a b c d is the section of the reservoir, &c., showing the wheel, the pump, &c. A B is an overshot water-wheel; C D the working beam; E the pump; F a pipe from the top of the pump, through which the water was to fall upon the wheel; C G an arm, communicating, by means of a crank attached to an horizontal shaft through the centre of the wheel, motion to the lever or working beam, and so raising water from the reservoir by means of the pump; H I the water. It was supposed that the water which had fallen upon the wheel into the reservoir would be raised by means of the pump, fall through the horizontal pipe, and so produce a continued rotary motion.
The persistence of Perpetual Motion workers is amusingly illustrated by the inventions of William Willcocks Sleigh and Burrowes Willcocks Arthur Sleigh. Their devices were so extremely complicated and not susceptible of being understood, and hence are mentioned rather than shown in this work.
In 1845, William Willcocks Sleigh, a doctor of medicine and surgery, of Chiswick, Middlesex, England, applied for and obtained British Patent on what he called
"A Hydro-mechanic apparatus for producing motive power."
He took out other patents on hydro-mechanical devices in 1853, 1856, and 1860. Then in 1864, his son, Burrowes Willcocks Arthur Sleigh took out two patents on similar devices, and then in 1866, still another patent.
The specifications for each of the above mentioned patents are lengthy and detailed. The inventors evidently had the greatest confidence in their efforts, though surely they never put them to actual test. They seemed to have been mechanically stupid, and incapable of correct mechanical thinking, but their efforts were so tireless and so earnest that we submit that the Sleigh family had done its full, fair share in the efforts to accomplish Self-Motive power.
Equally amusing are the efforts of James Smith of Seaforth, Liverpool, and Sidney Arthur Chease, Liverpool, gentlemen: These two co-laborers applied for British patents on four different Hydro-mechanical devices—one in 1858, two in 1863, and one in 1865. On three they obtained patents, and on the other one provincial protection. One of them seems to have been a capitalist, and the other one a machinist. Their models were complicated beyond understanding, and apparently they were laboring in the dark without intelligent plan. They seemed to have thought that when a complicated mess of machinery parts and fluid were assembled Perpetual Motion must somehow result.
Nothing could be gained by setting forth their inventions fully, but their labors were so great, and their efforts so intense that we feel like preserving their names from oblivion, and hence we give them mention here.