Chapter 3

                                  KEELY

              "In questions of Science the Authority of

               a Thousand is not worth the humble reasoning

               of a single individual."

       The "Scientific  American"  in  their  January   28,  1899,  and

  February 4, 1899,  issues  spent  four  pages debunking Keely and his

  experiments.  However, they would have spent even more time and pages

  debunking our current semiconductors  and other now-common scientific

  inventions if someone had been able to come up with  any  of  them at

  that time--science and  technology  were  not advanced enough then to

  understand the sophisticated functioning  of  such  items.   Now,  in

  light of our advances and our greater understanding and hopefully our

  more broadened outlook in the field of science, I think  it  behooves

  us to look  again at John Keely, the man and his experiments, and see

  if perhaps he was just ahead of his  time  and  that now there may be

  premises we can  utilize or lines of research we can  pursue  to  our

  great advantage.

       The entire thesis of the "Scientific American" articles was that

  Keely's scientific career  had  been  nothing  but a series of frauds

  perpetrated on gullible, unthinking  people  who  were  incapable  of

  understand ng enough science  to  disprove his wild  claims.  (1,2,3)

  This in spite  of  the fact that many noted men of science, including

  such as Joseph M. Leidy, M.D., of  Pennsylvania  University, James M.

  Wilcox, M.D., author and noted physician, and many others, thoroughly

  examined Keely's inventions,  his  laboratory,  and   the  scientific

  demonstrations performed by  Keely  and  could  find  no fraud of any

  kind.  In fact they were completely  convinced  as to the validity of

  Keely's achievements and his competence in the scientific method. (4)

  GRAVITY AND KEELY'S "AERIAL PROPELLER"

       The basis for the cries of fraud centered around  the finding of

  a large hollow iron sphere "hidden" under the floor boards of Keely's

  laboratory.

       After Keely's   untimely   death   several   investigators  from

  "Scientific American" went  to Keely's  old  laboratory  looking  for

  evidence to support  their fraud thesis. (2)  They thought  they  had

  found what they  were  looking  for  when  they  lifted  a  couple of

  floorboards and found  a large (four  feet  in  diameter)  cast  iron

  sphere from which protruded pieces of broken pipe.   The  sphere  was

  estimated to weigh  6,625  pounds  and  have  a  bursting strength of

  28,000 pounds per square inch.