PERPETUAL MOTION. 



To prove the absurdity of all this would at 

 this hour be like attesting the death of Queen 

 Anne. A man who formulates or accepts such 

 a theory cannot have grasped the general truth 

 that, though little may be added to little until 

 we have much, one little can never make much. 

 Mony a mickle maks a muckle, true ; but by no 

 conjuring can one mickle be made into a 

 muckle. 



There was never a full investigation into 

 the circumstances of this experimenter's pro- 

 fessed success, but the only conclusion which 

 could be drawn from the accounts vouchsafed 

 to us is that in making the ten gallons at a 

 moderate pressure he failed to note that he was 

 working with a machine which had already 

 been well cooled by the power spent in making 

 the previous three ; he was reaping the cold 

 grown during the earlier operation, taking it 

 out of the metal into the liquefaction ; and in 

 so doing he was re-warming the machine, which 

 would then be incapable of repeating the per- 

 formance. 



Reversing the conditions for an instance 

 easier of general comprehension : When a steam 

 boiler has been boiled dry and made very hot, 

 putting a few pounds of water into it will 

 cause a pressure from steam generated by the 

 heat of the metal, but that very process will 

 cool it and incapacitate it for a repetition of 

 the action. 



M 177 



