These facts, which are well known to all who have been brought into contact with this class of minds, explain many otherwise puzzling circumstances and enable us to place a proper value on assertions which, if not made so positively and by such apparently good authority, would be at once condemned as deliberate falsehoods. That falsehood, pure and simple, has formed the basis of a good many claims of this kind, there can be no doubt, but at the same time, it is probable that some of the claimants really deceived themselves and attributed to causes other than radical errors of theory, the fact that their machines would not continue to move.
While many have claimed the actual invention of a perpetual motion it is very certain that not one has ever succeeded. How, then, are we to explain the statements which have been made in regard to Orffyreus and the claims of the Marquis of Worcester? For both of these men it is claimed that they constructed wheels which were capable of moving perpetually and apparently strong testimony is offered in support of these assertions.
In the famous "Century of Inventions," published by the Marquis in 1663, four years before his death, the celebrated 56th article reads as follows (verbatim et literatim):
"To provide and make that all the Weights of the descending side of a Wheel shall be perpetually further from the Centre, then 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 Embassadors accompanying His Majesty, and the Duke of Richmond and Duke Hamilton, with most of the Court, attending Him. The Wheel was 14. Foot over, and 40. Weights of 50. pounds apiece. Sir William Balfore, then Lieutenant of the Tower, can justifie 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 further from the Centre, nor no sooner passed the Diameter-line of the upper side, but they hung a foot nearer. Be pleased to judge the consequence."
Such is the account given by the Marquis himself, and that he exhibited such a wheel at the time and place which he names, I have not the least doubt. And that some of the weights on one side hung a foot further from the center than did weights on the other side is also no doubt true, but, as the judging of the "consequence" is left to ourselves we know that after the first impulse given to it had been expended, the wheel would simply stand still unless kept in motion by some external force.
Fig. 17.
Mr. Dircks in his "Life, Times and Scientific Labours of the Second Marquis of Worcester," gives an engraving of a wheel which complies with all the conditions laid down by the Marquis and which is thus described:
"Let the annexed diagram, Fig. 17, represent a wheel of 14 feet in diameter, having 40 spokes, seven feet each, and with an inner rim coinciding with the periphery, at one foot distance all round. Next provide 40 balls or weights, hanging in the center of cords or chains two feet long. Now, fasten one end of this cord at the top of the center spoke C, and the other end of the cord to the next right-hand spoke one foot below the upper end, or on the inner ring; proceed in like manner with every other spoke in succession; and it will be found that, at A, the cord will have the position shown outside the wheel; while at B, C, and D, it will also take the respective positions, as shown on the outside. The result in this case will be, that all the weights on the side A, C, D, hang to the great or outer circle, while on the side B, C, D, all the weights are suspended from the lesser or inner circle. And if we reverse the motion of the wheel, turning it from the right to the left hand, we shall reverse these positions also (the lower end of the cord sliding in a groove towards a left-hand spoke), but without the wheel having any tendency to move of itself."