own wall of confinement at 420,000 revolutions per second, as calculated. Independent of this rotation in the tube, where it is projected, it could be no more held in suspension than a ray of sunshine could be held in a darkened room."
I have been given to understand that a faithful account of everything that has occurred in connection with Keely's discovery has been compiled, and will be published "when the time comes for the truth to be made known."
It is, of course, possible that this disclosure may be anticipated by the arrival of another "crank and impostor" of the Keely type. Let us trust he may arise from within and not from without, scientific circles, and thus avoid his martyrdom!
Meanwhile it may be interesting to quote from a published letter of Lascelles-Scott, the Government physicist from Forest Gate, who visited Keely's workshop in the interests of Science, and who was allowed to cut and bring away with him pieces of the wire Keely was using. (Said to be tubes by the wiseacres!)
The following is the essential portion of Mr Lascelles-Scott's letter. I only omit courteous expressions of gratitude to the editor and "to the institutions and individuals alike" of the "beautiful city of Philadelphia" where he was able to carry out his investigations.
Letter from Mr Lascelles-Scott to the Editor
of The Public Ledger, Philadelphia.
The only corrections of sufficient importance, to the general sense of my observations at the Franklin Institute last Wednesday night, to call for notice in your otherwise admirable report, are the following:—
Although my observations were only put forward as "preliminary," inasmuch as I have not yet completed the outlined programme I had in view, no words actually used by me justified the expression that "I had formed no very definite opinions."
On the contrary, I stated more than once the very definite opinion that Mr Keely has demonstrated to me, in a way which is absolutely unquestionable, the existence of a force hitherto unknown. (The italics are mine.—E. K. B.)
The conditions under which the experiments were carried out (as I distinctly stated) were such as to preclude the possibility of the results obtained being due to any ordinary source of power, evident or concealed.