by Edgar Allan Poe
(1850)
AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by
Arago, to say nothing of the summary in 'Silliman's Journal,'
with the detailed statement just published by Lieutenant Maury,
it will not be supposed, of course, that in offering a few
hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen's discovery, I
have any design to look at the subject in a scientific point of
view. My object is simply, in the first place, to say a few
words of Von Kempelen himself (with whom, some years ago, I had
the honor of a slight personal acquaintance), since every thing
which concerns him must necessarily, at this moment, be of
interest; and, in the second place, to look in a general way,
and speculatively, at the results of the discovery.
It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory
observations which I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly,
what seems to be a general impression (gleaned, as usual in a
case of this kind, from the newspapers), viz.: that this
discovery, astounding as it unquestionably is, is
unanticipated.
By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy'
(Cottle and Munroe, London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53
and 82, that this illustrious chemist had not only conceived
the idea now in question, but had actually made no
inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in the very identical
analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von
Kempelen, who although he makes not the slightest allusion to
it, is, without doubt (I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove
it, if required), indebted to the 'Diary' for at least the
first hint of his own undertaking.
The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,'
which is now going the rounds of the press, and which purports
to claim the invention for a Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine,
appears to me, I confess, a little apocryphal, for several
reasons; although there is nothing either impossible or very
improbable in the statement made. I need not go into details.
My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon its
manner. It does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts,
are seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day
and date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually
did come upon the discovery he says he did, at the period
designated- nearly eight years ago- how happens it that he took
no steps, on the instant, to reap the immense benefits which
the merest bumpkin must have known would have resulted to him
individually, if not to the world at large, from the discovery?
It seems to me quite incredible that any man of common
understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam says he
did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby- so like an
owl- as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who is Mr.
Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the 'Courier and
Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must be
confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little
dependence is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and
if I were not well aware, from experience, how very easily men
of science are mystified, on points out of their usual range of
inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at finding so
eminent a chemist as Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kissam's
(or is it Mr. Quizzem's?) pretensions to the discovery, in so
serious a tone.
But to return to the 'Diary' of Sir Humphrey Davy.
This pamphlet was not designed for the public eye, even upon
the decease of the writer, as any person at all conversant with
authorship may satisfy himself at once by the slightest
inspection of the style. At page 13, for example, near the
middle, we read, in reference to his researches about the
protoxide of azote: 'In less than half a minute the respiration
being continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded by
analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' That the
respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by the
subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The
sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a
minute, the respiration [being continued, these feelings]
diminished gradually, and were succeeded by [a sensation]
analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' A hundred
similar instances go to show that the MS. so inconsiderately
published, was merely a rough note-book, meant only for the
writer's own eye, but an inspection of the pamphlet will
convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my
suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last
man in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not
only had he a more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he
was morbidly afraid of appearing empirical; so that, however
fully he might have been convinced that he was on the right
track in the matter now in question, he would never have spoken
out, until he had every thing ready for the most practical
demonstration. I verily believe that his last moments would
have been rendered wretched, could he have suspected that his
wishes in regard to burning this 'Diary' (full of crude
speculations) would have been unattended to; as, it seems, they
were. I say 'his wishes,' for that he meant to include this
note-book among the miscellaneous papers directed 'to be
burnt,' I think there can be no manner of doubt. Whether it
escaped the flames by good fortune or by bad, yet remains to be
seen. That the passages quoted above, with the other similar
ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do not in the
slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet remains to be
seen whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under
any circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind
at large. That Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap
a rich harvest, it would be folly to doubt for a moment. They
will scarcely be so weak as not to 'realize,' in time, by large
purchases of houses and land, with other property of intrinsic
value.
In the brief account of Von Kempelen which
appeared in the 'Home Journal,' and has since been extensively
copied, several misapprehensions of the German original seem to
have been made by the translator, who professes to have taken
the passage from a late number of the Presburg 'Schnellpost.'
'Viele' has evidently been misconceived (as it often is), and
what the translator renders by 'sorrows,' is probably 'lieden,'
which, in its true version, 'sufferings,' would give a totally
different complexion to the whole account; but, of course, much
of this is merely guess, on my part.
Von Kempelen, however, is by no means 'a
misanthrope,' in appearance, at least, whatever he may be in
fact. My acquaintance with him was casual altogether; and I am
scarcely warranted in saying that I know him at all; but to
have seen and conversed with a man of so prodigious a notoriety
as he has attained, or will attain in a few days, is not a
small matter, as times go.
'The Literary World' speaks of him, confidently,
as a native of Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in
'The Home Journal') but I am pleased in being able to state
positively, since I have it from his own lips, that he was born
in Utica, in the State of New York, although both his parents,
I believe, are of Presburg descent. The family is connected, in
some way, with Maelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In
person, he is short and stout, with large, fat, blue eyes,
sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth,
and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in one of his
feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner noticeable for
bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as little like
'a misanthrope' as any man I ever saw. We were fellow-sojouners
for a week about six years ago, at Earl's Hotel, in Providence,
Rhode Island; and I presume that I conversed with him, at
various times, for some three or four hours altogether. His
principal topics were those of the day, and nothing that fell
from him led me to suspect his scientific attainments. He left
the hotel before me, intending to go to New York, and thence to
Bremen; it was in the latter city that his great discovery was
first made public; or, rather, it was there that he was first
suspected of having made it. This is about all that I
personally know of the now immortal Von Kempelen; but I have
thought that even these few details would have interest for the
public.
