Keely and His Discoveries: Aerial Navigation

by Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore

1881–1891.

THE KEELY MOTOR BUBBLE. MACVICAR’S LOGICAL ANALYSIS.

For it is well known that bodies act upon one another by the attraction of gravity, magnetism, and electricity; and these instances show the tenour and course of Nature and make it not improbable that there may be more attractive powers than these. For Nature is very consonant and comfortable to herself.—Sir Isaac Newton.

The Scotch author, Macvicar, from whose “Sketch of a Philosophy” has been compiled “Ether the True Protoplasm,” published this year in the New York Home Journal, says in his “Enquiry into Human Nature,” written in 1852, “Modern science is certainly on the way to the discovery that, so far as is cognizable by us, throughout the whole universe the same laws are at work and regulate all things. The mécanique céleste of mind is still waiting its Newton to disclose them to us.”

Looking upon the discoverer of etheric force as the Newton, whose coming was forecast by Macvicar, it is satisfactory to see that Keely, in his field of research, eventually adopted the methods which his forerunner advocated nearly forty years ago; but not until after many years of blind grappling with the mechanical difficulties which he encountered, in his efforts to control the unknown Genii, which he himself declares that he stumbled upon in quite another field of research. Keely was experimenting in 1875 on what he called a hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacuo engine, when, “accidentally,” the first evolution of disintegration was made. The focalization of this quadruple force, acting on one general centre of concentration, produced partial molecular subdivision, resulting in a pressure of some three thousand pounds per square inch. Mr. Keely was himself amazed at this evidence of the energy which he had evoked, and at once turned his attention to researching its nature, with the result that he came to the conclusion that he had partially resolved the gaseous element of water by crude molecular dissociation. This was his first step, and the necessary introductory one, towards the elimination of ether; but at that time, to use his own words, he had not the remotest idea of the etheric element proper. Since then he has constructed innumerable machines to subdivide or dissociate the molecular; but it was not until he had instituted certain acoustic vibratory conditions that he began to realize the magnitude of the element that he is now controlling with his vibratory disintegrator. Yet, even this instrument was only the stepping-stone towards polar-sympathetic-negative-attraction.

In 1878 Mr. Keely conceived and constructed an instrument which he called a “vibratory lift,” and, while experimenting on the improvised multiplication by this medium, he had occasion to put a piece of marble, weighing twenty-six pounds, on a steel bar to hold it in place, when then and there his first discovery of the disintegration of mineral substance took place. From that time progressive research of the most arduous nature has brought him to his present standard in vibratory physics. In the winter of 1881–82, when threatened with imprisonment by the managers of the Keely Motor Company for not disclosing his secret to them, which then would have been like pricking a bubble, he destroyed his vibratory lift and other instruments that he had been years in perfecting. At this time so hopeless was Keely, that his plans were made to destroy himself, after destroying his devices. At this critical juncture he received unexpected aid. Again, in 1888, before he was taken to a felon’s cell in Moyamensing Prison by decree of Judge Finletter for alleged contempt of court, he broke up his vibratory microscope, his sympathetic transmitter, and some devices, which have taken much of his time since to reconstruct. It would seem to be incomprehensible that a man who believes he has been specially endowed by Providence to convey great truths to the world, should have destroyed instruments which were the result of the labour of many years of research; but Schopenhauer tells us that genius possesses an abnormally developed nervous and cerebral system that brings with it hyper-sensibility, which in union with intensity of will-energy, that is also characteristic of genius, occasions quick changes of mood and extravagant outbursts. Schopenhauer also explains why it is that men of genius are ignored by the age in which they appear:—“The genius comes into his age like a comet into the paths of the planets, to whose well-regulated and comprehensible order its entirely eccentric course is foreign. Accordingly he cannot go hand in hand with the existing regular progress to the culture of the age, but flings his works far out on the way in front (as the dying Emperor flung his spear among the enemy), which time has first to overtake. The achievement of the man of genius transcends not only the power of achievement of others, but also their power of apprehension; therefore they do not become directly conscious of him. The man of talent is like the marksman who hits a mark the others cannot hit; the man of genius is like the marksman who hits a mark that the sight of others cannot even reach.” In one sense this truth applies to all men, for, says Cicero, no man is understood excepting by his equals or his superiors.

