throughout the middle decades of the 19th century. A sampling of these
patents shows that while some were for devices used in particular
machines--such as a ratchet device for a numbering machine, a locking
index for gunmaking machinery, and a few gear trains--the great majority
were for converting reciprocating motion to rotary motion. Even a
cursory examination of these patents reveals an appalling absence of
sound mechanical sense, and many of them appear to be attempts at
"perpetual motion," in spite of an occasional disclaimer of such intent.

Typical of many of these patented devices was a linkage for
"multiplying" the motion of a flywheel, proposed in 1841 by Charles
Johnson of Amity, Illinois (fig. 37). "It is not pretended that there is
any actual gain of power," wrote Mr. Johnson; and probably he meant it.
The avowed purpose of his linkage was to increase the speed of a
flywheel and thus decrease its size.[103]

[Footnote 103: U.S. Patent 2295, October 11, 1841.]

[Illustration: Figure 37.--Johnson's "converting motion," 1841. The
linkage causes the flywheel to make two revolutions for each
double-stroke of the engine piston rod B. From U.S. Patent 2295, October
11, 1841.]

An Englishman who a few years earlier had invented a "new Motion" had
claimed that his device would supersede the "ordinary crank in steam
engines," the beam, parallel motion, and "external flywheel," reduce
friction, neutralize "all extra contending power," and leave nothing for
the piston to do "but the work intended to be done."

A correspondent of the _Repertory of Patent Inventions_ made short work
of this device: "There is hardly one assertion that can be supported by
proof," he wrote, "and most of them are palpable misstatements." The
writer attacked "the 'beetle impetus wheel,' which he [the inventor]
thinks us all so beetle-headed, as not to perceive to be a flywheel,"
and concluded with the statement: "In short the whole production evinces
gross ignorance either of machinery, if the patentee really believed
what he asserted, or of mankind, if he did not."[104]

[Footnote 104: _Repertory of Patent Inventions_, ser. 3, October 1828,
vol. 7, pp. 196-200, and December 1828, vol. 7, pp. 357-361.]

Although many of the mechanisms for which patents were taken out were
designed by persons who would make no use of the principles involved
even if such principles could at that time have been clearly stated, it
is a regrettable fact t