textfiles/etext/AUTHORS/POE/poe-von-723.txt

                                      1850

                         VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY

                               by Edgar Allan Poe

  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.

                               THE END
.