Admitting all that has been said of the difficulties attendant upon the comprehension of a genius by the age in which he lives, it does not require genius to understand the blunders which, perpetrated by the managers of the prematurely organized Keely Motor Company, have placed Mr. Keely, as well as themselves, in false positions with the public; leaving him since the winter of 1880–81 to bear the whole burden of the infamy brought about by their having offered stock for investment which could possess no tangible existence in the shape of property until the laws governing the unknown force that he was handling had been studied out and applied to mechanics in a patentable machine. To those informed that this company ceased to hold annual meetings as far back as 1881 it will be a matter of surprise to hear that, sitting up in its coffin, seven or eight years after its burial, it called another annual meeting, and that now its managers are again applying the thumb-screw, as in past years; pressing their claims and threatening a suit for obtaining money under false pretences, unless Mr. Keely renounces his plan of progressive research, and gives his time to the construction of engines for the Keely Motor Company. This requirement, as was said in 1881, of a similar effort, is as sensible, under existing conditions, as it would be to require Keely to devote his time to growing figs on thorn trees. It is from the “Minority Report to the Stockholders of the Keely Motor Company from the Board of Directors” (made by a member of that board in 1881, John H. Lorimer), that the material is gleaned for disclosing facts which it is due to Mr. Keely should now, since this last attempt to intimidate him, be given to the public. The stock of that company is not lessened in value by the mismanagement of its officers and directors; for Mr. Keely’s moral obligations to its stockholders are as sacred to him as if the company had not long since forfeited its charter. When Mr. Keely became financially independent of the company last March, speculation in the stock of that company received its death blow, and the “Keely Motor Bubble” burst, leaving to the stockholders all that ever had any tangible existence in the shape of property in a more valuable position than it had ever been before. Mr. Lorimer is a gentleman of Scotch birth, who was elected a director of the Keely Motor Company in 1881, and who resigned in 1882, because he was “unable to carry the enterprise,” and unwilling to fall in with the policy of the old directors. Before resigning, he set himself to studying the position of affairs with a view to forming for the Board a definite plan of action which ordinary business principles would justify.

This course resulted in a thoroughly business-like letter to Mr. Keely in which, under nine heads, Mr. Lorimer set down the conclusions he had reached as to the cause of the difficulties that had culminated in a threatened law suit, and Mr. Keely was ordered to ask that a special meeting of the Board should be called at once, to consider any proposition he should see fit to make towards settling the question whether he should proceed with the company’s work or be permitted to defer it, as he so much desired, until he had fully developed the adaptations of his power already known to him or hereafter possible of discovery by him. Mr. Lorimer added:—“And now, in conclusion, I may say to you that the above deductions from the history of your motor are the result of patient and laborious inquiry on my part, and I am truly at a loss to understand how, or in what manner, other than that herein suggested, you can honourably vindicate your position; and as no one I have met connected with the enterprise, or personally acquainted with you, hesitates for an instant in crediting you with the most unswerving integrity, I have no hesitation in offering the above suggestions for your consideration; and I trust you will so far adopt them as to enable the active portion of your friends to bring the organization rapidly into harmonious accord with you in the development of what all seem to think is the greatest wonder of our civilization, the early completion of which will lift you to the highest pinnacle of fame as a scientist, and make them co-dispensers with you of the God-given wealth of which you hold the key.” The date is 10th of February, 1881.

This letter was followed by another dated February 11th, in which Mr. Lorimer submitted certain conclusions, arrived at after meeting in New York with several members of the Board of Directors, one of which reads:—“It seems to be generally understood that without your hearty co-operation and good will, the company cannot realize value upon any existing contracts, or any they may hereafter make with you.”

At this time Mr. Lorimer states that he had the opportunity presented of studying, semi-officially, the very peculiar man whose genius held his friends so spell-bound that they lost their power (if such they possessed) to adapt business methods to the enterprise. “To meet him socially in his shop,” Mr. Lorimer writes, “after his day’s work, was, I think, invariably to be impressed with his earnestness, honesty of purpose, and above all, with confidence in his knowledge of the plane of science he was working in (acoustics), and, at the same time to be impressed with the folly of basing calculations for the government of the business details of the organization upon the statements made by him while contemplating the possible result of his researches.”