Free Energy Pioneer- John Worrell Keely

by Theo Paijmans

  Another impression of Keely was that he had "a shrewd notion of the value of publicity so far as it whetted the appetite or interest in his mechanical affairs. ...He was affable, good-natured and hearty in his manner. ...When in his shirt sleeves dilating with robust energy of speech on the possibilities of the revolution in science which he would soon create, he seemed to have all the faith and sincerity of the typical inventor struggling with a great thought which those around him had not yet the intellect to grasp. He was...well dressed, well fed in appearance, and sometimes could be seen driving out into the Park with a sealskin cap on his head, and with all the outward indications of comfort. In those days, when out of his shop, he was something of a cross in semblance between a gentleman-like gambler and a sturdy mechanic... there were few householders in the Twenty-ninth Ward who seemed to live in more substantial ease. It was this prosperous condition, together with his personal enjoyment, which first caused the cynical to be suspicious of his purpose."102 Yet it was also written that he was "a rough, rude, crude man, whose personal habits were not expensive."103

  "I can never forget my first sight, and first impression of, and afterwards the introduction given me to this most remarkable man," wrote another. "At the time I speak of, in my daily ride east on a Chestnut Street car, on frequent occasions I was led to observe the entrance of a tall, gaunt, pale-faced man, which striking peculiarity of countenance was in strong contrast with his piercing black eyes and his well-oiled jet black hair. He always was dressed in a rather ill-fitting suit of black cloth, and wearing a very shiny and very conspicuous silk hat, and the bottom of his shirt front was magnificently bedecked with studs of glittering diamonds. I was curiously interested to notice that he invariably left the car at the Continental Hotel. The peculiar fascination of the man's appearance was so impressive upon my guileless heart that I was led to imagine that just such a creature must surely be a black-leg or a gambler, of whom I had been taught to have a holy horror, and who I was led to believe frequently haunted the doorways of that hotel at that time." Since a friend knew Keely, and since Keely was the talk of the town, he obtained an invitation to visit him in his workshop, so off they went: "...we made our way to the back door of an old shanty in the upper portion of the city, which, as I did not keep up an acquaintance with the locality, I am not sure of its being the same veritable workshop which is still, or was until recently, the scene of so much mystifying and wondering comment. Upon a gentle rap the door was opened, and to my surprise upon beholding was the working man of mystery, the diamond-bedecked creature whom I had so ingloriously connected with the Continental Hotel."104

  Another attempt to put a frame around the personality of the man was made by a Dr. George Mays, who was one of Keely's neighbors in the northwestern part of Philadelphia. He too was impressed by the large diamonds upon a very seedy shirt front. "I met him often during the past twenty years and must say that he always seemed to me to be under the influence of some haunting Nemesis. Outside of his workshop he was always in a hurry, whether he had anything to do or not, and it was almost impossible to engage him in a social conversation for any length of time, so important did he try to make his work appear, at least such of his neighbors as he knew were skeptical concerning his motor." His neighbors though, appeared to "have been fascinated by the man as he posed amid the mysteries of his workshop."105

  Keely's diamonds led to another minor controversy, but he told a friend that he merely purchased some diamonds "as an investment."106

  Another sketch, although made 10 years after the time-period in this chapter, described him as "a large, powerfully built man, with a large head, square shaven jaw, with heavy, dark-side whiskers, tinged with gray, and dark eyes which move rapidly. His movements are nervously quick and his speech is extremely rapid, as though it could not catch up with his thought. He impresses one with the belief that he is absorbed in what he calls his life study, that time is short and that every nerve must be strained to accomplish practical results while life remains."107

  Keely also possessed great physical strength when he was in the prime of his life, and "used to take pride" in exhibiting this: "One of his feats was to put two planks side by side, set on the top of them a barrel of plaster weighing 225 pounds, place a second and even a third barrel of plaster on top of the first, and then lift the whole from the ground."108

  These were glimpses of the man who by now was about to enter the second, most dramatic decade of his life, and the final years of a most unusual and astonishing career.

