Free Energy Pioneer- John Worrell Keely

by Theo Paijmans

  Naturally, Keely stated, as he had done on several previous occasions, that he was planning on obtaining a patent. But even then, Keely warned, "it will require at least a year of lecturing to demonstrate the secret of generator and engine. ...The apparatus will be in use some 20 years before the thing is fully understood." The reporter could state that, "There is one thing certain, Mr. Keely has succeeded in making the wheel go around. He has abandoned his idea of pressure. He has got hold of something which he says is the right thing, and has recently been creating some excitement in a private way among scientific men."27

  The members of the Keely Motor Company could only declare, at their annual meeting which was held six months later on December 8th, that Keely had "discovered and developed a new motive power of extraordinary power and energy," and that they had every confidence that he would have "under his entire control" the "mechanical details connected with his engine."28 Yet the next year was not to fulfill the expectations of the Keely Motor Company, and the interest of the public dissolved once again. A lecture in New York during which the motor was fully described and was illustrated by diagrams "of the most complicated and convincing character," drew no attendants. But it was also noted that "with the innumerable pipes and cocks of the generator, and the imposing simplicity of the engine, one could not help being convinced that the Keely motor is as genuine and satisfactory as the ablest perpetual motion machine ever patented."29 A scientific journal published the lecture, together with the accompanying diagrams.30

  What was Keely doing during these years? The overall picture that emerges is that, apart from the usual demonstrations in his workshop, he was building device after device, destroying and selling these as "old metal" after having constructed newer prototypes while trying to master what he had discovered. "Since the principle of the Keely motor was first discovered," a newspaper wrote at that time, "the inventor has made half a dozen different engines, each one of which has been simpler and better than its predecessors. In its present state the engine contains 'one hundred and fifty pints in a descending vibratory scale.'"

  And in doing so, Keely would invent and introduce a new phraseology for his discovery and certain parts of his devices, unlike anything heard before. In a puzzled state, one was left to muse on terms and parts as "six tuning forks," though five would probably be sufficient, a "compound vitalizing medium," a "vibratory elliptic," a "positive wave plate," a "spiraphone box," together with several "positive and negative tubes," and as many sets of "triple vibratories" as are necessary for transmitting "sympathies."

  And as if this wasn't enough, Keely at one time allegedly stated that he wanted "to add a 'compound deodorized vaporized shaft' to the generator and to enlarge the 'antinomian cylinder' of the engine by prolonging it at the end and inserting in its 'negative casing' a 'monophysite tube,' studded with thirty-six 'sabellian holes,' and terminating in a 'galvanic manichuan chamber.' With these improvements, Keely claimed, he would be able to obtain seven hundred additional revolutions per minute, and to reduce the supply of water needed in the generator to five-sixths of a pint."31

  The months rolled on without Keely being able to meet the constant and pressing demands of the Keely Motor Company for a commercially exploitable engine. Instead it seems, he was more devoted to journeying over ever-new distances far beyond the horizons of known science, and following the new trails that his experiments showed him. The limitless possibilities! Who can say now with any certainty what went through his mind and what visions he had at night in the lonely hours in his workshop, with all Philadelphia around him at rest? There are some hints though, of what he must have thought during these years, for Keely later wrote: "There are moments in which I feel that I can measure the very stars, which shine like Edens in planetary space; fit abodes for beings who have made it the study of their lives on earth to create peace and happiness all around them."32 Sometimes during his experiments, he would suffer accidents; once in a while explosions occurred, "sometimes harmless to him, at other times laying him up for weeks at a time," and it was said that for a decade, Keely made no progress.33

  In 1881, he was in one of the gravest periods of his career. The stock of the Keely Motor Company had fallen very low, and as a consequence, a new exhibition had been deemed necessary. The demonstration would be given in the evening of April 22, in the presence of a large body of businessmen from New York. A few days before, Keely gave a private showing to several other important businessmen; among those present was a major of the United States Ordnance Department, Commander Gorringe of the United States Navy, the vice president of Erie Railway, the commodore of the New York Yacht Club, the president of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and 20 unidentified persons. Gorringe later said: "I am amazed at what I have seen. It is certainly one of the most remarkable curiosities I have ever looked upon, and appears bona fide."34

  The demonstration of April 22 was attended by an equally impressive list of persons: the city Chamberlain of New York, a representative of the Continental Iron Works, the secretary of the American Wrecking Company, and other, unidentified persons. The demonstration was described as "a very extended one." When the visitors, who almost completely filled the front room of Keely's workshop, had been seated, "they saw before them an odd-looking machine built of steel, that shone like a mirror." A contemporary account described the device in a puzzled tone: ".. .it is wholly unlike any other collection of globes and tubes that has ever been exhibited."35

  The visitors were given ample opportunity to inspect the device. Every cock and tube was removed to show that the apparatus was empty. Lights were placed underneath the engine, and those present were invited to look into and through the various chambers. All the plugs and attachments were replaced, and a member of the group "drew a glass of water from the hydrant" and poured the water into "half a dozen funnel-topped tubes." In "exactly 29 seconds a force was generated sufficient to raise a six-foot lever (one inch fulcrum) upon which were hung 700 pounds of iron." The pressure was asserted to be 15,000 pounds to the square inch. The vapor responsible for this pressure was then stored in a steel cylinder "about thirty inches long and five inches thick," through the center of which was stretched "a piece of piano wire."

