Having stopped it in this manner, it remained stationary... I commenced the movement very gently to see if it would of itself regain its former rapidity, which I doubted, believing that it only preserved for a long time the impetus of the impulse first communicated. But to my astonishment I observed that the rapidity of the wheel augmented little by little until it had made two turns, and then it regained its former speed, until I observed by my watch that it made the same twenty-six turns a minute as before, when acting freely; and twenty turns when it was attached to the screw to raise water.

For my part, however, though I must confess my abilities inferior to those of many who have given demonstration of this impossibility - yet I will communicate to you the real sentiments with which I entered on examination of this machine... It seemed to me that Leibniz was wrong in laying down the impossibility of perpetual motion as an axiom. Notwithstanding this persuasion, however, I was far from believing Orffyreus capable of making such a discovery, looking upon it as an invention not to be made (if ever) till after many other previous discoveries. But since I have examined the machine, it is impossible for me to sufficiently express my astonishment.

The inventor has a turn for mechanics, but is far from being a profound mathematician, and yet his machine has something in it prodigiously astounding, even though it should be an imposition. The following is a description of the external parts of the machine, the inside of which the inventor will not allowed to be seen, lest anyone should rob him of his secret.

It is a hollow wheel or kind of drum, about fourteen inches thick and twelve feet in diameter; being very light as it consists of several cross pieces of wood framed together; the whole of which is covered over with canvas, to prevent the inside from being seen. Through the center of this wheel or drum runs an axle of about six inches in diameter, terminated at both ends by iron bearings of about three-quarters of an inch in diameter upon which the whole thing turns. I have examined these bearings and am firmly persuaded that nothing from without the wheel in the least contributes to its motion.

When I turned it but gently, it always stood still as soon as I took my hand away. But when I gave it any tolerable degree of velocity, I was always obliged to stop it again by force; for when I let it go it acquired in two or three turns its greatest velocity, after which it revolved at twenty-five or twenty-six times a minute.