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more scholar-like introduction into the world than it has been their good fortune to obtain. The same ignorant hand which has made such an ungrammatical mess of the title, seems to have been hard at work on the specification. The whole process of making the rollers for surfaceprinting is described, though it is neither claimed as a part of the patented, nor disclaimed as "old and well-known" (as it ought to have been), and has, in fact, nothing to do with the subject-matter of the patent.

JOSEPH NYE, of St. Andrew's-road, Southwark." Improvements in Pumps and Instruments or apparatus for conveying Fluids into, and withdrawing them from, Cavities of Human and other Animal Bodies."-Patent dated 2nd June; Specification enrolled 2nd December, 1835.

The circumlocutory delicacy shown by this patentee in designating his "improvements" is, at least, as remarkable as His any ingenuity displayed in them. invention is simply an improved stomach injecting and evacuating apparatus; but afraid, it would seem, that the public might not stomach so plain a description of a plain thing, or apprehensive, perhaps, that human nature might feel its dignity offended by the assumption that a stomach was a thing alike common to men and beasts, he describes it as an improved instrument for "conveying fluids into, and withdrawing them from, cavities of human and other animal bodies!!" Mr. Joseph Nye must be a nice fellow; or if his title is not of his own framing, it must have been concocted for him by some still nicer old personage of the feminine gender. But that the law has been lately so improved that no patentee can commit any blunder so egregious that it may not be remedied, we might have expected to see Mr. Joseph Nye well punished for his fastidious pains. The stomach is neither in man nor beast a cavity-not even when empty has it any better claim to this appellation of a cavity than an empty sack or purse; and least of all can it be called a cavity, when those occasions arise which require an injecting and evacuating apparatus to be applied to it. Stomachs, moreover, do sometimes eject other matters than fluids, though, according to Mr. Nye's title, his apparatus can be applied to the withdrawing of "fluids" only. In Lord, Ellenborough's or Lord Tenterden's time, these discrepancies would have proved

fatal to the patent, and not unfairly so, for all misdescription and mystification are, more or less, frauds on the public, which is entitled to the clearest possible description of every invention, in return for the temporary monopoly of it conferred on the inventor. As it is, under the new law, the sooner Mr. Joseph Nye files a memorandum of (entire) alteration the better; for were he to go to trial on his patent as it stands, he would most assuredly be nonsuited. In a mechanical point of view, there is nothing particularly worth notice in his improvements. Instead of tubes of caoutchouc, leather, and other similar materials, which are stated to be very liable to decay in hot climates, he proposes to make use of a series of short metallic tubes, connected together by ball and socket joints.

RICHARD PHILLIPS, of the New Kent-road, Chemist." Certain Improvements in the Process of Manufacturing Sulphate of Soda." -Patent dated 4th June; Specification enrolled 4th December, 1835.

Mr. Phillips proposes to employ sulphate of iron, commonly called iron pyrites, in the manufacture of sulphate of soda, and he describes a method of doing so; but his claim is to the employment of iron pyrites for this purpose," in whatever way the same may be turned to such use." We do not think so general a claim as this could be sustained. It resolves itself into an exclusive appropriation to the patentee's use of a certain property in nature, to which he can have no better title than any body else. We apprehend that the particular process described by Mr. Phillips is all that a court of law would allow him.

JAMES LEMAN, of Lincoln's-Inn-fields.— "Making, Mixing, Compounding, Improv ing, or Altering Soap."-Being a Communication from a Foreigner residing abroad.Patent dated 4th June; Specification enrolled 1st December, 1835.

We have seldom met with a more absurd title than this. It is worse even than Joseph Nye's. What are we to understand by a patent for "improving or altering soap?" is nobody but Mr. James Leman to be at liberty, for fourteen years to come, to devise or practise any improvement or alteration in the manufacture of soap? It is scarcely necessary to say, that such a patent is good for nothing. Even as limited by the specifica

tion, it is a most nugatory affair. The right which Mr. J. Leman claims to have acquired by "a communication from abroad" is an exclusive right to the manufacture and sale of all sorts of chlorated soap, that is, of all soap in which there is any mixture of chlorine! Mr. Leman is in the same case with Mr. Phillips. He may have a right to the exclusive use of any method of his own invention of making chlorated soap, but he is all abroad" in claiming a right to the chlorine per se.