  The confined vapor was "vivified" by "external vibrations of great energy," obtained from a tuning fork of immense size. Then a long tube of "very constricted orifice" was attached to the steel cylinder, to form the connection with the engine in the rear room. When the visitors assembled in this room, they saw an engine that Keely called a compound generator. Keely explained this name by telling that "it can be worked with equal effect by positive or negative energy." After he pulled open a few cocks, a spirophone, contained in one of the drums, began "to roar," and the shaft that carried a belt-wheel began to revolve "with great velocity." The sound, a "whirring sound (much resembling the rising of a flock of quail)" gradually became regular and harmonious, and the engine settled down to a regular speed of about sixty revolutions per minute. Keely then made some "curious experiments" to exhibit what was named "vibratory energy." The revolutions of the engine were increased or diminished at will by Keely striking an iron disk or a gigantic tuning fork, or drawing a bow over a tightly stretched steel wire. When Keely changed from the negative to the positive energy, it resulted in an "almost instantaneous reversal of the engine." Keely declared that this reversal could be made "at the very highest velocity without breaking anything."36

  A brake, specially made with wooden lining was then applied to the belt wheel with a leverage of five feet and the weight of two of the heaviest persons of the visiting party, but "no perceptible diminution in the speed resulted." This was not all that the visitors were shown: "many other strange experiments with the vapor gun and other appliances of the alleged invention were given, after which the party separated." The demonstration lasted for three unforgettable hours,37 and one may now only speculate upon the nature of the conversations of the visitors, upon their return on the midnight train to New York
.

  Scientific American, however, noted cynically that the demonstration showed foremost that "the Keely managers still look to the New York men. It was from them that their first treasure was extracted after the original first exhibition; and the new show is doubtless expected to yield another yellow harvest."38

  Unfortunately, the year 1881 would bring Keely no yellow harvest. Instead, towards the end of the year he would be on the brink of bankruptcy. He had continued his investigations, and from time to time gave out some new features of his discovery, and the new applications that could be made of it. But Keely had not reached a point where he deemed it safe to apply for patents, so difficulties arose between him and the Keely Motor Company. The company refused to pay his bills, and he was practically abandoned by the company.39 Another effect of these unfortunate developments was that the Keely Motor Company once again came to be regarded as a fraudulent undertaking, Keely as a swindler and his allies as either "disreputable gamblers in stock or the dupes of his wizard artifices."

  At this critical moment, John H. Lorimer — who was a member of the Board of Directors of the Keely Motor Company — and Babcock came to his aide. Lorimer published a pamphlet40 in which he demonstrated that some of the company's directors were responsible for the existing sordid state of affairs. Already having published his favorable pamphlet on Keely, Babcock started a series of lectures with a similar message as Lorimer's.41

  In this period, Keely was assisted financially by several persons whose names were kept secret at that time. One of these was a Dr. William Pepper, who was the provost of the University of Pennsylvania, of all places. He was deeply interested in Keely's inventions, and at one time he dontated $10,000 to his work.42

  However generous these gestures were, bankruptcy stayed a constant threat and left the Keely household at the brink of starvation. At times, Keely was in such despair that he destroyed several of his "devices for research which had been the labor of years" in fits of frustration, and had to raise money from the sale of other devices as old iron. By pawning his watch and even by selling his costly scientific instruments, including a valuable microscope, he managed to earn enough money to pay the mechanics and to buy material in order to continue his work.43

  When bankruptcy and starvation were imminent, Clara Bloomfield-Moore, a wealthy Philadelphia woman, came to his aide. She did this at a time when "... the public seemed to have become incredulous or indifferent, when a paragraph published in 1881-2 caught the eye of the widow of Bloomfield-Moore, the paper manufacturer. It related that the inventor, still working to perfect his apparatus, was on the verge of starvation and despair. Mrs. Moore, in speaking of the incident, said she had just been reading of the suicide of an inventor in New York who had been unsuccessful in getting any one to take an interest in his invention, which after his death was seen to have been a valuable one. Here, she thought, was an opportunity to save another inventor from a like fate. She made inquiries, called to see him, and supplied him with means to go on with his work."44

  What caught her eye was Babcock's pamphlet on Keely that he privately published in Philadelphia in 1881.45 Bloomfield-Moore would later write that Keely always spoke of that winter of 1881-1882 as "the darkest period of his life. "46 She found "his wife's roof mortgaged over her head" and Keely somberly pondering over the possibility of committing suicide. She took $10,000, with which she was originally planning to found a small public library, and gave this to Keely. He took half of the amount; more he would not need, he said.47

  She would finance his experiments and research for almost 15 years, and already being a prolific writer, she would also write a number of articles about Keely and his work.48

  Things seemed to have turned for the better, but then something unexpected happened.

