KEELY'S SECRET.

12/16/1881 - The stockholders of the Keely Motor Company are a very unreasonable set of people. They have been furnishing Mr. Keely with money to complete his invention for the last six or seven years, and instead of enjoying that easy and elegant occupation they are growing tired of it. Although they have put many thousands of dollars into the treasury of the company - a place of deposit not wholly unconnected with Mr. Keely's pocket - and although the fact that there are now but $19 .48 in the treasury gives them the opportunity to fill it up again, they appear to be greatly dissatisfied. They have just held a meeting, and talked in the most inconsiderate and indelicate way about the great inventor. While they profess to have unlimited faith in the "motor" they demand to know something about it. Mr. Keely has hitherto refused to satisfy this demand. Indeed, the stockholders go so far as to assert that when they attempt to talk to him concerning his invention, with the hope of learning something about it, they are met "with deception and misrepresentation." This is, of course, incredible, for no disinterested and intelligent man who knows Mr. Keely would think it possible that he should be guilty of deception and misrepresentation. Moreover, the stockholders themselves profess to have entire confidence in Mr. Keely, and they must see that to have confidence in a man who habitually deceives them is to the last degree unreasonable.

After having thus shown themselves to be both captious and unreasonable, the Keely stockholders proceed to inform Mr. Keely that if he does not confide the secret of his motor to some trustworthy man they will compel him to do so by law. They are afraid that the inventor will die and take his secret into the grave with him, thus leaving the stockholders with nothing but a quantity of useless machinery. They remind him that, according to his own account, his "generator" was perfected a year ago, and that his "multiplicator" is also perfect. Now is clearly the time for him to share the secret of the operation of his machine with at least one of the stockholders, but instead of so doing his whole mind is absorbed in the construction of "phenomena," six or seven of which are now nearly completed. It must be admitted that if Mr. Keely, while he is paid to perfect his motor, is employing his time in constructing costly "phenomena," there is some little reason for finding fault with his conduct. Nobody wants any "phenomena," so far as is at present known, and Mr. Keely is not only wasting time, but is also wasting money in constructing large and unwieldy "phenomena" which are worth only their weight as old iron.

Between threatening to compel Mr. Keely to give up the secret of his "motor" and carrying out that threat there is a good deal of difference, as the Keely stockholders may find out. They may bring actions in equity and the court may decide that Mr. Keely must give up his secret, but how can the court provide the stockholders with minds capable of comprehending the secret? Mr. Keely has several times described, not his secret, but his machine, and in every case the description was adapted to reduce a listener of the strongest intellect to gibbering idiocy. If nobody can understand his explanation of the machine, what chance is there that his explanation of his secret would be intelligible? We already know that Mr. Keely produces a cold vapor from water by means of vibration, and that by alternating positive and negative vibrations and mixing them with anthropomorphic and interconvertible strata he develops the power which moves his engine. This explanation, which only covers that part of his invention which he does not care to keep secret, is undoubtedly mild and harmless compared with the explanation which he would give of the entire process of generating and multiplying his motive power. No court, with any particle of humane feeling in its bosom, would venture to order Mr. Keely to subject his stockholders, or any one of them, to an explanation that would not fail to have the most disastrous results upon their sanity, and that would not convey a single intelligible idea.

The true course for the stockholders to pursue is to continue to put full faith in Mr. Keely; to supply him with all the money he may desire, and to cease to trouble him with questions. It would perhaps be wise for them to stipulate that he shall not engage in the construction of "phenomena" except in his leisure hours and it his own expense; but as for trying to wrest his secret from him, such a course would be as unwise as it is unnecessary. All the stockholders need to do is to make as agreement with Mr. Keely that he will always carry his secret in his pocket during the daytime, and will leave it at night either under the doormat or hanging from a nail in his bedroom. In case of his illness or death they would then know just where to find the secret, and with its help could carry on the motor business themselves. The secret is not a large one and is understood to be of the Yale pattern. In fact, it is nothing more nor less than the key of the door of the cellar underneath the room where Mr. Keely exhibits his motor, and as he cannot very well carry this key into the other world the stockholders need have no fear that his secret will perish with him.

PHILADELPHIA, May 24, 1882 - John W. Keely today filed his answer to the equity suit against him by the stockholders of the Keely Motor Company. The answer, which is sworn to, substantially admits the truth of the formal portion of the complainants' bill concerning the contract, &c. 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.

NYT - PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 21, 1884 - John W. Keely, the inventor of the Keely motor, sat in his dressing gown this evening in the second story of his residence on Oxford-street reading after demonstrating the new motor gun on Saturday in the presence of a party of Government officials at Sandy Hook. A satisfied expression was on his face. A reporter of the Press was cautiously examining a vaporic vibrator that lay on the table in the middle of the room. Laying down his paper the inventor wheeled around in his chair, and, after studying for a moment, broke the silence that he has so persistently maintained, and, for the first time in several years, communicated his thoughts to a newspaper man. "My experimenting days are over," he said. "This will develop my active enterprise. Complete success is very near at hand. My experiments at Sandy Hook demonstrated that my vaporic force is a fact and not a mere creation of fancy, as many persons have persisted in declaring. I am now able to produce a power of projection thrice greater than that of gunpowder, and there is no limit to this force. My motor will be completed in less than two months and I will then make a public exhibition of its wonderful power, which are already in a position to manifest themselves. The adaptation of my force to gunnery is positively assured. I can apply it with more effect than that of nitroglycerine."

