Some Small Clues in Connection with Johann Bessler’s Wheel.

People have asked for clues, so I’ll try to offer some more.  Here’s another clue which may be helpful.  

In Apologia Poetica XLVI, page 296, Bessler comments thus, “ A crab crawls from side to side. It is sound, for it is designed thus.”

This implies a horizontal movement which is a design feature of a mechanical arrangement. One thinks of the storks bill.  

In MT 47 he wrote, “ No. 41: This is yet another stork's-bill model. It is not necessary first to explain the letters. There is only this to mention: the present horizontal application of the stork's bills is always better than the machine with the vertical application, which constantly has more friction. I can assure the reader that there is something special behind the stork's bills. Whoever knows how to construct them will note that the figures sketched here are not exactly the correct artistic application."

This suggests a horizontal action is needed, which is not an amazing thought but a useful one if you know it is a vital ingredient.

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A wheel appears on the scene - is it really a wheel, for it does not have the normal type of rim.

Corrected translation of the above, “You see a wheel, but is it a wheel, for it has no tyre(tire)?  

Cart and carriage wheels had rims of iron.  Etymology late 15th century (denoting the curved pieces of iron plate with which carriage wheels were formerly shod): perhaps a variant of archaic tire, shortening of attire (because the tyre was the ‘clothing’ of the wheel). Oxford languages.

This isn’t a clue, Bessler is just explaining that everyone refers to his device as as a wheel, but it isn’t like a cart wheel because it doesn’t have a tyre or rim. I think he is saying that it isn’t strictly speaking, a wheel and I have often thought this too.

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The word ‘Kreuz’ appears in Apologia Poetica, XXXIIIb, Bessler talks thus, “ If I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine, it revolves very slowly, just as if it can hardly turn itself at all, but, on the contrary, when I arrange several bars, pulleys the machine can revolve much faster”.

Google translates it thus,

“In a work with just a cross, as it were, then you will see it very slowly hardly turn around by itself; On the other hand, when I cooked up many crosses, trains and weight ’,then the work can run much faster; ‘

It was translated as “cross-bar” but that would be a different word in German.  During my research I found that the word kreuz can mean, cross, intersection or, crossing and can also be used to mark a document with a cross or X.  When attached to another word it can mean many different things. Bessler may also have meant either just one cross, or a cross, meaning one cross with four arms, which was insufficient for the wheel’s rotation.

But interestingly, the phrase used here and which is often used by Bessler, “as it were” means “sometimes said after a figurative (= not meaning exactly what it appears to mean) or unusual expression: For example: If he still refuses we could always apply a little pressure, as it were. Figurative use of language. Cambridge English Dictionary.

So Creuz just describes something which might be thought of as a cross but isn’t actually that.

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There is an abundance of clues for those who want to look, and I am confident that I have found and correctly deciphered most of them, but I must, for my own satisfaction, try to build the wheel before I share it.  This will have to wait ‘til I’ve moved into my new (old) house, which is likely to be in November.

Remember there are loads of other clues on my web site at The Orffyreus Code, plus many discussed over several years right here on this blog.

JC