Animadversions on Mr. Genet's Memorial, fyc. 95 



numerous observations, have mistaken the air pump, for a 

 second steam cylinder. 



My reason for selecting the hydronaut as the object of my 

 former animadversions, was, because, of the whole series 

 of proposed machines, this is the most absurd. In the oth- 

 ers, although totally inadequate to the production of the 

 intended effects, there is a capacity for motion ; but in this, 

 there is no principle of motion, whatever ; if there were, it 

 would be, to all intents, a perpetual motion, in the ordinary 

 acceptation of that term ; it is to operate without the ap- 

 plication of any extrinsic force ; no fuel is to be expended, no 

 springs to uncoil ; no weights to descend ; no animal power, 

 wind or running water to be used ; nothing in fine but the 

 principle of alternate, absolute levity. The thing is simply 

 to be suspended in air, and water ; is there to commence 

 running, and to " navigate until it is stopped." When a 

 man undertakes to construct a perpetual motion, and at the 

 same time thinks himself a philosopher, we must leave him 

 to himself ; and if it be thought worth while to treat the sub- 

 ject with any degree of seriousness, it is only for the sake of 

 the confessed tyro. 



For the description of this apparatus, as given by Mr. 

 Genet, I must refer to the memorial, or to the plate and 

 analysis of Dr. P. in your Journal. I have thus described it, 

 in the article already referred to. 



" The proposed moving power of the hydronaut, consists 

 of two hollow copper vessels, called hydrostats ; they are 

 to be cylindrical, with conical ends, perfectly closed ; these 

 are to be suspended upon a beam, twenty four feet long, 

 resembling that of a steam engine, and are to hang below 

 it similar to a pair of scales upon their beam. These hydro- 

 stats, are to be contained within two cylinders, which stand 

 under the beam, and in which they may freely rise and fall, 

 when the beam vibrates. These cylinders are to be open at 

 top, and to have a valve in the bottom of them, to open a 

 communication with the water in the river ; by some means, 

 (what means we cannot discover,) water is to be made to 

 flow, alternately, in and out of these cylinders ; that which 

 contains water, will have the hydrostat immersed within it, 

 forced up by its buoyancy, that at the opposite end, being 

 allowed to descend, in consequence of the removal of the 

 water ; and so on, ad infinitum. The machinery by which 

 it is intended to remove the water, is to be worked by the 



