In your article on the "Gary Motor," issue of March 8, page 144, you say: "There is no neutral line in the sense that polarity changes when Mr. Gary moves his piece of sheet iron with its attached shingle nail across the pole or near the pole of a magnet." "The most delicate instruments fail to detect such a change of polarity," etc. Mr. Gary's claim of a neutral line is of course absurd, but you are wrong in saying that the polarity does not change under the conditions described in the Harper's Monthly article. Mr. Gary is perfectly correct in claiming a change of polarity in that experiment, although his other claim of deriving from this change of polarity a continuous motion without consuming energy are manifestly absurd.
The change of polarity is easily explained. If a bar of soft iron, whose length is two or three times the distance between the poles of the horseshoe magnet, be placed in front of the latter as in the sketch, and at some distance, poles will be induced, as shown by the letters N S. Now let the bar approach the magnet. When within a short distance consequent points will be formed and the polarity at the ends will be reversed, the bar having four poles, as in the second sketch. The bar of soft iron must have certain dimensions depending on the size and power of the horseshoe magnet. By using a powerful electro-magnet in place of a permanent one, a soft iron bar of considerable size may be used, and the change of polarity exhibited by showing the repulsion in one case for the south pole and in the other for the north pole of a heavy permanent magnet. When in the proper position a very small movement of the soft iron bar is sufficient to produce the change.
Wm. A. Anthony.
Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., March 2, 1879.
Gary's Neutral Line.
To the Editor of the Scientific American:
I have just read the article in the issue of March 8, on the Gary Motor, and cannot refrain from offering a suggestion on the subject. When I read the article referred to in Harper's, I formed the same opinion of the so-called invention that the writer in the Scientific American has expressed, and, in the main, such is my opinion still. I, however, tried the experiment by which Gary claims to prove the existence of his neutral line, and soon found the same explanation that the writer in the American has given. I then, curiously enough, modified the experiment in precisely the manner he suggests, placing the magnet in a vertical position, and using first a piece of sheet iron and then an iron wire under it. This was before seeing the article in the Scientific American. My experiment is well illustrated by the writer's diagram, except that the nail should be at the end of the iron wire, where its polarity is of course most strongly marked. But the result is not as he states it. For, as the wire is brought up toward the magnet, the nail drops off before the wire touches the magnet. When the sheet iron is used, the point at which the nail drops off is farther from the magnet than in the case of the wire, and when it is brought nearer it will again pick up the nail, which then continues to cling until the iron touches the magnet and afterwards. Thus the existence of a line in which the soft iron, or induced magnet, does not attract the nail, and above and below which it does attract it, is demonstrated. That the polarity of the induced magnet is reversed when it crosses this line may be demonstrated as follows: When it is held beyond (or below) this line (Fig. 1), the negative pole of the permanent magnet, the positive being kept at a distance, may be made to approach the iron and touch it, without causing the nail to drop. (Fig. 3.) But when contact occurs, the whole of the iron must possess the polarity of that part of the magnet which it touches, namely, negative. Hence in the position indicated in Fig. 1, the polarity of the induced magnet does not correspond with that of the permanent magnet, but is as indicated by the letters. On the other hand, if the positive pole alone be made to approach, the nail will drop; but when it is very near, or in contact, it again holds the nail, and the iron is now positive; and if the negative pole also be now brought into contact, the polarity of the soft iron will correspond with that of the magnet, as shown in Fig. 2.