edleedskalnin castle article

8/7/2019 EdLeedskalnin castle Article

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Coral g!Jrdelt wa s plIJt of s tr ange constr uction the eceentr ic cr eated over 3D- year span.

Florida 's

C O R A L C A ST L EM Y S T E R Y

tons.

Tbis sl ight IOO-pound man r, ised s tones weighing

"I have discovered the secret of the Pyra."ids,'" he explained.

But no one today understands what that secret was.

leeclikalnin. bUIlt two-s tory tower forl iv ing quart . . rs ' \l ind worbhop b ut noC Ine w as al lo we d i n wh il e he Wll5 .li~e.

How COULD one man, weigh-ing about 100pounds, work~ing' alone in secrecy, quarrY andrame into place coral rock$lab,sweighing as much as 35 tonsilThis is the tl'l:ystery of the so -called Coral Castle and itsyal'd of gigantic carvedtha t baff les engineers and ijlO'\i~sands of visitors annually.

Surrounded by an eight.foot.high wall, it Iies south of Miaminear Homestead, Fla.,U.S. Highway 1. To entel1enclosure you turn ablock of coral. It weighstons b is so pedectlYand balanced that itswung with one finger.

You are now in a

~onderland of rocks hewn into,undreds of shapes and objects.

: A : :g W l .with. just a finger, youean'Set in motion rocking chairsWeighlp.g thousands of pounds .There's a IS-foot-long table withits top carved into :the shape ofthe state of Florida. A.tiothe~

t:a:ble has the form of a heartgam which a fiowel'ing center-pie:ce 'blooms. There are couches,b~Els and a bathtub all sculp-1.UFedfrom solid Gotalslabs.

11U one corner of the enclosureis' the "castle" - a two-storiedtower with a total estimated

weight el l 235 tons. Several of theoblong blocks which form thewalls weigh nine tons. Near thecenter of the .rear wall aroundthe courtyard there is anotherstone door weighing nine tqnsand so perfectly balanced on acenter pivot that a child can

move it wjth ease. And it is S0closely fitted into the wall thatthere is barely a half inch clear-ance between it and the stonesfranting it.

All of these wonders - and-there are many more - werecreated in the hope that a dream

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would ceme true. It never didbut Edward Leedskalnin, in ad-dinen to being a brilliant eccen-tric, w.as a very stubborn man.He preserved His futile faith untilthe end of his life.

It begap long age when Ed wasa youngman living in a village

near Riga, Latvia. He fell in lovewith a 16-year-ald peasant gir l,They became engaged and Edwas happy. Then, just before thewedding, his world fell apart .The gh:l tearfully told him sheloved someone else. HeartJ:;rt:)kenand humiliated, he fled from his

Nine-ton eor...1stone door in rear wallis s o perfectly balallced on its centerpivot it can be swulIg with one fin


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Now he went to work on hisendless creations of mammothstone.

"I have discovered the secretof the Pyramids," Ed said inlater years. "I have found outhow the Egyptians and the- an-cient builders ;i'n Peru, Yucatan

and Asia, With only primitivetools, raised and set in (placeblocks of stone weighing manytons. The Pharaohs had thou-sands of slaves but I can do italone. " Modern engineers whohave viewed his work will testifythat hi!; claJ.m was certainly notan idle boast .

Although no one ever saw Edquarry the corrul'ock, a'study ofthe tools he left gives some ideaof his methods. He apparentlydrove one end of a wire cablesevera l feet into the rock with aniron stake. The other end of thecable was attached to an appar-atus that he moved back andforth dn a sawiM prosess untilthe cut reached- the depth of thedriven cable end.

A similar par@el cut would bemade at a distance determinedby the size of slab he wanted.Next he cut a t rench between the:

parallel cuts several feet indepth and set a row of fiat chis-els down. BY' hammer ing eachchisel .in- succession with a sledgethe block of stone would eventu-ally crack free rom the bedrock.

Setting up a tripoCi pf logs to -

LORIDA' S GORAL CASTLE MYSTERY

support a hoist, Ed would slingcable around the slabgradually raise it out ofground with the aid of [aekswedges, Fina.lly, with the usewooden rollers ana anmined arrangement ofhe gradua lly would movesla'Jj to the- location whereidresseq it and set it Intomanent position. It wastedious labor but Ed was aof infinite patience. Mereover.was his proud boast thatnever had ruined a stone.

AS to his method ofWeights a s great as 35 tons, itknown that Leedskalnincovered improved ways ofthe prtnciples of pu lleyslevers. He even. showed ~isit inexperts. the type of equipmentused - heavy chains 15 fee_tlength, wheels from the l-~CJ.l""'i1Uhandcars sa lvaged fromyards, steel cables andWhat mystifies thehowever, ish0W equipmentthis nature and size couldsibly be enjoined tothe tremendous Weights thatraised in the air to high01' stood upright. There is

doubt that Ed applied :spr incip le in weight liftingremains a secret today.

For example, Edhandedly quarried, movedra ised an obelisk that is 27high --three feet higher than

;eent-ral tril ithon at Stonehenge,England.