  3

  Prophet of the New Force The Third Decade

  "I feel that the world is waiting for this force; that this advance in science is necessary to keep the proper equilibrium in our age of progress. "

  John Worrell Keely, 1885

  The year 1885 would find Keely still toiling away in his workshop in Philadelphia, perfecting his remarkable engines. As he wrote at that time: "I am in a perfect sea of mental and physical strain, intensified in anticipation of the near approach of final and complete success, and bombarded from all points of the compass by demands and inquiries; yet, in my researches, months pass as minutes. The immense mental and physical strain of the past few weeks, the struggles and disappointments have almost broken me up. Until the reaction took place, which followed my success, I could never have conceived the possibility of my becoming so reduced in strength as I am now."

  And, while contemplating to devote less time to his work in the future, and taking a few days rest since he was so absorbed in his research and driven to the brink of utter exhaustion, he was now paying "the penalty." He also intended to withdraw entirely from all contact with the press, "in view of the unjust comments in certain journals." Keely would "give no more exhibitions after the one which closes the series;" instead, Keely wrote in a letter to Bloomfield-Moore, he would devote all his "time and energies to bringing my models into a patentable condition."1

  In June of that year, Keely invited a number of reporters to his workshop, but had taken care in the invitations to suggest that only those should come with a certain degree of technical knowledge. At his invitation, five scientific reporters from New York appeared at the workshop. With them were J.B. Waring, a mechanical engineer, and a number of stockholders of the Keely Motor Company. When a reporter who arrived early was let into the workshop, Keely remarked that certain "curious bits of apparatus on the ground floor were intended for the junkman and not for use." Except however, a "large iron globular object, swinging on axes like a school geographical globe." Keely stated that this device was to be a new engine, which he was engaged in building. "Keely has risen to new things in the past year and a half," the reporter wrote. "He has not only discarded his old apparatus, but in making a new one he has wholly avoided any resemblance in appearance to the one he formerly used. Even those parts of the old machine which he said were absolutely essential for developing his new force fail to materialize in the present one. The machines resemble one another in this particular, viz., that both are impossible to be described by reference to anything set down in mechanical treatises. Even Keely confessed... his inability to describe the parts of his machine, and although he has given names to these parts he insisted on using different names when speaking of the same parts at different times."

  Nevertheless, an attempt was made to describe the devices that he and his workman then assembled. Keely "brought to one side of the room a big piece of iron casting, and on this put a sheet of thick glass, making a stand. On top of the stand was placed a metallic bed plate about one inch thick, with holes around its edge. Tubes were placed upright on top and around the plate, and in the tube were rods. At one side was a cylinder about 18 inches high and about 2 inches in diameter... On the top of the plate and surrounded by the uprights were put boxes, cylindrical in shape containing rims from whose inner circumference steel wire prongs jutted, converging towards the center. Then a round cap was put on and bolted to the bed plate by means of upright rods. On top of the who
le was screwed a globe with several apertures, to which tubes were affixed. The tubes led to strong cylinders like so called water reservoirs, only not quite as broad." When Keely thrummed over the steel wire prongs of his device, a sound like "piano strings" was heard. Then he attached two tuning forks to the device by screwing them into the holes on the edge of the bed plate. A third tuning fork, "about twice the size of these and mounted in a wooden frame, was placed loosely on the stand beside the machine." After some tapping and thrumming of the tuning forks and the steel wires, Keely announced that the device was now ready.

  He struck a violin bow against the largest tuning fork and "The force was then turned on by means of a tube into a little chamber or valve into which he had spit a mouthful of water. The chamber was part of an apparatus designed to show the pressure exerted. There was a steelyard arrangement with heavy iron weights at one end and a connection at the other with the water chamber." Keely then drew his violin bow across the large tuning fork, tapped the smaller tuning forks and opened some cocks in the device. Weights that were attached to the device went up.

