IV 



PERPETUAL MOTION 



T is probable that more time, effort, and money 

 have been wasted in the search for a perpetual- 

 motion machine than have been devoted to at- 

 tempts to square the circle or even to find the 

 philosopher's stone. And while it has been claimed in 

 favor of this delusion that the pursuit of it has given rise 

 to valuable discoveries in mechanics and physics, some 

 even going so far as to urge that we owe the discovery of 

 the great law of the conservation of energy to the sugges- 

 tions made by the perpetual-motion seekers, we certainly 

 have no evidence to show anything of the kind. Perpetual 

 motion was declared to be an impossibility upon purely 

 mechanical and mathematical grounds long before the law 

 of the conservation of energy was thought of, and it is very 

 certain that this delusion had no place in the thoughts of 

 Rumford, Black, Davy, Young, Joule, Grove, and others 

 when they devoted their attention to the laws governing 

 the transformation of energy. Those who pursued such a 

 will-o'-the-wisp, were not the men to point the way to any 

 scientific discovery. 



The search for a perpetual-motion machine seems to be 

 of comparatively modern origin ; we have no record of the 

 labors of ancient inventors in this direction, but this may 

 be as much because the records have been lost, as because 

 attempts were never made. The works of a mechanical 



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