Another obelisk - 25 feet highd weighing nearly 30 tons - is

art of Ed's Iensless polaris tele-cope. .It has a circular hole

bore_d throug.bit near the top.-lthin the hole are wires cross-

ng at _right angles like 3. gun-"sight. A similar' hole with cross-e d wires is in another, much(;;lweI', stone several feet away._'rom tois stone, by lining up the~re cross-point s :in -it and theIilbeli


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But Ed was a proud man. If avisitor questioned the fact that hehad dene all the work by him-self.. he would glare at the skep.-tic and shout, "I did it, all of it,alone I" then tum and marchang.rilyaway. Such. ~uestions, hebelieved, reHected on his honesty

and talent.It was Ed's theory that mag-netism is the fundamentalenergy, the key to the mystery ofthe physical mllverl>e, and theforce that activates all orga-nisms including the human body-.He wro te several booklets whichhe published at his own expense.With, one exception, an of themwere on magnetism, outlining histheory and explaining simpleexperiments with magnets, auto-mobile battertes and similar ob-jects. The exception was calledA Book r", Every Home whichpresented Ed's views on politicsand sex. There were no refer-ences to the Coral Castle or hisbuilding methods in any of thebooklets.

Despite his 'unique accomplish-ments, Ed considered himself afailure. HIs lifelong dream. neverbecame rea lity. He d id not attain

international fame" Sweet SU:-teen never eame aeross the seato brighten his days and bear hischildren.

For long, weary hours and yeanhe had labored in anticipationof her ru:rival. From the coral he

had carved twin beds that:furnish their home, a pail"clI:i1tlren'3 beds, a cradle andsmall crib. But not one ofobjects would ever knowwarmth of a family.

He had hewed a ({F'n.. m~,,,,..

Heart" - a half-ton stone "'LI"'_.~ed into a heart shape.Sweet Sixteen comes, " he ...... '". ~II"' teU hiS' nEtigheorS, "th~re willti:mes when one .of us haseeIin.gs hurt. We can situn til the hurt hea ls and thewill remind us of our love."

He had built a ' R e ! p e n t ' U l c l eComet" where tbewoUld be Semfor punishment. 'believe in disclpline," heplained. "My children willgood kids. I will raise them totine useful citizens."

Most poignant of all waspatiQ that he called the "of the Three Bears." It cont~lineathree chairs of varied sizes,table and a huge coralbowl, "This is where thewill pla:y," Ed said - andtimes there were tears in. theman's eyes.

For well over three decadesworked beneath the Fleridahoping, dreaming,

waiting.Sweet Sixteen remained onlyimage of his ycmth, afore\fer fixed in the stardustmemory.

After Ed died in 1951 a t theof 64, the authorities and

FLORIDA'S CORAL CASTLE MYSTERY

curlous looked over- his posses-aions,: They founq the pulleysystem dismantled with no cluesas to how it had been assembled.In .a drainpipe in the tower theyound lUs life's savings ~ $3,000

in $J.OO bills,No, Ed Leedskalnin did not

worlq, fam~. But itJday~w.-'~~ Castle is marked on mapa

of the state ol Florida. Eachyear thOUS8l).dJ;- of visitors walkthrough his castle a n alook at themassive heWh opjects andwonder. The mys_tery remains.An d Ed's Cl'e5l:Uons in 'St{)heprobably will decorate his eourt-yard -and memorialize his lostdream for years and years tocome.

HYPNOSIS OF THE DEAFBy Chester Geier

A T FIR~ 'XHOUGH'l' it James E, Casey of Silverseems llDlikely that deaf Spring, Md., have developed anpersons could be hypnotized be- effectfv-e method of using slgncause of their diftic'!lty in un- language In hypnot izmg the to -derstanding a hypnotist's ~oken tally deaf. By t his means theycommands. :B y the use of a pio- bridge the "communicationneermg technique, however, gap." Mr. C~y ill skilled.in thedeaf- persons can become ready language of $igp;s, for his ownsubjects for hypnotism. TltiS re- hearing is slightly defective.cently was proved 'to an overea- As the aUdience watched. Mr.pa cit y crowd in a New York Cit,' Casey and Colonel Ziglinskiaucfitarium during a demonstra- showed that deaf subjects re-tion aO-Mled by Richard 1\4'yers, . spand to suggestions madeEastern Vtce-Pr..es ldent of the through sign langUage while un-Nat iona l Fr ater na l Society (jf der bYpnOifis. One young manthe Deaf, and ~onsored by the Who had admit ted tha t h is shy-New York Civic. Associati[}n of ness made it ilifficult for him tothe eat. speak: to others deliv~d a skill-

For more than two hours; two -If ''pitcli'' as a used-ear sales-llrofessional hyPnotists beld the man.:A Oignijied matron, a con-audience $Pellbound as they dis- .seientious housekeeper, gotplayed an am82ing abillty to put down on her knees llnd gave thedeaf subjects, chosen at random, lloor an ~erget1c .scrubbing withinto a nance _state. a nonexistent brush. A deaf man

The J)l"8ctitionel:"1I;Lt. CoL .ro- who had dreamed in hili youth o:tseph H. Zigllnski, U.S. Army becmnin g a m usic ian gave an

edleedskalnin castle article

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