Perpetual Lamps...

At last, my copy of Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume's "Perpetual Motion: The history of an obsession" (which I mentioned here) has arrived, though I must admit to a certain amount of disappointment that its chapter 15 ("Perpetual Lamps") only runs from page 194 to page 199. All the same, if that is all we have, then let us pick up that baton and run with it...

Ord-Hume discusses Fortunio Liceti's "De Lunae Subobscura Luce prope coniunctiones", which turns out (I think) to be Chapter 50 (L) of his 1640 book "Litheosphorus": there's an online scan at the Wolfenbütteler Digitale Bibliothek here, though (once again) it turns out to be only some six pages long.

Though Ord-Hume mentions various bits from Della Porta, his main source seems to be the section in Bishop John Wilkins' 1648 "Mathematicall Magick, or The wonders that may be performed by Mechanical geometry" entitled "Subterraneous lamps, diverse historicall relations concerning thsir duration for many hundred years together".

I'd heard of the book before: it merits a mention on p.309 of William Eamon's enjoyable "Science and the Secrets of Nature" (1994), who notes both that it used the word "Magick" in an ironic sense, because "vulgar opinion... doth commonly attribute all such [machines and devices] unto the power of Magick", and that Isaac Newton was an "avid reader" of it [as was Christopher Wren]. Also on my bookshelf is "The Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited" (1999), where Paul Bembridge (in his article "Rosicrucian Resurgence at the court of Cromwell") briefly namechecks Wilkins' mention of the eternal lamp allegedly in the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz. (It's in Yates too, of course).

[Incidentally, because Curse readers will remember my discussion of early modern wind-powered cars, I should say that Wilkins also talks about Simon Stevin's wind-wagon, and even includes a rather faked-up line drawing of it (you can see a copy of it here).]

Yes, I'd love to buy a proper copy of Wilkins' book, but... a first edition apparently went at auction earlier this year for £1000: oh, and there's a copy at B & L Rootenberg up for $3500. OK, the dollar's weak, but it's not that weak, right?

Thankfully, Kessinger Publishing sell (for rather less cash) a print-on-demand reproduction which you can buy through Amazon etc: but note that (rather unhelpfully) they've modernised the spelling of the title to "Mathematical Magic". Anyhow, I've ordered a copy, and will post a blog entry about it when it arrives...

"Is this feeling an eternal flame?"

A quick pop-cultural aside: the song "Eternal Flame" was written by hugely successful American songwriter Billy Steinberg with Tom Kelly and Susanna Hoffs (of The Bangles). The inspiration for the song came from an eternal flame seen by Bangles' bass-player Michael Steele burning at Gracelands in Elvis Presley's memory, as well as from one at a Palm Springs synagague Steinberg had seen when very young. Though "Eternal Flame" was produced by Simon Cowell, I won't hold that against it. :-)

But historically, claims of actual eternal flames go back a very long way: in my book, I mentioned briefly that many in the Renaissance believed a "perpetual light" burned in the Temple of Vesta in Ancient Rome. Leon Battista Alberti's 1450 book "Momus" mentions (though admittedly in a fictional context) a "perpetual flame, tending itself even though no material is laid under it and no liquid poured over it", Giovanni Battista Della Porta documented many attempts at reproducing eternal flames in his Natural Magic in XX Books, while in his libro architettonico Antonio Averlino described a continuously-burning candle he saw in Sant Maria in Bagno. Another related story concerns Abbot Trithemius, who allegedly sold two "unquenchable eternall lights" to Emperor Maximilian I for 6000 crowns.

I thought this was one of those things for which there was unlikely to be any significant literature: I'd collected all the pieces together from scattered footnotes. However, recently I was inspired by Archer Quinn's, ummm, perpetual ranting to properly read through Kevin Kilty's well-known page on perpetual motion. All good stuff: and he even mentions eternal flames!

Kilty, who seems to have derived his information on this subject from Arthur Ord-Hume's 1977 book "Perpetual Motion: history of an obsession", mentions that:-

"Fortunio Liceti (1577-1657) made a lifelong study of these lamps, so many of which were supposedly found in old tombs, vaults and temples. Ord-Hume spends several pages examining ways to explain the observation of perpetual lamps. This is giving too much serious attention to a fantasy. It is likely that no one ever observed any such lamp."

(Though I should of course point out that Averlino claimed to have observed an eternal flame). Fascinating! I was not aware of Fortunio Liceti's connection with eternal flames, and so rushed to buy Ord-Hume's book as quickly as I could. I shall continue this thread when it arrives...