The
Prevailing Type
A wheel that is furnished at equal distances around its
circumference with levers, each of which carries a weight at its
extremity, and is movable upon a pin, so that in one direction it can
lie upon the circumference, while at the opposite side, being carried
along by its weight, it may be forced to take the direction of a
prolonged radius. This granted, it will be seen that when the wheel
revolves in the direction a, b, c, the weights, A, B, C, will deviate
from the center, and, acting with more force, will carry along the
wheel on this side. And since, in measure as it revolves, a new lever
will turn up, it follows, it was said, that the wheel will continue to
revolve in the same direction.
(Subsection 915, from
p.366)
From: Gardner D. Hiscox, M.E., Mechanical Appliances and Novelties of Construction (1927), Norman W. Henley Publ. Co.