  The assembled reporters remained skeptical; it was, for instance, remarked that Keely had called a cylinder variously "molecular resonator, an etheric resonator, and an atomic presonator." The reporters were not allowed to touch his globular device or see the inside and noted a contradiction in statements concerning the device: "Keely said it was perfectly hollow and empty. His assistants said it contained some bits of mechanism."2

  In the meantime Keely would claim to have made more discoveries while experimenting; "My researches teach me that electricity is but a certain condensed form of atomic vibration."3 It appears that he was still pushing ahead into the very heart of an avant-garde science. He would also suffer more accidents in the process; "I have met with an accident to the Liberator. I was experimenting on the third order of intensification, when the rotation on the circuit was thrown down in the compound resonating chamber, which, by the instantaneous multiplication of the volume induced thereby, caused an explosion bursting the metal casing which enclosed the forty resonators, completely dismantling the Liberator. The shock took my senses from me for a few moments, but I was not even scratched this time. A part of the wall was torn away, and resonators and vibrators were thrown all over the room. The neighborhood was quite lively for a time, but I quieted all fears by telling the frightened ones that I was only experimenting."4

  Keely constructed the Liberator after having entered a "new standard for research in an experiment often made by himself, but never before successful." The Liberator was the result of, and was much smaller than his generator of the year before.5 The generator was left abandoned after unsuccessful attempts to construct an automatic arrangement, which would have enabled anyone to operate his devices.6

  By the end of 1885, everything seemed to promise success for the following year. Around that time, Keely wrote, "...before many weeks have passed, a revelation will be unfolded that will startle the world; a revelation, so simple in its character, that the physicists will stand aghast, and perhaps feel humiliated by the nature of their efforts in the past to solve certain problems. Taking all matters into consideration.. .the month of January ought to find all completed."7 News of all this reached the parties interested; the stockholders were jubilant, the stockbrokers were alerted and a great rise in the shares of the Keely Motor Company was expected.8 A New York newspaper even wrote that Keely had "imprisoned the ether."9

  In August, Collier wrote to Major Ricarde-Seaver who had convinced himself the year before that Keely "had grounds for his claims as a discoverer of an unknown force in nature." Ricarde-Seaver had done so while visiting Keely in Philadelphia and witnessing an incredible antigravity experiment; with the help of a belt and some devices, only vaguely described as "certain appliances which he wore upon his person," Keely was able to move on his own a 500 horsepower vibratory engine from one part of his shop to another. There was not a scratch on the floor and, later, astounded engineers declared that they "could not have moved it without a derrick, the operation of which would have required the removal of the roof of the shop." Ricarde-Seaver did not make everybody happy with his adherence to Keely's discoveries. He was elected as a member of the Athenaeum Club in London, but was politely informed by Sir William Thompson who had proposed him for membership that he would probably lose his election by supporting Keely. He was elected, however.10 Collier wrote to Ricarde-Seaver that "The Bank of England is not more solid than our enterprise. My belief is that the present year will see us through, patents and all."11

  Although Bloomfield-Moore remarked that, "The journals had ceased to ridicule, and some of them were giving serious attention to the possibilities lying hidden in the discovery of an unknown force, "12 the next year would find Keely's invention not complete for commercial use, nor any of his engines patentable, except for the Liberator. Up to this time, his experiments had been conducted upon a principle of sympathetic vibration for the purpose of liberating a "vapoury or etheric product."13 Keely once again was giving out demonstrations in his workshop, in spite of the fact that he had written the year before that "the loss of time and the interferences from exhibitions to which I have been subjected in the past" considerably hindered his research.14

  Nevertheless, on one of these occasions, "there were some thirty or more invited guests present, including three ladies, all of whom took a deep interest in what they saw, the only drawback being the crowded condition of the room in which the exhibition took place."15 The object of his demonstration was of course his magnificent Liberator, which he had demonstrated the previous year to the assembly of skeptical reporters and with which he also had suffered the accident that had startled the neighborhood. The Liberator was now completed.