The inventor paused and took out of a satchel what looked like a policeman's billy. "This," he said, "is what I call a vibrator. It is a hollow coil of steel of the finest quality. In one end is an orifice, by which it is attached to the gun. It is the most peculiar piece of steel in the world. Listen," and the inventor tapped one end of the coil twice, sharply, upon the floor and held it to the ear of the reporter. "Do you hear anything?" The reporter did hear something. The steel cone was humming in a very high key. The noise was like that of a tuning fork. Taking the core in his hand, the reporter found that it was quivering from one end to the other. Mr. Keely continued: "It hums, don't it? No other piece of metal in the world of similar shape will hum at all. See if it does," and he tapped another hollow bar of steel on the floor and held it to the reporter's car. Not a sound was audible, not a quiver could be detected. "That steel bar," said Mr. Keely, "was the beginning of my motor. By means of it I stumbled on my discoveries. For seven years I have kept flowing through that core a stream of etheric vapor. The action of the vapor has been to affect the relations of the molecules and to alter to a certain extent their conditions. For this reason it has become subject to these vibrations, which are excited in the manner I have shown you. There has been no apparent out ward change in the steel. Its weight is the same as before, but it is in the process of silent dissolution. Were I to pass through it for 20 years longer, this etheric vapor, it would crumble into nothingness, be trasformed into the most impalpable dust, or whatever you may choose to cail it. The steel core is necessary for the promulgation of the projecting force of the etheric vapor when applied to gunnery. When the vapor was first allowed to flow through the core of steel, the vibration were scarcely audible. Gradually they increased in volume, and the noise became more and more audible. The vibrations through it have averaged 300,000 per second. It has sufficient force to operate a 500-horse power engine.

"Stripping the process of all technical terms, it is simply this: I take water and air, two mediums of different specific gravity and produce from them by generation an effect under vibrations that liberates from the air and water an inter atomic ether. The energy of this ether is boundless and can hardly be comprehended. The specific gravity of the ether is about four times lighter than that of hydrogen gas, the lightest gas so far discovered. I can best answer you intelligently by explaining the operations of the gun I used at Sandy Hook. It was a breechloading rifle weighing 500 pounds. It was specially constructed for me. On Wednesday last I charged my tube, a five-gallon reservoir of wrought iron, one and a half inches thick - with etheric vapor. Then I boxed it up and did not ever test it, so I was certain of its powers. There, hours before the experiments, it remained untouched in my shop. The process of charging it consumed less than four seconds of time. You could not guess how much material was used in making the vapor," and the inventor smiled and paused to allow the reporter to use his ingenuity at guessing.

"A pint of water," suggested the visitor.

Mr. Keely smiled more broadly than before. Then he said, with a tremble in his eye: "A pint of water would have been an extravagant quantity. To project 20 leaden bullets, each weighing nearly five ounces, at a velocity of over 450 feet a second, there was required six drops of water and about a pint of air. From this combination I derived sufficient force to fire 20 bullets of like weight as those used. The most curious thing about all is, that I found, at the end of my experiments, that I had increased the power in my tube instead of diminishing it. Just as a race horse needs to be warmed up before he can do himself justice, the initial velocity of the last bullet was more than that of the first one. I can take that same tube and operate it another day."

"Have you ever estimated the power of your interatomic ether?" was asked.

"I have produced frequently," was the answer, "a pressure of 10,000 pounds to the square inch in a quarter of a second. The process in reality is instantaneous. I have succeeded in making a vacuum of 31 pounds pressure. The greatest vacuum ever before produced was of 15 pounds pressure. One is an etheric, the other an atmospheric vacuum. In order to apply the ether to any gun, all that is necessary is to get the chord of vibration of the gun to agree with the chord of the vibrator. The vibrations run through 40 octaves. I am able to produce in metal the etheric vibrations in from 7 to 20 minutes. The flow thus induced is equal to that which it has required seven years to effect in the steel core you were examining a little while ago. Now, as I started to explain to you. I allow this interatomic ether to pass into the gun. I then vibrate the gun by means of a blow with a mallet, or anything of that kind. The steel coil attached to the gun increases the intensity of the vibration fifteenfold. After the ether is introduced into the weapon behind the projectile the vibrations liberate it and it expands, and the bullet is propelled out with great force, four times as great, as I told you, as that of gunpowder, and that, too, on a low line of graduation. I have succeeded in generating a pressure of 56,000 pounds to the inch, and I have torn a Shaw gauge to pieces under the immense pressure. I have thrown a seven-ounce projectile through a cast iron plate three-eighths of an inch in thickness. I have propelled a lead bullet through a four-inch plank of wood. In this instance, after passing through wood, so great was the force of its progress, it flattened itself out the size of a plate and as thin as a wafer against a steel obstacle placed in the line of its flight. On another occasion a lead bullet, after being fired through a board, became disintegrated, and was showered over the room in particles no larger than the head of a pin. By attaching a steel coil to a resonator, a square box that performs the function of a violin, and drawing a resined bow across the coil, I can produce vibrations of such a character as to break glass as if it had been struck by a hammer."

