On the Wonderful Effect of Imagination

"During the siege of Breda, in the Netherlands, in 1625, the garrison was dreadfully afflicted with the scurvy. So useless was the medical aid afforded to the soldiers, and so desperate were they in consequence, that they resolved to give up the city to the enemy.

This resolution came to the ears of the Prince of Orange; he immediately wrote addresses to the men, assuring them that he possessed remedies that were unknown to physicians, and that he would undertake their cure, provided they continued in the discharge of their duty.

Together with these addresses he sent to the physicians small vials of coloured water, which the patients were assured were of immense price, and of unspeakable virtue.

Many, who declared that all former remedies had only made them worse, now recovered in a few days. A long and interesting account of the wonderful working of this purely imaginary antidote was drawn up by M. Van der Mye, one of the physicians in the garrison, whose office was thus successfully usurped by the Prince of Orange.

A corroborative proof of the well-known power of the imagination in affecting disease is afforded in the following Arabian fable; One day a traveler met the Plague going into Cairo, and accosted it thus; "For what purpose are you entering Cairo?"

"To kill 3,000 people," rejoined the Plague.

Some time after, the same traveler met the Plague on his return, and said, "But you killed 30,000!"

"Nay," replied the Plague, "I killed but 3,000; the rest died of fright.""

On the Power of Ice

"An artillery officer at Quebec made an experiment during a hard winter, by filling a bomb-shell, about fourteen inches in diameter, with water, and then closing the opening with an iron peg, which was driven firmly in.

This being exposed to the severe frost, the stopper was driven out to a distance of more than 100 yards, and a cylinder of ice, eight or nine inches long, came out of the opening.

In a second experiment of the same kind, the stopper resisted the expansive force; but the shell was itself was rent, and a ring of ice was forced through the crack all around the shell.

In the same manner houses have been overthrown by the expansive force of frost in the earth causing the ground to swell up. Stones will break in consequence of the water they contain freezing, and trees have split up with an explosive sound on occasions of sudden cold occurring when their vessels have been full of sap."

Detecting a Murderer

"The origin of the curious custom of making persons suspected of murder touch the murdered body for the discovery of their guilt or innocence is interesting. This method of finding out murderers was practised in Denmark by King Christian II.

The story goes that it arose in the following way; Certain gentlemen being on an evening together in a tavern, fell out among themselves, and from words grew to blows, insomuch that one of them was stabbed with a poniard.

Now the murderer was unknown, by reason of the number, although the person stabbed before death accused a pursuivant who was one of the company.

The king, to find out the homicide, caused them all to come together, and, standing round the dead body, he commanded that they should, one after another, lay their right hands on the dead man's naked breast, swearing that they had not killed him.

The gentlemen did so, and no sign appeared against them. The pursuivant alone remained, who, condemned before in his own conscience, went first of all and kissed the dead man's feet, but as soon as he laid his hand on his breast, the blood, we are told, gushed forth both out of his wound and his nostrils, so that, urged by this evident accusation, he confessed the murder, and was, by the king's own sentence, immediately beheaded."

Origin of 'Baker's Dozen'

It was the Devil's dozen, thirteen being the number of witches supposed to sit down together at their great meeting or sabbaths. Hence the superstition about sitting thirteen at a table. The baker was an unpopular character and became a substitute for his satanic majesty.

Tuning a Dowsing Rod

I have seen dowsing rods with a well or chamber in which you put a sample of the element or substance you are searching for...the idea being that of sympathy/resonance as in like attracts like so these comments and instructions were worth posting;

"If a piece of the same wood as that of which the rod is composed, be placed under the arm, it will totally destroy the operation of it, except in the instance of water, for which any rod, they say, in any hand will answer; or if the least animal thread, as silk, or worsted (wool), or hair, be placed on the top of the rod, it will prevent its operation; but if a piece of the same animal substance, or of the same wood as that of which the rod is made, provided the rod does not answer, be placed under the arm, it will cause the rod to rotate.