  With his Liberator, Keely liberated his "etheric vapor" or "interatomic force," which he then vitalized and stored for use. The apparatus was about three feet high and weighed about 150 lbs. The Liberator stood on a moveable wooden pedestal, between two and three feet high, and was "entirely disconnected from the floor, wall or ceiling by any rods, pipes or wires, through which power from a distance could, by any possibility, be conveyed into the apparatus."16 The Liberator was "the producer of the force that, it is claimed, will furnish power to the extent of 10 tons to the square inch. It is composed of brass resonants, steel tuning forks, and two or three steel and brass dials. It is about as queer looking a piece of mechanism as could be found anywhere."

  Like the year before, Keely first had to reassemble his Liberator before he could begin his demonstration, for "the shop was in disorder. Pieces of the Liberator lie about in every direction." Thus Keely showed, by having the Liberator apart, that there was no source of hidden power concealed in the device. The reassembly took him half an hour. Then, "Secretary Schuellerman went out and got a quarter's worth of lubricating oil, and Mr. Keely poured some of it on the piston of a big lever, then with a little copper tube he connected the Liberator with the lever."17

  The bewilderment of the spectators was apparent in the poetic description of the device. It had a shape that was never seen before in any machine and an interesting comparison was made to the description of the previous year: "On the top of this pedestal are piled the various circular frames and other parts of the generating or liberating machinery in symmetrical order, consisting of scores of steel-wire rods about three inches long, secured at one end and free to vibrate when struck or snapped, somewhat resembling the tongues of a musical box.

  Radiating from these metallic frames are also numerous tubes screwed to their sides, one set standing out like miniature cannons from port-holes of a circular fort. Over this fortification is another similar structure surrounded with two score (more or less) of resonant tubes six or eight inches in length, secured perpendicularly, resembling a colonnade surrounding some miniature ancient Greek palace. Surmounting these singular parts is a small metal box, called the liberator proper, of very singular form, and which would seem to hold abo
ut a pint or so of gas, water, or other material, if it were not for the resonators it is said to contain. "18

  Underneath all this was a large steel Chladni plate about twenty inches in diameter, which was fastened horizontally at the center by a "metal post running up through it." Above this plate were a number of tuning forks, and below the frame, and at one side of the pedestal, was suspended horizontally an oblong hollow cylinder made of metal, which Keely called a "receiver." In the cylinder the "etheric force" was stored after having been "vitalized." From the cylinder, this etheric force was led through a flexible, copper pipe "about three-eighths of an inch in diameter." The pipe could be bent in any direction so that it could be connected with different parts of the machine.19

  With a violin bow he tested the vibrator by drawing the bow over the tuning forks. Then he let out the air in the two-pint tube under the Liberator, and said he was ready to charge the little tube with vibrating power to the extent of ten tons to the square inch. The visitors looked on in mystified silence as the inventor, with beads of perspiration on his forehead, explained that the piston of the lever was a half square inch in area, and that it took 1,600 pounds pressure on the half square inch of area to raise the bare lever. Keely also explained that he used no water with his Liberator, but instead "got an etheric force from the atmosphere by vibratory action, which is accomplished with the Liberator, and that there was no impingement or abutment or visible exhaust from the pressure, except a slight sound. "20

  Keely drew his fiddle-bow across three of the tuning forks, and as these sounded with what he called an "etheric chord," he struck the Chladni plate with a tiny hammer. The etheric force was thus liberated, the tubes vitalized and the receiver charged with some 10,000 pounds of pressure to the square inch that would, according to Keely, increase to no less than 25,000 pounds. A weight on a lever was lifted; "in order to assure ourselves of the full 25,000 pounds to the square inch claimed, we added most of our own weight to the arm of the lever without forcing the piston back again."21