Animadversions on Mr. Genet's Memorial, fyc. 91 



same center of circulation. Mr. Genet has repeatedly com- 

 plained, that those who have opposed his views, have made 

 assertions without offering proofs, but, excepting to one in 

 his novitiate, it would be idle to attempt to offer proofs in 

 support of principles generally received. It is Mr. Genet who 

 has failed in this particular ; he has boldly attempted to es- 

 tablish a new principle of specific levity ; has denied the uni- 

 versality of gravitation ; has declared that gravity is not an 

 active, but a passive agent; and made many other assertions 

 equally vague and fallacious, and seems to expect to sustain 

 himself in so doing, without advancing a single step in that 

 rigorous course of experiment, or induction, which true phi- 

 losophy demands. 



Plate 1st, in the Memorial, and in the analysis by Dr. Pas- 

 calis is a representation of an cerostatic elevator to raise and 

 lower canal boats, on an inclined plane. The force to be ap>- 

 plied, is the ascent of an air balloon, {an cerostat,) which 

 when allowed to ascend, is to draw up canal boats, by means 

 of a rope fastened to the bottom of it, and passing through a 

 sheeve, or pully, and thence up to the periphery of a large 

 wrfeel, thirty feet in diameter. A pit is dug, at the bottom of 

 which is the laboratory in which the hydrogen gas is to be 

 prepared ; the aforesaid pully, &c. Over the whole, a build- 

 ing is to be erected, sufficiently extensive to contain the large 

 wheel and its appendages ; and sufficiently high to allow of 

 the ascent of the cerostat. " In reference to the building and 

 its dimensions, if an ascension of 90 feet, producing 900 feet 

 distance, equivalent to 90 locks, was really wanted, the alti- 

 tude from the bottom of the pit, to the top of the cupola, 

 ought to be 96 feet, allowing six feet under, to attend to the 

 balloon and gas." (Memorial, p. 29.) The balloon, accord- 

 ing to the estimate made, if covered with silk, and forty-five 

 feet in diameter, will possess an ascensive force of 3236 lbs. ; 

 and a canal boat with its load, is estimated to weigh sixty 

 tons. 



Waving all remarks upon the total ineligibility of the power 

 proposed to be applied as the first mover, as there is little 

 danger that any engineer, or mechanician, will make an essay 

 of it, I will repeat the question which was originally asked by 

 the Editors of the Boston Journal, " But why not use the de- 

 scendent force of a leaden weight, as well as the ascensive 

 force of an air balloon ?." a question which it has not been 

 convenient for Mr. Genet, or his friend, to answer. The bal- 



