Every bit of flooring was ripped up and every nook and cranny explored in the floors, walls and ceilings, and it was found that the building was honeycombed with traps, holes or piping, etc.34 The team discovered "many small tubes imbedded in the walls and concealed under floors," and were "little larger than wires" and were "said to be designed for standing high pressures." Goodspeed readily stated that the sphere could withstand a pressure of 20,000 to 100,000 pounds to the square inch, and the finding of the tubes once again revived the compressed air theory. "One tube that we found," said Goodspeed, "was nearly under and in immediate proximity to where the heavy lever testing device used to stand, by means of which I myself have seen Mr. Keely give very convincing evidence of the existence of a pressure of 20,000 or more per square inch."35 These tubes led the team to the conviction that either compressed air, as was Herring's verdict, or compressed gas as Goodspeed thought, was used.36
Schuellerman ridiculed the idea of compressed air, but he made the surprising statement that Keely at one time "did dabble somewhat in compressed air, but it was not in connection with his motor, but in a gun which was tested near Shawmont some years ago." The air for that experiment was compressed by the S.S. White Company since Keely never had an apparatus "for doing it himself. "37
The tubing found in the building was "small drawn copper stuff, none of it more than three-eighths of an inch in diameter and having less tensile strength than iron pipe of the same size would have." Schuellerman added that "It was not used for compressed air but for Keely's mysterious vapor." The discovery of the tubing came as no surprise to Schuellerman; in fact he wondered why they hadn't found more "of the stuff in the place, as there was lots of it there and Keely sometimes ran it through brick walls from one room to another."38
But that was not all that the search party had found. Besides the brass tubes in the brick work and under the flooring, heavy steel tubes "of larger caliber and thicker metal" were found "under the joists of the first floor, in the earth." The tubing was designed to withstand great pressures, and apparently such tubes were made in "the early 70s by the Philadelphia company Morris & Tasker." Many "double thick" tubes made by them for Keely were returned burst, and a special set of tubes was made for him. On one occasion a foreman of Morris & Tasker took a pressure gauge to Keely's workshop which would register up to 2,500 pounds to the square inch. "Keely attached it to his apparatus, and," said the foreman afterwards, "it immediately sent the index to the top of the scale, and I was so scared I lay flat on the floor to escape the shock, expecting the place to be blown up."39
The team also discovered what they thought was evidence that the huge sphere indeed had been used as a storage for compressed air, although rust on the heavy steel tube, and the fact that there was no connection with the sphere led the scientists to believe that "the tube had not recently been in use." But connections with the sphere had "evidently been made through one of the two trunnions or projections on opposite sides of the sphere." A hole through the trunnion had been closed with a plug screwed in and "planed off smooth." And another hole through the trunnion, "near where the end of the tube stopped," was still open. The team concluded that this hole was "about the proper size for a connection from the tube." Another smaller hole in the side of the sphere, placed midway between the trunnions, was just the right size for connecting one of the small brass tubes found running into the second story, and under the doorway of the first floor through the brickwork.40 Around the same time a person came forward and explained to the press that the sphere had not always been located in Keely's workshop: the man who was formerly a pupil in the school just north of his workshop said that "this great ball" used to lie on the pavement in front of the laboratory, and it was the wonder of the small boys. It was concluded, however, that "It could have performed its office just as well in that position as in any other, as the fine tube connections could readily have been made to it and concealed."41
Gasfitter Arnold also had interesting things to say; according to him he ran certain gas and water pipes in the building years ago. There were three rooms on the ground floor, a front, middle and back room. The sphere was found in the middle room where "no stranger was ever allowed to enter." In this middle room Arnold continued, there was a large cylindrical tank in the southwest corner. In the back room, which was situated in a one story annex, there was an electrical battery, but "he could not tell what it was connected with." He did say that there were gas pipes with wires running through them. Also, two years earlier he had made a gas connection with a gas motor, which stood in the front room, and "showed where it had been disconnected and the end of the pipe capped." The gas motor had stood at the rear end of a large workbench on the north wall.42
