Keely and His Discoveries: Aerial Navigation

by Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore

An infinitely subtle substance, out of which all other substances are constituted, in varying forms, passes back again into simplicity. The same principle underlies the harmonies of music and the motion of heavenly bodies.—Pythagoras.

One of the most arduous problems is that of energies acting at distances. Are they real? Of all those that appear incontrollable, one only remains, gravitation. Will it escape us also? The laws of its action incline us to think so. The nature of electricity is another problem which recalls us to the condition of electric and magnetic forces through space. Behind this question arises the most important problem of all, that of the nature and properties of the substance which fills space,—the ether,—its structure, its motion, its limits, if it possesses any. We find this subject of research, day by day, predominating over all others. It seems as though a knowledge of ether should not only reveal to us the nature of that imponderable substance, but will unveil to us the essence of matter itself and of its inherent properties, weight and inertia. Soon the question set by modern physics will be, “Are not all things due to conditions of ether?” That is the ultimate end of our science; these are the most exalted summits to which we can hope to attain. Shall we ever reach them? Will it be soon? We cannot answer.—Prof. Henri Hertz, in La Revue Scientifique, October 26, 1888.

In the long delay attendant upon the application to mechanics of the unknown force which John Ernest Worrell Keely has discovered in the field of vibration, the question is often heard, “What has Keely done?” with the remark, “He has never done anything; he is always promising to do something, but he never keeps his promises.”

Let us see what Keely, in his researches, has done for science; although, as yet, he has done nothing for commerce.

We are quick to forget the experiences of history, which show what a length of time has invariably elapsed between the discovery of a new force and its use in mechanics. Watt commenced his experiments on the elastic force of steam in 1764, obtaining about forty pounds total pressure per square inch. (It has been stated that it was thirty years before he succeeded in perfecting his safety-valve, or governor, which made it possible to use steam without running great risks.) Fifty years later, in 1814, the first steam locomotive was built; but it was not until 1825 that the locomotive was used for traffic—travelling at a speed of from six to eight miles in an hour. Keely commenced his experiments with ether in the winter of 1872–73, showing a pressure of two thousand pounds per square inch. It does not look now as though half a century would elapse before Keely’s discovery will supersede steam in travel and traffic. In experimenting with ether, he has shown, from time to time, since 1873, a pressure of from twenty thousand to thirty-two thousand pounds per square inch; but he was occupied many years in his researches before he obtained sufficient control over the ether to prevent the explosions which made wrecks of his machines, bursting iron and steel pipes, twelve inches in circumference, as if they were straws. He has now arrived at a stage in his experimental research in which he can, without danger of explosions, exhibit to scientists such manifestations of an unknown force as to place him before the world where he would have stood many years ago, had it not been for the calumnious attacks of those men of science who found it easier to denounce him than to account for the phenomena which they witnessed in his workshop.

Professor Ira Remsen, in his “Theoretical Chemistry,” writes, “As regards the cause of the phenomena of the motion of the heavenly bodies, we have no conception at the present day. It is true we say that these phenomena are caused by the attraction of gravitation; but, after all, we do not know what pulls these bodies together.”

Let us see what Keely knows on this subject?

1st. After a lifetime of research into the laws governing vibrations, which develop this force, Keely is able to demonstrate partial control of the power that he has discovered,—a power which he believes to be the governing medium of the universe, throughout animate and inanimate nature, controlling the advance and recession of the solar and planetary masses, and reigning in the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdom, according to the laws that rule its action in each, as undeviatingly as it governs the motions of the earth itself, and of all the heavenly bodies in space.

Keely calls this power, which he is endeavouring to apply in mechanics for the benefit of mankind, “sympathetic negative attraction,”—it being necessary to use the word “attraction,” as no other word has yet been coined to take its place.

2nd. He has determined and written out a system of the vibratory conditions governing the aggregation of all molecular masses, as to their relation sympathetically one to the other, stating the conditions to be brought about in order to induce antagonism or repellent action, disintegration, etc.; but he has not yet been able to control the operation of his Disintegrator so as to use it with safety to the operator, for mining purposes, etc.