JAMES MITCHELL, of Truro, Cornwall."Improvement in the Process of Smelting Argentiferous Ores."-Sealed 22d June; Specification enrolled 22d December, 1835.

The patentee claims as his invention the process of submitting successive charges of argentiferous ores, free, or nearly free, from sulphur and arsenic, to fusion, by means of the sulphuret produced from the previous or first charge; whether such sulphuret he produced by the addition of sulphur or iron pyrites, or from sulphur contained in the argentiferous ores themselves. The patentee describes the processes of smelting according to his invention at some length, and with considerable perspicuity. He does not, however, state the advantages which his system has over the processes

in common use.

WILLIAM CROFTS, of New Radford, Machine-maker. For "certain Improvements in certain Machinery for making Figured or Ornamented Bobbin-Net, or what is commonly called Ornamented Bobbin-Net Lace; part of which Improvements are Extensions of certain Improvements for which Letters Patent have been granted to him, bearing date the 27th day of May, 1834."-Patent dated 26th June; Specification enrolled 26th December, 1835.

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The world has heard of "monster" bombs and "monster" processes; it now falls to our lot to present it with a new subject for amazement in a monster" specification. Any thing so monstrous in the patent way as this specification of Mr. Crofts', certainly never came under our observation before. It occupies no less than 65 skins of parchment; and is accompanied by 49 sheets of drawings of most complicated machinery! The stamps alone cost 1177. The folios being in number 1,168, a copy, at the office-charge of 8d. per folio, would cost an applicant 381. 18s. 8d., besides, at least, 1001. for a copy of the drawings;

and it is to be observed, that a copy of part of a specification cannot be obtained the whole must be taken, or none.

The specification, which is said to have been drawn by Mr. Farey, is for improvements in bobbin-net machinery by Mr. Grofts, the well-known and ingenious superintendent of the extensive works of Messrs. Fishers. It is only one of many patents taken out or bought by that wealthy and enterprising firm. Deferring till our next the observations we shall have to make on it as a remarkable exemplification of the evils arising from the present state of the Patent Laws, we shall content ourselves, for the present, with giving some account of the inventions patented (for there are nine in all included in the patent), and of the specification itself, in a technical point of view.

The first invention of the nine is a mode of interspersing patches of clothwork in the transparent texture of bobbinnet. To this end the bobbin-threads are diverted from their usual diagonal courses, and made to run parallel with the warpthreads; the whole equally interspaced together, form the warp of the clothwork, the weft being supplied from an extra beam, and worked with extra guides and guide-bars. Mr. Crofts' claim is for effecting the above purpose on the pushermachine-the application of the plan to the levers, to rotary and other circular machines, and to a single-tier, inverted circular, bolt machine, having been patented before.

The second is one for spotting the net by slackening the carriage-threads where the spot is intended to be, and lapping them over the right and left warp-threads often enough to form a spot of the necessary magnitude. Pieces called in the patent "forks," "and which are much like pushers, are affixed to bars in front and rear of the machine, and are at proper times brought to present their ends to the carriage-threads concerned a little above the tops of the carriages, and stop them a little before the carriage has completed its motion; so that in completing its motion the carriage draws the necessary quantity of thread off the bobbin. The warp-threads round which these slackened carriage-threads are lapped are threaded through guides on extra bars; and before the carriages enter the warp-threads again, these extra bars are racked so that the slackened carriage-threads are lapped

round them. The rest of the machine and threads standing still, an opportunity is given to take up with the points as often as is necessary to gather the slackened threads in quantities sufficient to form the spot, without deranging the meshes of the plain net or the twists already on. As the spots are arranged in diagonal lines, i tis necessary that there be two pairs of extra guide-bars and of fork-bars, one of which places the spots in the longitudinal spaces left vacant by the other. This article describes the application of the plan to circular machines generally, giving preference to the flutedroller machine, and using it to exemplify the action of the contrivance.