  Within the year, Keely announced a new discovery: the vibratory force of which the demonstration of April 22 was an example. In the meantime, Bloomfield-Moore had become a convert to his theories and revived the hopes of the Keely Motor stockholders. But Keely understood that the company had no interest in his new discoveries.49 For the 10 years before 1882, Keely had limited his demonstrations to the liberation, at will, of the energy he had accidentally discovered while experimenting on vibrations in 1872. The ensuing years he tried to construct what was termed "the perfect engine" that he had promised the Keely Motor Company. According to Bloomfield-Moore, Keely "made the mistake of pursuing his researches on the line of invention instead of discovery. All his thoughts were concentrated in this direction up to the year 1882. "50

  So in 1882, the Keely Motor Company brought suit against the inventor.51 Relations between Keely and the company officials were already strained because of his constant refusal or inability to obtain patent papers on his former discovery, the construction of a commercially successful device, and of the rift between him and the company a year before. But the reason for the Keely Motor Company to take him to court was of course Keely's announcement that he had abandoned his disintegration research and instead concentrated on vibratory energy, the new and different technology to which, Keely claimed, the Keely Motor Company had no rights or interest whatsoever.52

  About this new line of research, Bloomfield-Moore wrote, "the two forms of force which he has been experimenting with, and the phenomena attending them, are the very antithesis of each other. "53 The genesis of this line of research may perhaps be traced back five years earlier; around 1875, Keely developed the notion that he would need a "new engine of a different sort."54

  The Keely Motor Company tried to learn what the differences were between the two devices and what the nature of the secret was that they possessed. This situation brought on the suit against Keely by the Keely Motor Company. He was ordered by the court to explain his secret, which he absolutely refused to do. He claimed that to divulge any information would be to give away his secret, so the court ordered him to be committed to prison until he complied with the order. Bloomfield-Moore stated that"... had Keely obeyed the order of the court in 1882, and made his marvelous secret public, it would have collapsed."55

  It was claimed that it was she who arranged a compromise. An eminent engineer was sworn to secrecy before interviewing Keely. What was said during that interrogation is unknown, but apparently Keely was able to convince the engineer by explaining the differences between the two devices. The engineer's report, while never disclosing the secrets of the devices, seems to have been satisfactory to both the judge and the Keely Motor Company, for the suit was dismissed.56

  More details of this sad period in Keely's career were written down by Charles Fort, stating that the Keely Motor Company kept its faith until December 1882, when: "there was a meeting of disappointed stockholders of the Keely Motor Co. In the midst of protests and accusations, Keely announced that, though he would not publicly divulge the secret of his motor, he would tell everything to any representative of the dissatisfied ones. A stockholder named Boekel was agreed upon. Boekel's report was that it would be improper to describe the principle of the mechanism, but that 'Mr. Keely had discovered all that he had claimed.' There is no way of inquiring how Mr. Boekel was convinced. Considering the billions of human beings who have been 'convinced' by words and phrases beyond their comprehension, I think that Mr. Boekel was reduced to a state of mental helplessness by flows of a hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacuo terminology; and that faithfully he kept his promise not to explain, because he had not more than the slightest comprehension of what it was that had convinced him. "57

  The story uncovered from contemporary newspapers paints a different picture; in fact, the stockholders had lost their patience with, and trust in the inventor several months earlier.

  Keely's invention was far from complete, and there was no immediate prospect of it being finished anytime soon. There were still no patents, and worse, only Keely seemed to understand the workings of his devices. He was "still groping for the evasive contrivance that will set everything working according to the original expectation." While
the stockholders would have preferred that he do just that, Keely's mind was "scattered over so many inventions that this one cannot receive his constant attention." So the stockholders demanded that he apply for a patent, or at least "explain his invention to some other person," because in case he died, "all the beautiful machinery required in his experiments, and the well engraved certificates of stock will be turned into old iron and waste paper." And, what if Keely would become insane? "Mr. Keely's labors may be too much for him. His friends are afraid he will go crazy, and this would be just as bad for his backers as his death."58

  On January 20, "John Keely filed a demurrer to the bill in equity presented against him by the stockholders of the Keely Motor Company. The demurrer is entirely technical and gives a number of reasons why the court should not afford the plaintiffs the relief they seek."59

  Keely's legal troubles were far from over: In Philadelphia, on the morning of March 27, in the Court of Common Pleas No. 1, "argument was heard upon a demurrer by Jonathan Puzy, representing John W. Keely, to the bill in equity recently filed by the Keely Motor Company to compel Keely to divulge the secret of his motor. It was argued on behalf of the demurrer that the inventor could not be made to expose that which no one know but himself and which was hidden in his own brain."60 But on April 1, Judge Pierce overruled Keely's demurrer and ordered him "to make known his process in the way indicated in the bill filed by the Keely Motor Company. This is to compel him to divulge his secret of the motor."61

  Keely's reply came on the 24th of May: "The answer, which is sworn to, substantially admits the truth of the formal portion of the complainant's bill concerning the contract, & Keely adds that, although owing to certain abstruse difficulties by reason of the nature and qualities of the said force, he has thus far failed in his efforts to bring the said inventions and discoveries into any practicable use or to arrive at the utility required by the law, he believes he will ultimately succeed."62