More, even stranger things were discovered that would render a nice and quick compressed air solution to the Keely mystery more difficult, and that would strengthen doubts as to this theory. In the back room of the workshop a small trap was found in the wooden ceiling in the northeast corner that opened into a space about one foot high. A half brick had been cut out of the wall of the two-story building, through which a "silver polished steel rod, 7 feet 3 inches long and five eight inch in diameter, was trust." This strange rod was running east and west over the ceiling of the room, and projecting through a hole under the eaves. What the steel rod had been used for, the team was unable to say. It was remarked that "at one point on the rod, which was considerably corroded on top, there was a polished place where the rod had evidently rested on a bearing, and the bright surface ran halfway around, showing that the rod had a rocking motion."43
In a line with this rod under the floor of the rear room in the second story, they found "a thick metal plug with a long screw" that was screwed through a joist. The plug was holed, and on one side a small tube was connected that was cut off. The plug and tube stood directly under a place where one of Keely's devices had stood, the "revolving ball," that "would roll over just as many times as the visitor would name, Keely sitting in the middle room and looking through a small window between the two rooms and sounding a mouth organ."44
All these mysterious findings led the team to conclude that not only compressed air, but also water and electricity had been used by the clever Keely: "In the northeast corner of the back room there was a water connection and sewer connection. Everything had been torn away." It was suggested that "There may have been a water motor there," since it was "hardly supposable that water closet appliances would have been removed by the people who dismantled the laboratory," and "several holes were cut through the brick wall at this point."
Moore and company also found a "disconnected insulated electric wire, which came in over a window on the second floor." This showed that "Keely had at one time been connected with an electric light station, the outside fixtures being still in place," and it was alluded to that a station of the Columbia Company was but "two doors above the laboratory."45 But all these findings did not resolve the issue. A Philadelphia newspaper remarked that the disclosures added nothing to what had previously been said, namely that Keely never demonstrated by exclusion of the use of known forces his discovery of a new force, "nor do they furnish as strong demonstration of the use by him of compressed air." Instead, the findings were considered by the newspaper to be "cumulative evidence that the mysteries of the Keely laboratory were mysterious not because of any new discovery, but because he concealed beneath the floors and in the walls the tubes through which he conveyed power through his motor."46
The most controversial and puzzling statement about the finding of the tubes, the strange rod and the traps came from Kinraide. Around this time he was in his cave at Jamaica Plain sweating over Keely's devices and trying to learn his secret. Upon learning of the exploits of Moore and the scientists, he said that their discoveries "amounted to nothing." Kinraide had been in Philadelphia a week before Moore started to dismantle the workshop, and while there had made a visit to the workshop. "It did not look any different to me then than it has at a
ny time since I first saw it," and he added that, "I told the owners of the building at that time that it would be unwise to leave the mass there, as it would create a lot of theories among those who might visit the building with a desire to make a sensation out of a small and unimportant matter."
Regarding the question about the tubing that presumably had been used in connection with the large steel sphere, Kinraide answered that he could not make "any reply to this direct question," as he had his position with the Keely Motor Company to consider. He did, however, remark that "the members of the stock company who have been putting in their money to carry on this work knew all about this force, and if they thought it was a swindle, as stated in this story from Philadelphia, they would not be long in saying so."47
At this stage of the Keely exposure, the discovery of the tubing in Keely's dismantled workshop did more harm than good to Moore's assertion that he was a fraud who operated his engines on compressed air.