The third article of the specification applies the same invention to the levers' machine; and the fourth to the pushermachine. It will be observed, that in all these cases the production of plain net is discontinued while the spots are made.

The fifth article is for effecting the same kind of spotting by slackening carriage-threads on the single-bladed-locker rotary-machine. The contrivance is, however, different in this case.

When the spotting begins, the driving-bars are lifted up quite above the tops of the carriages, and are there lodged in certain fixed standards, while the carriages concerned are passed through and through the warp-threads by pushers on an extra bar; which pushers during the ordinary working of the machine lie under the driving-bars with their ends a little retired within the edges of them, so as not to interfere with the working of the ma chine while making plain net. The driv ing-bars are lodged at such a height and width as to stop the carriage-threads as the forks do, described in the second article; the remaining observations of that article apply also to this contrivance. In this plan, also, the making of plain net is interrupted by the spotting process.

The sixth article contains a plan for spotting on the pusher-machine, by slackening warp-threads. The warpthreads concerned in spotting are supplied from an extra beam; their tension being relaxed, when necessary, by a small rotary movement of the beam. The warp-threads, which are threaded on the extra bars in this as in the former articles, perform the duties of ordinary warp-threads, when spotting is not going on. The carriage-threads,

which meet where each spot is placed, take a return traverse, instead of a direct one, as in the case of oilet-holing: by this means is gained the tension of carriage-threads, necessary to hold out the successive lappings of the warpthreads, and thus display the spot. The spot is, in fact, a oilet-hole, with a warp-thread passed across and across it. This mode of spotting does not interrupt the making of plain net.

The seventh and eighth articles are for making spots in that kind of net (of which there are several sorts) which has no threads, that completely traverse the piece. The spot is made by successive laps of slackened warp-threads round adjacent carriage-threads. This method is applied in each article respectively to the levers and circular-bolt machine.

The ninth article is for substituting combs for bolts in the three-bolt-bar machine already patented. Many of

our lace-making readers may, perhaps, not know that this is a machine in which the guide bars are separated far enough to allow a third bolt bar to be placed between them.

We have thus given, as near as we can from memory, an account of the inventions described in this notable specification: we say 66 as near as we can from memory," for the rules of the office allow no notes whatever to be taken.

The length of this specification has attracted much attention in the offices; it arises partly from the extreme complexity of the inventions and of the machinery to which they are applied; partly from the extraordinary number of contrivances covered by this one patent; and partly from the excessive minuteness of detail and amplitude of description which Mr. Farey has thought, and usually thinks, necessary to employ.

PRINCIPLES OF RAILWAY TRANSIT.

Sir, I have but recently had an opportunity of reading some of the later Numbers of your interesting Magazine, in which my attention was attracted to some articles on the subject of friction on railways by your ingenious correspondent, X. Y. Z. I now hasten to reply to a question he put to me in one of those articles. He asks, in reference to an ob

servation made in a paper of mine, “ Are not the opposing forces equal when a train of carriages are moving with a velocity of 30 miles an hour?" The ambiguity in the observation will be cleared up, and the truth of the remark made ob. vious, by referring to the line of argument made use of by Mr Whitehead and Mr. Stephenson, and, in general, all Mr. Badnall's opponents on this particular point. The question is answered thus:Either those opposing forces are equal when the trains are moving with the above velocity, or they are not. If the latter, the question is answered; if the former, then do we get a velocity of 30 miles an hour gratuitously, and without any expenditure of locomotive-power, on the horizontal line. But if such be the fact, then we will not allow Mr. Badnall's opponents, in reasoning on the undulating line, to say, that as friction and locomotive power are equal, we are bound to assume that there is no friction on that line; if they will not wave the matter of friction on our line, (why should they?) neither will it be dispensed with on the undu lating line; and when we have a velocity of thirty miles an hour, gratuitously on the latter, we well know how to add to that velocity the increased velocity obtained by means of inclined planes. So that, independent of the nice question your correspondent has raised (and I have no doubt but he is correct in his views), the mathematical investigation can be satisfactorily decided on the old theory of friction. This question of friction has caused such a diversity of opinion among eminent mathematical characters, that a proper experimental and theoretical investigation cannot possibly be much longer delayed, particnlarly when the question is of so much importance. I conceive the error in the theory heretofore has been, that the friction of a heavy body in motion is calculated on the same principles as that of a lighter body; and that if the friction of these two bodies be equal, that is, be measured by the same weight, although one of the bodies weigh one ton, and the other but one pound, every other circumstance connected with the motion of these bodies, as far as friction is the subject matter in question, will be equal; which will no doubt be found an erroneous doctrine. I remain, Sir, &c., MENTOR.

