42 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



I. ABSURDITIES 



In this class may be included those inventions which have 

 been made or suggested by honest but ignorant persons in 

 direct violation of the fundamental principles of mechanics 

 and physics. Such inventions if presented to any expert 

 mechanic or student of science, would be at once condemned 

 as impracticable, but as a general rule, the inventors of these 

 absurd contrivances have been so confident of success, that 

 they have published descriptions and sketches of them, and 

 even gone so far as to take out patents before they have 

 tested their inventions by constructing a working machine. 

 It is said, that at one time the United States Patent Office 

 issued a circular refusal to all applicants for patents of this 

 kind, but at present instead of sending such a circular, the 

 applicant is quietly requested to furnish a working model 

 of his invention and that usually ends the matter. While 

 I have no direct information on the subject, I suspect that 

 the circular was withdrawn because of the amount of useless 

 correspondence, in the shape of foolish replies and argu- 

 ments, which it drew forth. To require a working model 

 is a reasonable request and one for which the law duly pro- 

 vides, and when a successful model is forthcoming, a patent 

 will no doubt be granted ; but until that is presented the 

 officials of the Patent Office can have no positive informa- 

 tion in regard to the practicability of the invention. 



The earliest mechanical device intended to produce per- 

 petual motion is that known as the overbalancing wheel. 

 This is described in a sketch book of the thirteenth century 

 by Wilars de Honecourt, an architect of the period, and 

 since then it has been reinvented hundreds of times. In its 

 simplest forms it is thus described and figured by Ozanam : 



