ON THE INTERACTION OF NATURAL FORCES. 165 



By a similar plan, however, a speculative American set 

 some time ago the industrial world of Europe in excite- 

 ment. The magneto-electric machines often made use of 

 in the case of rheumatic disorders are well known to the 

 public. By imparting a swift rotation to the magnet of 

 such a machine we obtain powerful currents of electricity. 

 If those be conducted through water, the latter will be 

 resolved into its two components, oxygen and hydrogen. 

 By the combustion of hydrogen, water is again generated. 

 If this combustion takes place, not in atmospheric air, of 

 which oxygen only constitutes a fifth part, but in pure 

 oxygen, and if a bit of chalk be placed in the flame, the 

 chalk will be raised to its white heat, and give us the 

 sun-like Drummond's light. At the same time the flame 

 developes a considerable quantity of heat. Our American 

 proposed to utilise in this way the gases obtained from 

 electrolytic decomposition, and asserted, that by the com- 

 bustion a sufficient amount of heat was generated to keep 

 a small steam-engine in action, which again drove his 

 magneto-electric machine, decomposed the water, and 

 thus continually prepared its own fuel. This would cer- 

 tainly have been the most splendid of all discoveries ; a 

 perpetual motion which, besides the force that kept it 

 going, generated light like the sun, and warmed all around 

 it. The matter was by no means badly thought out. Each 

 practical step in the affair was known to be possible ; but 

 those who at that time were acquainted with the phy- 

 sical investigations which bear upon this subject, could 

 have affirmed, on first hearing the report, that the matter 

 was to be numbered among the numerous stories of the 

 fable-rich America ; and indeed a fable it remained. 



It is not necessary to multiply examples further. You 

 will infer from those given in what immediate connection 

 heat, electricity, magnetism, light, and chemical affinity, 

 stand with mechanical forces. 