MR. MACKINTOSH'S ELECTRICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.

Sir, I read with great pleasure, in No. 645 of your valuable Magazine, Mr. Thomas Macintosh's electrical theory of the universe. Mr. M. ascribes the revolution of the planets round the sun, to the action of gravity urging them down an inclined plane. This is a good way to account for it, and very simple. He supposes that when a comet first leaves the sun, it is repelled from it by being charged with the same electricity. Now I suppose this electricity to be identical with heat; that while the comet is highly charged, or in a great state of heat, the matter of which it is composed is suspended in an aerial form; that after cooling a little it becomes condensed, not into earth and water, but into a mixture of both; and that, being in a high state of heat, and consequently like all substances so situated, not held together by any great attraction, it will divide into a planet and satellites, taking their stations on the verge of the solar system. A gloomy darkness will now prevail; and although a planet so formed be too far distant from the sun to receive much of his light and warmth, yet the internal heat will be sufficient to enable those huge monsters which we find buried deepest in the bowels of our earth to commence their reign. In the course of time, the smaller satellites cooling, fall into the planet, burying these monsters, making in the place where they fall continents of drier and harder materials, fit for animals of a higher order. These are in their turn buried, to make room for other animals of a still higher class, intermixed with plants and vegetables; which are again buried by the falling of some other of the satellites; the animals destined to fulfil some purpose of which we are ignorant, and the forests to be converted into coal for the use of man. The more fluid part of each satellite às it falls will spread itself over the surface of the planet; and the more solid, form where it falls a continent, distinguished by its peculiar description of plants and animals. As the heat of the planet is gradually dissipated, it becomes less repelled by the sun, which it consequently gradually approaches; for I am of opinion that, like a bottle exposed to the sun wrapped in wet flannel, the internal temperature of the planets is not increased,

Man

but greatly decreased by its action. is at length created rude and savage, but as he gradually approaches the sun his intellect improves, until his planet having become the nearest to the sun the millenium commences, which lasts until the planet, having parted with most of its internal heat, is no longer sufficiently repelled by the sun to overcome the force of gravity, and consequently falls into it to be again heated and again expelled to undergo a similar routine.

Any one who studies the formation of our planet-who looks at the animals that have once inhabited it, formed like the crocodiles and alligators, to live only in very warm climates, and attended also to the proofs of great internal heat having at one time acted upon the materials of our globe, will be convinced that these things cannot be accounted for by the action of the sun on our planet at the distance at which we now are.

According to Mr. Mackintosh's theory, we must suppose Herschel to be inhabited by the Saurians and other monsters; Jupiter and Saturn by others of a higher description, and also plants. The fact of the more distant planets being attended by so many satellites, tends greatly to the support of this theory; and if the procession of the equinox could be ascribed to the gradual approach of our planet towards the sun, this would be an additional confirmation.-Yours, &c.

NOTES AND NOTICES.

G W. L.