A day after the investigation, a Philadelphia newspaper put it in the plainest words possible: "The discussion about the power used by the late John W. Keely to run his machines, started anew by the finding of brass and copper tubing in the dismantled laboratory... has been taken up by practical machinery men, who stamp as the sheerest nonsense that compressed air or gas could have been employed, if the alleged evidence collected by Clarence B. Moore and other investigators were to be taken as proof." Instead, the compressed air theory "must be put aside by the people who are hunting for ways by which they claim Keely fooled the world," as this was done "years ago." Furthermore, while stating that they did not believe that Keely had "the knowledge of a heretofore unknown power," they had been with experts who witnessed Keely's numerous experiments, always on the lookout for evidence of such deception, and that, if Keely was guilty, this would have been discovered "many years ago."48
A reporter also shrewdly noted that Consulting Engineer Herring retraced his steps: Herring, "who says he is not familiar with the uses of compressed air," made the statement in the press around the time of the finding of the globe, declaring that he was "satisfied" that Keely had used "highly compressed air." But at the time that Moore's team was dismantling Keely's workshop, he suddenly felt unsure and he told a reporter that "he did not mean to say it was absolute certain that compressed air was used, but that there was strong circumstantial evidence to that end." Herring also showed the reporter a piece of the tubing that came from the workshop. "It is very old, and Mr. Herring admitted that the Keely people could be right in their claim that the tubing was part of that used by him before he abandoned his vapor or ether force for the 'sensitizing' or 'vitalizing' power."49
"Perhaps Herring remembered a statement allegedly made by Keely some thirteen years before. At that time a reporter wrote that Keely had told him 'by laying little tubes underground connected with his engine, if he built a large one, he could run all the machinery in every factory in Philadelphia by simply drawing his fiddle bow once every morning and letting the sound in to the copper globe.'"50
One of the pieces of tubing had been found hanging over a hook in the laboratory, so the reporter asked Herring "if he did not think it strange that Keely should leave anything that would cause suspicion lying around." Herring answered lamely that "the spot where the tubing hung was not visited by others than Keely." He did admit though, that it was "evident" that the tubing found was not used on the machine Keely was operating when he was taken ill, as he did not believe that Kinraide, who took the machinery to Boston, would "sever tubes attached to the machines and neglect to follow up the tubes, on order to enlighten himself on the Keely mystery." Herring did believe that compressed air could have been forced through some of the tubing, and he had a solution to the question of how Keely could have driven compressed air in the sphere; according to him, no "heavy machinery was necessary, unless the 20,000 pounds pressure was to be stored in a minute or very short time, when powerful compressors and a powerful engine would be required. "No, the answer was quiet simple: hand pumps. The sphere could be filled up to the 20,000 pounds pressure by the use of hand pumps if enough time, "say a week," was taken for the task. "A start could be made," Herring suggested, "with a large hand pump, then smaller pumps could be used down to a specially constructed pump with a l-16th of an inch piston."
William F. Rudolph, the expert mechanic who had built Keely's latest engine and "frequently took apart and put together other machinery," did not think so. In response to Herring's suggestion, he said bluntly: "I never heard such nonsense. I would like to see the person who could pump up a pressure of more than 300 pounds in a 60-gallon reservoir, the size of the old sphere found, with hand pumps. It's plain that the force of the air inside would be too great to pump in more air by hand. If that's the case what is compressing machinery for. Why, to compress 20,000 pounds in a 60-gallon receptacle powerful compressors and an engine would have to be worked half a day. Then the tubes found would not stand the pressure of the stored air. I repeat that none of the Keely machines can be operated with compressed air." He also pointed to the problem of the exhaust of quantities of air used in operating the machines: Any exhaust would "make a noise, and a tremendous one if 2,000 pounds pressure were used. No such noise was heard at the Keely exhibitions in late years," Rudolph claimed. Rudolph gave the reporter a demonstration of what he meant by compressing 20 pounds of air, "which he allowed to escape through a tube of the same diameter as that found in the laboratory and about 10 feet long. The noise made by the escaping air could be heard 20 feet away," the startled reporter wrote.51
