PERPETUAL MOTION 63 



between the magnet and the piece of iron to be attracted, 

 a perpetual motion might be obtained. Several inventors 

 have claimed that they had discovered such a non-conduct- 

 ing substance, but it is needless to say that their claims 

 had no foundation in fact, and if they had discovered anything 

 of the kind, it would have required just as much force to 

 interpose it as would have been gained by the interposi- 

 tion. It has been fully proved that in every case where a 

 machine was made to work apparently by the interposition 

 of such a material, a fraud was perpetrated and the machine 

 was really made to move by means of some concealed 

 springs or weights. 



A correspondent of the " Mechanic's Magazine " (Vol. xii, 

 London, 1829), gives the following curious design for a 

 " Self -moving Railway Carriage." He describes it as a 

 machine which, were it possible to make its parts hold to- 

 gether unimpaired by rotation or the ravages of time, and 

 to give it a path encircling the earth, would assuredly con- 

 tinue to roll along in one undeviating course until time 

 shall be no more. 



A series of inclined planes are to be erected in such a 

 manner that a cone will ascend one (its sides forming an 

 acute angle), and being raised to the summit, descend on 

 the next (having parallel sides), at the foot of which it 

 must rise on a third and fall on a fourth, and so continue 

 to do alternately throughout. 



The diagram, Fig. 16, is the section of a carriage A, 

 with broad conical wheels a, a, resting on the inclined plane 

 b. The entrance to the carriage is from above, and there are 

 ample accommodations for goods and passengers. " The 

 most singular property of this contrivance is, that its speed 

 increases the more it is laden ; and when checked on any 