"Has it ever occurred to you that there might possibly be some affinity between the interatomic ether vibrations and the manifestation that is called electricity?" was the next inquiry.

"I am positive they are entirely different substances," replied the inventor. "They have no points of resemblance. The ether passes through glass but does not affect it. Electricity will not pass the angle of glass. I expect to be able to apply the ether vibrators to telegraphy. I have experimented on 8,000 feet of wire, and in one-eight of a second I have transmitted to the other end of the wire a force sufficient to make holes in pasteboard. I confidently assert that I can intensify the vibrations so as to disturb the molecules in a wire 25,000 feet in length, and that in a second of time. The vibrations travel with extreme velocity. The operation of the wire in telegraphy is simply this: It is passed into a resonator, one end of which is attached to a vibrator. In this way the vibration are induced and promulgated. My large motor is completed and only needs to be adjusted. I will give a public test inside of two months. I have filed caveats of all my motors and inventions and will have them patented. I am now building one 500 horse-power engine and one 250-horse-power engine. The latter is completed except as to the vitalizing process. You can say for me that in a few weeks the public will have an opportunity of seeing the practical and successful results of my seven years experimenting. Although my initial discovery was purely accidental. I have pursued my inventigations systematically and I am as confident of the result as I am that the sun will set. Recently I have made a number of experiments with my gun, and also with my motor, in the presence of the stockholders of the motor company and of prominent scientific men, and they have expressed themselves as abundantly satisfied with the manifestations and the applications a long time, the only trouble has been to bridle the force. Its existence is beyond dispute. This I have succeeded in accomplishing, and the problem that remains is of insignificant importance."

NYT - PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 19, 1/20/1899 - The Press today published an illustrated article giving the details of an investigation made by that paper of the dismantled workshop of the late Inventor Keely. The Press contends that the results of the investigation clearly prove the mysterious Keely motor to have been a delusion and deception, and that its alleged mysterious forces were the result of trickery.

In the investigation, which has been in progress over a week, the flooring of the workshop was taken up and a brick partition wall was removed. The newspaper was assisted in the work by Prof. Carl Hering, a consulting engineer of experience; Prof. Arthur W. Goodspeed, Assistant Professor of Physics of the University of Pennsylvania; Prof. Lightner Witmer, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. M. G. Miller, who has had special training in exploration and research in the way of mound digging, and accordingly superintended all the digging operations. Clarence B. Moore, son of Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, who was one of the leading financial promoters of Keely's idea, was an interested spectator.

The statements in the article published by The Press, which are substantiated by signed statements of the above-named scientists, are to the effect that small brass tubing was found concealed in the brickwork and under the floor of the laboratory. This tubing, it is asserted, is of a kind calculated to stand high pressure, and could have been used in connection with the great steel sphere found last week in the laboratory, which the experts intimate was used as a reservoir for compressed air or compressed gases. The tubing could thus form an agency for transmitting the forces that moved the motor in the exhibition room. The contention of Mr. Keely and his friend for many years was that no tubing of any kind was needed to work his machines.

The views of Prof. Hering and Prof. Goodspeed are that the presence of the tubing and sphere indicates the use of normal forces and possible deception on the part of Keely. In this view Mr. Moore concurs, and Prof. Witmer is of opinion that the possibility of trickery confirms the diagnosis that most psychologists have made as to the delusive character of the Keely mystery.

Prof. Hering says in his signed statement:

"The discovery of so many tubes with couplings, which exactly resembled those shown in the photographs of Keely's apparatus, and were recognized by some of those who had seen the experiments, seems to leave little doubt that Keely probably lied and deceived. Personally I am satisfied now that he used highly compressed air, and that he intentionally and knowingly deceived the public when he held his exhibitions. Moreover, there is nothing wonderful about any of these experiments, of which I have seen descriptions, if he used highly compressed air."

Prof. Witmer, who treats the subject from psychological standpoint, says:

"The external evidence of reservoirs and tubes was hardly necessary to demonstrate the delusional character of Keely's theories. Even had these objects not been found, the writing of Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, the pseudoscientific jargon of Keely, and the official reports of the Keely Motor Company would have furnished, upon critical examination, indisputable testimony to the unsoundness of Keelyism. This mad doctrine struck, to borrow Keely's phrase, a chord that was composed of nearly all the fundamental tones of delusion that vibrate in ill-balanced mental systems - a revelation of nature's mysteries, the stultifying of current science, a new mechanical contrivance to develop untold power, a process for the manufacture of gold, the cure of the sick, a religion, and a scheme of moral regeneration. Little more is needed to give Keelyism its proper place in a museum of pathological mental products."