The steam and air machinery company of Borton & Tierney stated that to store air to 20,000 pounds pressure in a 60-gallon tank powerful compressors and a 40 horsepower engine would be needed. And to direct the compressed air to any device, tubes "much larger and stronger than those found would be necessary."52
Pieces of the tubing were shown by Herring at the annual meeting of the Engineer's Club, where they were examined by "quite a number of members," and were put on display in the office window of a Philadelphia newspaper where they were gazed at by hundreds of people. Meanwhile Moore's team claimed to have uncovered "other tubing and high pressure joints" between the floor and ceiling.53
Professor Hugh A. Clarke of the University of Pennsylvania, who made "a special study of vibratory physics," came to the conclusion that Keely played on harmonicas and sounded whistles, not to set up sympathetic vibration, "but to notify a confederate in another part of the building when to turn on or shut off the compressed air, that is believed to have been the motive force employed."54
And on the respectable Harvard University the discovery of the tubing was the "leading topic of university conversation here since the story appeared," but nobody wanted to say much about the whole affair, since "few of them had seen the motor, and as they had no definite knowledge of the matter, their statements were very conservative." The general opinion was that Keely was a "fake and as such unworthy of scientific notice." Professor John T. Trowbridge, the "electrical wizard whose whole life has been spent among motive forces," said that, "Keely did not invite the inspection of scientific men, but maintained the utmost secrecy in all his movements."55 But on several occasions Keely had specifically invited scientifically inclined persons, and his workshop had as its guests people such as Professors Leidy and Lascelles-Scott. Also, another newspaper wrote that "Many investigators, scientific and otherwise, have seen his experiments. United States government experts have witnessed them."56
Trowbridge himself never saw the motor in operation or even a photograph of it, but in his mind the whole Keely venture was "on a par with the Jernegan scheme to extract gold from the sea." His opinion was that all great discoveries in the past had come slowly, and under the watchful eye of the world, so it simply would be "entirely out of precedent for a man to make such an overwhelming discovery almost without an effort." Professor Marks, a steam expert, intimated that he thought the whole Keely question "a humbug."57
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p; The remarks of another professor, Professor Lightner Witmer, on the findings in Keely's workshop clearly show something of the deep-rooted prejudice that Keely suffered even in death, for "The external evidence of reservoirs and tubes was hardly necessary to demonstrate the delusional character of Keely's theories. Even if these objects had not been found, the writings of Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, the pseudo scientific jargon of Keely and the official reports of the Keely Motor Company would have furnished, upon critical examination, indisputable testimony to the unsoundness of Keely ism. ...Little more is needed to bring Keely ism to its proper place in a museum of pathological mental products."58
President Ackermann of the Keely Motor Company issued a statement on behalf of the Board of Directors in which he claimed that the sphere and the tubes were "simply pieces of machinery connected with an altogether different device abandoned by Keely in 1887." The existence of the tubing was "fully known to the directors of the company and to scientists not financially interested in Keely." Besides, he added, such complicated machinery for compressed air did not even exist at any time in Keely's place, and the electric wires were "simply the remains of a burglar alarm."59
But what about the "jagged parts of burst iron pipes, plates of iron pierced through as with cannon balls, heavy plank perforated with shot, and other evidences that some powerful energy had been at work to produce these manifestly imposing results?"60
Those old tubes that were lying about in Keely's workshop, and which had led the stockholders and general public to believe that they were burst by his etheric vapor, were nothing more than remains of tests done by him and two employees of Morris Richmond Iron Works, they said. According to those two employees, Eugene Calwell and William Rickert, various tubes and parts of devices that were made by Morris Richmond Iron Works were tested on their strength with a hydraulic pump. Since the company did not have a pump of sufficient strength, theirs only making a pressure of 14,000 pounds, Keely ordered one specially made for him. This pump could deliver a strength of up to 30,000 pounds per square inch. With this pump, the tubes and parts were tested "up to the limit of the pump." The steel sphere was tested up to 28,000 pounds, and steel tubes were also tested, numbers of them splitting "in two." When "tubes of nine inches outside diameter, with a bore of only three inches, were split like reeds, Keely instructing the men to keep putting on the pressure."
Free Energy Pioneer- John Worrell Keely Page 20