The Cossipore Foundry Roof.-The following extract from the Calcutta Courier, which we omitted to give along with the description of this skilfully constructed roof inserted in our last Number, places the saving of material and expense effected by it in a very striking light. "The roof is coppered, but notwithstanding the expense of the copper (about 6,000 rupees), the entire cost of it, we are assured, did not exceed 11,000 rupees, exclusive of the original cost of the iron beams, which belonged to Government, and had long been lying near the Fort; and so little timber has been expended in the construction, that it is calculated there is a saving of more than 300 tons in weight compared with an ordinary roof of the same magnitude, and without reference to the increasing proportions and extra lateral supports which the great span would have required. The saving in expense is even more remarkable; for even at the common rate for laying a terraced roof the charge would have been upwards of 15,000 rupees, and the estimate given in by a professional man for an iron roof (or rather a trussed roof of timber, with only iron ties and braces), was actually 40,000 rupees. The whole merit of this most creditable construction of science and simplicity rests with Major Hutchinson, the superintendent of the works."

The Hereford Bone-Crushing Machine.-Sir,In your Magazine dated 7th November, I see amongst the "Notes and Notices" a paragraph

taken from a Hereford paper, giving an account of an experimental trial at the Hereford Foundry of a double-cylinder bone-grinding machine; in which, after stating the intention of the wonderful mill, the writer proceeds to say, that "should the enter prising proprietor succeed in perfecting the machine," &c., thereby implying that the thing is a new invention, not yet arrived at complete maturity. I happened to be at Hereford at the time, and hastened to the foundry, expecting to see something new, when, to my surprise, I found a machine which has been used in the docks at Liverpool for many years to grind mortar, clay, &c., and which was positively purchased at Liverpool and brought to Hereford to amuse the natives as a 66 rara avis." The bait seemed to have taken, as numbers flocked to see the wonder! As to " perfecting" the machine, nothing is left to be done in that way, and with respect to its utility for the purposes assigned, the grossest ignorance alone could have suggested its application to the crushing of bones, and similar substances. The construction of this vaunted machine must be familiar to all your readers. It is a revolving pan, on which lie two rollers, that are forced round by the resistance of the articles to be ground, and is excellent for mortar, small sand, stones, &c., but quite inapplicable to such organic substances as bones. I forgot to inquire the name of the inventor at Liverrool; but certainly it is not a Hereford irvention, as implied in the paragraph.-I am, Sir, yours respectfully, A TRAVELLER.

LIST OF NEW PATENTS, GRANTED BE TWEEN THE 24TH OF DECEMBER AND 24TH OF JANUARY, 1836.

John Fussell, of Nunney, Somerset, edge toolmaker, for improvements in pumps. Dec. 29; six months to specify.

Joseph Skinner, of Fen-court, London, civil engineer, for improvements in machinery for cutting wood for veneers and other purposes. Dec. 29; six months.

John Hyde, of Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancaster, cotton manufacturer, for improvements in machinery for carding cotton and other fibrous substances. Dec. 31; six months.

Pierre Erard, of Great Marlborough-street, musical instrument-maker, for certain improvements on piano-fortes and other keyed musical instruments for the term of seven years, from the 22nd day of December instant; being an extension of former Letters Patent granted to Pierre Erard by his late Majesty, King George IV. Dec. 31,

John Blyth, of Limehouse, engineer, for an improved method of retarding the progress of carriages in certain cases. Dec. 31; six months.]

Theodore Lyman Wright, of Sloane-street, Chelsea, for a certain improvement or certain improvements in machinery or apparatus for cleansing, purifying, and preparing feathers and down for domestic uses, and in the process or method of effecting the same; being a communication from a foreigner residing abroad. Dec. 31; six months.

James Champion, of Salford, Lancaster, machine-maker, for certain improvements in ma chinery for spinning, twisting, and doubling cotton and other fibrous substances. Jan. 6, 1836; six months.

John Ramsbottom, of Todmorden, Lancaster, mechanist, for certain improvements in machinery for roving, spinning, and doubling cotton and other fibrous substances. Jan. 6; six months.

William Harter, of Manchester, silk manufacturer, for certain improvements in machinery for winding, cleaning, drawing, and doubling hard and soft silk. Jan. 8; six months.

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