CuMICAL Nowe)
July 2, 1880.

The New Patent Bill.

Ix

han 07 of base. Some of them show as little as 0'39 ot
hase. If he had operated upon exceptional samples, in
which the CaO(MnO,),, of normal finished mud had been
replaced by MnO(MnOy);, his samples might have conrained
 as little lime as he found in them, or even none at
all ; but they would then have contained an exceptionally
large proportion of MnO. He finds in them, however,
only the normal proportion of MnO. If, then, his determinations
 of MnO are accurate, his determinations of
CaO must be wrong.
Dr. Post imagines that his results are confirmed by an
analysis of Dr. Lunge’s. From Dr. Lunge’s figures he
draws the conclusion that Dr, Lunge’s sample contained
“no trace of CaO.” But he arrives at that conclusion
only by completely ignoring readion B, and assuming
that what almost certainly was MgCl, was MgO. Moreover,
 while the * base” in normal Weldon mud unquestionably
 consists chiefly of CaO, and only to a smaller
extent of MnO, it may, as I have shown above, consist
entirely of MrO ; and while Dr. Lunge’s figures do not
show what the base in his sample consisted of, between
Dr. Lunge’s results and Dr. Post's there is the essential
difference that Dr. Lunge’s results do show a proportion
of base in perfe& accord with the quantity of lime re.
quired to produce Weldon mud and the quantity of acid
required to dissolve it, whereas if Dr. Post’s results were
‘rue, some of the matter put into the oxidiser, in the
sourse of the operation by which his samples were made,
must have become annihilated. Analyses which show
that some of the matter used in making the product
analysed has ceased to exist, cannot be accurate.
Believing, as he does, that he has proved that Weldon
mud contains very much less base than corresponds with
the quantity of lime used in making it, it is strange that
Dr. Post should not have tested the soundness of that
belief by ascertaining how much hydrochloric acid it decomposes
 and neutralises per unit of chlorine liberated by it
therefrom. To omit doing that is like omitting to ascertain
 whether or not supposed diamonds are attackable by
hydrofluoric acid.—I am, &c.
WALTER WELDON,
Rede Hall, Burstow,
June 18, 1880.

shorter time, seem alone to fill the head and heart of his
British confrére. It is notorious that American strikes are
in almost all cases got up, not by American, but by
British or Continental workmen who have emigrated to
the States. Whilst the Republican character of American
life and institutions is, te a large extent, accountable for
this peculiar spirit and sentiment of the native American
artisan, there cannot be a doubt that one of its most im.
portant factors is the extreme facility with which he can
iecure possession of his inventions.
As a consequence, his brain is always at work scheming
some new labour-saving or other appliance, whereas in
England, as a rule, the tremendous Government tax of
£25 (amounting, with agents’ fees, principally for useless
Zovernment formalities, to nearly £40) during the first six
months makes it hopeless for the workman to prote&t his
discovery without first revealing it to some capitalist
whose aid he is compelled to invoke.
In the chemical works where I write this (the largest of
‘ts kind on the globe) there is not one working man to
whom I could truthfully point and say—* He has the inventing
 animus.” The afflatus may exist, but in the
=ntire absence of motive it is now hopelessly asleep.
Taking it as conceded, then, that the door to invention
should be opened to the working man by lowering the
‘nitial charge for patents, we are met next by the consideration
 that if the tax in subsequent years be made
axtremely low, dead and worthless patents may be kept in
force merely on the dog-in-the-manger principle of blocking
 the path for others. This is, I believe, recognised to
Se a very serious pra&ical objection to the plan of low
subsequent charges, and I would venture, therefore, after
much thought upon the subje, to suggest the following
scheme through the medium of your columns :—That,
aking the duration of the patent to be 21 years, as now
proposed, the first year’s Government tax should be £1,
the second year's £2, the third £3, and so on till the last
year, when it would be £21. Under this arrangement no
working man would be deterred from fully securing his
‘nvention. Impra®icable or unprofitable patents would
jie a natural death (everybody knowing when they had
ziven up the ghost), and the Government upon every
patent which was worth keeping up for the full term
would colle& a tax (and that, too, in the least oppressive
way) of £231.
The resulting revenue might be well utilised in perfeéting
 the Patent Office publications, say by a prompt and
regular weekly issue of abridgments of patents whose
close time had expired. These abridgments to be drawn
up by experts in every department, and to have an index
attached giving full references to every abridgment issued
since the appearance of the last yearly volume. The roll
of special class abridgments should also all be completed
up to within a year of date, and every other facility
should be given to the intending inventor to ascertain
exadétly what had been done up to date in his special field.
For want of these reasonable and simple arrangements
incalculable loss is, to my certain knowledge, done every
day to British invention, as inventors are, in numberless
cases, afraid to dive into the mass of complicated indexes
and unabridged patents (generally behind date) at present
srovided. A few years ago I obtained the signatures of
ieading British inventors and manufacturers to a memorial
asking a weekly issue of abridgments with index incorporating
 weekly all previous indexes since the issue of the
last yearly volume, the object being to keep every inventor
thoroughly posted up to date in his particular department.
The request was granted by the Patents’ Commissioners,
but as the abridgments given were the optional ones of
the inventors (in many cases being mere titles!), and as
the Commissioners would spend nothing in employing
technical men to prepare the abridgments, the publication
soon proved practically worthless, and was abandoned.
If, in addition to such perfe@ing of the publications, it
were considered necessary or desirable for illiterate inventors
 to provide official technical examiners, the revenue

CELLULOID.

To the Editor of the Chemical News.
S1r,—W. Donald would probably obtain full information
by applying to the patentee, Daniel Spill, Esq., Chingford
Hall, Leyton, Essex. E
S.E. P.

THE NEW PATENT BILL.
To the Editor of the Chemical News.
S1R,—As an English inventor and patentee who has resided
 for some years in the United States, permit me to
tender you my hearty thanks for your spirited and sagarious
 remarks on this subject, and especially for your comparison
 of the influence upon invention of the cheap
American patent system (total Government tax £7 4s.)
with that of our own expensive and, indeed, prohibitory
tax (total Government charges £175).
It is as plain as a pike-staff to thinking men that in the
coming years England cannot hold her own in the struggle
with other manufacturing nations if legislation is to continue
 in this way to handicap the brain of the inventor.
As a labourer in saw mills, and at other times as mining
and chemical engineer in Arizona, California, and Vancouver's
 Island, and thus mixing with Americans in all
grades of life, I was constantly struck with the progressive
spirit and inventing animus of the American artisan,
Everywhere he appeared destitute of the class feelings and
ideas which, in the form of struggles for higher wages or