8th February, igi6. 



Professor W. St. O.air SyxMMERs, M.B., in the chair. 



THE SEARCH FOR PERPETUAL MOTION. 

 By Henry Riddell, M.E., M.I.Mech.E. 



{Abstract.) 



From the very earliest ages the idea that the things around 

 us exist without any finite beginning and without the possibility 

 of a finite end has been familiar to mankuid. It is true that here 

 and there arose some enquiring spirit who asked questions 

 impossible to answer, but to the mass " What has been will be, 

 and there is no new thing under the sun." Man watched the 

 movements of the heavenly bodies, he beheld the unfailing 

 regularity of the sun, and he naturally concluded that the move 

 ment of his world, as he conceived it, was perpetual, without 

 cause, just in existence because it was in existence. 



To him, then, there would not be any absurdity in the tale of 

 an automaton, constructed by an ingenious man, which should 

 have in itself the principle of motion such as held the heavenly 

 bodies in their courses, and whose energies were limited only by 

 the weakness and want of durability of the materials from which 

 it was constructed. The marvel is that such a belief existed long 

 after this elementary stage of human development, that even great 

 scientific minds have been unable to see anything contrary to 

 Nature in such a machine ; and that even in our own day the 

 fancy is still recurring, and that money and time are still being 

 spent in the search for the " Perpetuum Mobile." 



Even in classical days some stories were current of automata 

 whose movements were due to the construction of the machine, 



