CHAPTER III.
THE NATURE OF KEELY’S PROBLEMS.
1885 TO 1887.
Too few the helpers on the road,
Too heavy burdens in the load.
When a movement is willed a current is sent forth from the brain.
Sir James Crichton Browne.
In November 1884, Mr. Keely obtained a standard for progressive research in the success of an experiment, which he had tried many times before, without arriving at the result that his theories had led him to expect. One of those present, at the time that this test was made, afterwards wrote to Mr. Keely, to obtain an explanation of the dynamic force which had been witnessed, causing a small globe to rotate when two persons had taken hold of the rod together, with a firm grasp; one of whom was standing on a circular sheet of metal, from which piano wires stretched toward the globe, near enough to touch one of the plates of glass which insulated the ball. Mr. Keely replied, “I cannot describe it other than the receptive concussion of the two forces, positive and negative, coming together, seeking their coincidents and thus producing rotation by harmonious waves, not streams. You ask if sound waves had anything to do with the motion of the globe? Nothing; the introductory settings are entirely different. The ball ceased to rotate when I took your left hand in my right hand, while with our other hands holding the iron rod resting on the metal plate, because the receptive flows became independent of the circular chord of resonation as set up mechanically. The power of rotation comes on the positive; and the power of negation breaks it up.”…