NYT - PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 19, 1/20/1899 - The Press to-day published an illustrated article giving the details of an investigation made by that paper of the dismantled workshop of the late Inventor Keely. The Press contends that the results of the investigation clearly prove the mysterious Keely motor to have been a delusion and deception, and that its alleged mysterious forces were the result of trickery.
In the investigation, which has been in progress over a week, the flooring of the workshop was taken up and a brick partition wall was removed. The newspaper was assisted in the work by Prof. Carl Hering, a consulting engineer of experience; Prof. Arthur W. Goodspeed, Assistant Professor or Physics of the University of Pennsylvania; Prof. Lightner Witmer, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. M. G. Miller, who has had special training in exploration and research in the way of mound digging, and accordingly superintended all the digging operations. Clarence B. Moore, son of Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, who was one of the leading financial promoters of Keely's idea, was an interested spectator.
The statements in the article published by The Press, which are substantiated by signed statements of the above-named scientists, are to the effect that small brass tubing was found concealed in the brickwork and under the floor of the laboratory. This tubing, it is asserted, is of a kind calculated to stand high pressure, and could have been used in connection with the great steel sphere found last week in the laboratory, which the experts intimate was used as a reservoir for compressed air or compressed gases. The tubing could thus form an agency for transmitting the forces that moved the motor in the exhibition room. The contention of Mr. Keely and his friend for many years was that no tubing of any kind was needed to work his machines.
The views of Prof. Hering and Prof Goodspeed are that the presence of the tubing and sphere indicates the use of normal forces and possible deception on the part of Keely. In this view Mr. Moore concurs, and Prof. Witmer is of opinion that the possibility of trickery confirms the diagnosis that most psychologists have made as to the delusive character of the Keely mystery.
Prof. Hering says in his signed statement:
"The discovery of so many tubes with couplings, which exactly resembled those shown in the photographs of Keely's apparatus, and were recognized by some of those who had seen the experiments, seems to leave little doubt that Keely probably lied and deceived. Personally I am satisfied now that he used highly compressed air, and that he intentionally and knowingly deceived the public when he held his exhibitions. Moreover, there is nothing wonderful about any of these experiments, of which I have seen descriptions, if he used highly compressed air."
Prof. Witmer, who treats the subject from psychological standpoint, says:
"The external evidence of reservoirs and tubes was hardly necessary to demonstrate the delusional character of Keely's theories. Even had these objects not been found, the writing of Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, the pseudo-scientific jargon of Keely, and the official reports of the Keely Motor Company would have furnished, upon critical examination, indisputable testimony to the unsoundness of Keelyism. This mad doctrine struck, to borrow Keely's phrase, a chord that was composed of nearly all the fundamental tones of delusion that vibrate in ill-balanced mental systems - a revelation of nature's mysteries, the stultifying of current science, a new mechanical contrivance to develop untold power, a process for the manufacture of gold, the cure of the sick, a religion, and a scheme of moral regeneration. Little more is needed to give Keelyism its proper place in a museum of pathological mental products."
Published: January 20, 1899
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