Chicago, June 6, 1905
I have yours of 3rd about the Standard Encyclopedia article.
This is wanted within a month and I believe that I had best say very little about your machine or its performances, for if you are dealing with the British war department your position will be stronger the less is publicly known about your machine. Please let me know how soon you expect the English officer and what your final wishes are.
I was amused with Montgomery's disquisition or "scientific study." Much of it is bosh but it is entirely bona fide. He had a theory ten years ago that one body in collision with another imparted to the latter its force of impact, plus the force of the reaction. This however cuts no figure with the direction of fluid movements and I think that what he illustrates is the result of actual experiments with water.
He may for all that have arranged his "following" surfaces so as to get more than I ever was able to obtain from such arrangement.1
1 This letter re Montgomery was used as Defendant's Exhibit No. 36 in Montgomery vs. United States.