If a piece of gold be held in the hand and touching the rod, it will prevent its being attracted by that metal or by copper, for the rod will be repelled towards the face; or if iron, lead, tin, silver, limestone, bone, or coal, be held in like manner, it will also be repelled, and vice versa.

If a person with whom the rod does not naturally operate, hold a piece of gold in his hand, the rod then answers to gold and copper; and thus with respect to the other metals and substances; and upon these properties of the rod depends its power of distinguishing one metal or substance from another.

Another mode however, grounded upon the same principles, is pointed out as being much more ready and certain, viz. by preparing rods that will ONLY answer to some one of the aforementioned substances. The mode of preparing them is by boring a small hole in the top of the rod, and by putting into it a very small quantity of each substance, except that after which search is to be made; the hole is then to be stopped up with a piece of the same wood of which the rod is made."

Curious claim of Mercury/Vacuum Perpetual Motion

I couldn't find any additional information about this. Is there some odd effect between mercury and vacuum that we are missing or was this a hoax? Why would a royal lend credibility to it with his name if it didn't work?

Mechanics Magazine, March 26, 1842;

"Perpetual motion by a drum with one vertical half in mercury, the other in a vacuum; the drum, I suppose, working round forever to find an easy position. Steam to be superceded; steam and electricity convulsions of nature never intended by Providence for the use of man.

The price of the present engines, as old iron, will buy new engines that will work without fuel and at no expense. Guaranteed by the Count de Predaval, the discoverer.

I was to have been a Director, but my name got no further than ink, and not so far as official notification of the honor, partly owing to my having communicated to the Mechanic's Magazine information privately given to me, which gave premature publicity, and knocked up the plan."

Experiments with Perpetual Motion

Infinite Power

You might have seen a quote by inventor Nikola Tesla which evokes mystery and much curiosity about how it could be done;

"Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe."

That quote comes from a book called "Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency by Nikola Tesla" where Tesla describes his discovery of one wire power transmission as demonstrated to drive a motor with just one wire.

"It is quite possible, however, that such "no-wire" motors, as they might be called, could be operated by conduction through the rarefied air at considerable distances. Alternate currents, especially of high frequencies, pass with astonishing freedom through even slightly rarefied gases. The upper strata of the air are rarefied.

To reach a number of miles out into space requires the overcoming of difficulties of a merely mechanical nature. There is no doubt that with the enormous potentials obtainable by the use of high frequencies and oil insulation luminous discharges might be passed through many miles of rarefied air, and that, by thus directing the energy of many hundreds or thousands of horse-power, motors or lamps might be operated at considerable distances from stationary sources.

But such schemes are mentioned merely as possibilities. We shall have no need to transmit power in this way. We shall have no need to transmit power at all.

Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe.

This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason. It has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new.

We find it in the delightful myth of Antaeus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtile speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians, and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time.

Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic?

If static our hopes are in vain;

if kinetic—and this we know it is, for certain—then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.

Of all, living or dead, Crookes came nearest to doing it. His radiometer will turn in the light of day and in the darkness of the night; it will turn everywhere where there is heat, and heat is everywhere. But, unfortunately, this beautiful little machine, while it goes down to posterity as the most interesting, must likewise be put on record as the most inefficient machine ever invented!

The preceding experiment is only one of many equally interesting experiments which may be performed by the use of only one wire with alternate currents of high potential and frequency.

We may connect an insulated line to a source of such currents, we may pass an inappreciable current over the line, and on any point of the same we are able to obtain a heavy current, capable of fusing a thick copper wire. Or we may, by the help of some artifice, decompose a solution in any electrolytic cell by connecting only one pole of the cell to the line or source of energy. Or we may, by attaching to the line, or only bringing into its vicinity, light up an incandescent lamp, an exhausted tube, or a phosphorescent bulb.

However impracticable this plan of working may appear in many cases, it certainly seems practicable, and even recommendable, in the production of light. A perfected lamp would require but little energy, and if wires were used at all we ought to be able to supply that energy without a return wire."