There can be little question that most of the
marvellous rumors afloat about this affair are pure inventions,
entitled to about as much credit as the story of Aladdin's
lamp; and yet, in a case of this kind, as in the case of the
discoveries in California, it is clear that the truth may be
stranger than fiction. The following anecdote, at least, is so
well authenticated, that we may receive it implicitly.
Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well
off during his residence at Bremen; and often, it was well
known, he had been put to extreme shifts in order to raise
trifling sums. When the great excitement occurred about the
forgery on the house of Gutsmuth & Co., suspicion was
directed toward Von Kempelen, on account of his having
purchased a considerable property in Gasperitch Lane, and his
refusing, when questioned, to explain how he became possessed
of the purchase money. He was at length arrested, but nothing
decisive appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty.
The police, however, kept a strict watch upon his movements,
and thus discovered that he left home frequently, taking always
the same road, and invariably giving his watchers the slip in
the neighborhood of that labyrinth of narrow and crooked
passages known by the flash name of the 'Dondergat.' Finally,
by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a garret in
an old house of seven stories, in an alley called Flatzplatz,-
and, coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they imagined, in
the midst of his counterfeiting operations. His agitation is
represented as so excessive that the officers had not the
slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing him, they
searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears he occupied
all the mansarde.
Opening into the garret where they caught him, was
a closet, ten feet by eight, fitted up with some chemical
apparatus, of which the object has not yet been ascertained. In
one corner of the closet was a very small furnace, with a
glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of duplicate
crucible- two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these
crucibles was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not
reaching up to the aperture of the tube, which was close to the
brim. The other crucible had some liquid in it, which, as the
officers entered, seemed to be furiously dissipating in vapor.
They relate that, on finding himself taken, Kempelen seized the
crucibles with both hands (which were encased in gloves that
afterwards turned out to be asbestic), and threw the contents
on the tiled floor. It was now that they hand-cuffed him; and
before proceeding to ransack the premises they searched his
person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a
paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterward
ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some unknown
substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All
attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far,
failed, but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be
doubted.
Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the
officers went through a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing
material was found, to the chemist's sleeping-room. They here
rummaged some drawers and boxes, but discovered only a few
papers, of no importance, and some good coin, silver and gold.
At length, looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair
trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying
carelessly across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw
this trunk out from under the bed, they found that, with their
united strength (there were three of them, all powerful men),
they 'could not stir it one inch.' Much astonished at this, one
of them crawled under the bed, and looking into the trunk,
said:
'No wonder we couldn't move it- why it's full to
the brim of old bits of brass!'
Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to
get a good purchase, and pushing with all his force, while his
companions pulled with an theirs, the trunk, with much
difficulty, was slid out from under the bed, and its contents
examined. The supposed brass with which it was filled was all
in small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a pea to that
of a dollar; but the pieces were irregular in shape, although
more or less flat-looking, upon the whole, 'very much as lead
looks when thrown upon the ground in a molten state, and there
suffered to grow cool.' Now, not one of these officers for a
moment suspected this metal to be any thing but brass. The idea
of its being gold never entered their brains, of course; how
could such a wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment
may be well conceived, when the next day it became known, all
over Bremen, that the 'lot of brass' which they had carted so
contemptuously to the police office, without putting themselves
to the trouble of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not only
gold- real gold- but gold far finer than any employed in
coinage-gold, in fact, absolutely pure, virgin, without the
slightest appreciable alloy.
I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen's
confession (as far as it went) and release, for these are
familiar to the public. That he has actually realized, in
spirit and in effect, if not to the letter, the old chimaera of
the philosopher's stone, no sane person is at liberty to doubt.
The opinions of Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest
consideration; but he is by no means infallible; and what he
says of bismuth, in his report to the Academy, must be taken
cum grano salis. The simple truth is, that up to this period
all analysis has failed; and until Von Kempelen chooses to let
us have the key to his own published enigma, it is more than
probable that the matter will remain, for years, in statu quo.
All that as yet can fairly be said to be known is, that 'Pure
gold can be made at will, and very readily from lead in
connection with certain other substances, in kind and in
proportions, unknown.'
Speculation, of course, is busy as to the
immediate and ultimate results of this discovery- a discovery
which few thinking persons will hesitate in referring to an
increased interest in the matter of gold generally, by the late
developments in California; and this reflection brings us
inevitably to another- the exceeding inopportuneness of Von
Kempelen's analysis. If many were prevented from adventuring to
California, by the mere apprehension that gold would so
materially diminish in value, on account of its plentifulness
in the mines there, as to render the speculation of going so
far in search of it a doubtful one- what impression will be
wrought now, upon the minds of those about to emigrate, and
especially upon the minds of those actually in the mineral
region, by the announcement of this astounding discovery of Von
Kempelen? a discovery which declares, in so many words, that
beyond its intrinsic worth for manufacturing purposes (whatever
that worth may be), gold now is, or at least soon will be (for
it cannot be supposed that Von Kempelen can long retain his
secret), of no greater value than lead, and of far inferior
value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to
speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery,
but one thing may be positively maintained- that the
announcement of the discovery six months ago would have had
material influence in regard to the settlement of
California.
In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results
have been a rise of two hundred per cent. in the price of lead,
and nearly twenty-five per cent. that of silver.