418 MOSES GERRISH FARMER. 



and carried out, lacking only the vacuum carbon lamp for completion. 

 A fire in 1868 destroyed this first dynamo. The armature was the 

 only portion that was rescued, and this was exhibited at the World's 

 Fair in Chicago as part of an historic exhibit which he was preparing 

 of his own work, when he was suddenly prostrated and died. For a 

 number of years he had been unable to walk, owing to a paralytic 

 attack, and it became impossible for him to do any work. Love for 

 electrical science remained with him to the last, and it was a real 

 pleasure to hear him tell of his attempts, his successes and his failures, 

 though he was not one to introduce personal matters in conversation. 



There is one event in his life which is worth chronicling, and which 

 may not find its way into other notices. It may be remembered that 

 a certain Dr. Gary, in 1878, had for a while on exhibition in Boston 

 a machine which purported to be a perpetual motion. It was made 

 with permanent magnets, and had a rotating armature so mounted as 

 to change its polarity at certain points. Many saw this machine, but 

 most thought there was some fraud about it. Professor Farmer went 

 to see it, and asked permission to examine it, and was told he might 

 take it to pieces and reconstruct it himself if he liked, which he did, 

 and he told the writer the machine actually started up and ran without 

 further attention. He offered to buy it, but the inventor did not want 

 to sell. As Professor Farmer was an expert mechanician and elec- 

 trician, it would seem unlikely that a piece of trickery should not have 

 been discovered when subjected to such a critical examination in his 

 own hands. To me it seems more likely that in some way there was 

 a draught of energy for the propulsion from some source not hitherto 

 recognized, able for a while to supply a small amount, for the machine 

 would not run long at a time ; but that it should run at all is the won- 

 der, and Professor Farmer testifies that it did. 



During the last years of his life he lived in Elliot, Maine, able to do 

 but little on account of his paralysis. He could ride about somewhat 

 and was an occasional visitor to Boston, but the younger race of elec- 

 tricians know of him only as a name. His work was chiefly done 

 when electrical nomenclature had no existence, when there were no 

 standards, when the whole field was new and telegraphy was growing, 

 as the electric lighting industry has grown during the past ten years, 

 and there was a great demand for electrical facilities for that kind of 

 work. Mechanical aptitude was as much needed as an ally ao it is 

 now, and this combination of talents Professor Farmer possessed in a 

 hich decree. 



1894. A. E. Dolbkak. 



