Posted by John Collins (194.164.38.202) on February 16, 2003 at 00:37:01:
In Reply to: Another question for John Collins posted by grim on February 15, 2003 at 18:26:12:
: Hi Grim,
Karl's court diary is still available and yes I have seen it and have copies of what is in them. Yes Frank Edwards invented his piece about the "pegs", and there are no records anywhere which describe what Edwards describes.
In fact you don't need to even know that there is nothing in the records such as Frank Edwards describes, to realise that his description was his own invention. Firstly there was no "hurry" to note down the things Karl is supposed to have seen, because he paid for the privilige of seeing the internal workings and was able to examine them at leisure.
Secondly, access to the internal workings was a condition of the contract to sponsor Bessler in his attempt to sell the secret - in other words, Karl gave Bessler a job and a home so that he could exhibit his machine and get a buyer, just as Karl did for Denis Papin earlier. But he had to make sure that Bessler wasn't a fake, because he had a highly important reputation to maintain.
Those of you who don't know may not realise that Karl held a unique position in Europe at that time as an honest broker among the many warring factions of the time and held conferneces at which the kings of England, Sweden, Germany, Poland and others gathered. Any trace of trickery or fraud connected to him would have resulted in loss of face at least and possibly far worse. His small country had just emerged from a thirty year war and was trying to establish a reputation for sponsorship of the arts and sciences as well as providing a haven for the huegenots from France. All this may seem irrelevant to our quest but it is important to appreciate the background to Karl's position and to understand why he can be relied upon as the chief witness.
Thirdly it is on record that sometime later (years) that Karl mentioned that wheel was so simple he was amazed that no one before had discovered the secret and also on another occasion that a carpenter's boy could make it given a chance to examine the machine.
To me this suggests that a) Karl understood the design completely and therefore had no need to dash off quickly to note down the design before he forgot it (as Edwards suggested)and b) that the design was so simple that the same as a) applies.
I long ago dismissed the description by Frank Edwards as poetic licence and so I ignore all reference to "pegs" as he described.
John C.
Hi John
: I know by previous posts that in your investigations over the years that the account written by Frank Edwards is one to be taken with a grain of salt, but I would like to know something. Does Karl's personal journal (or journals) still exist? If they do, have you ever gotten to see them? Did Edwards just pull his account out of thin air?
: I realize this post is the eqwuivalent of beating a dead horse, but I don't believe the qustion of the survivakl of the journals has been addressed, I may be wrong there, if I am I've missed a previous post, etc.
: Thanks for our help!
: Regards
: grim