612 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by the evaporation of sal enixum or muriate of ammonia ; not because 

 they are ignorant of the fact that minutes and hours may intervene 

 between a cause and its visible effect, but because they yearn to sub- 

 stitute mystery for simple and intelligible truth. Not everybody could 

 be expected to investigate the matter by expensive and laborious ex- 

 periments, but all unmystified human beings could and should be able 

 to foresee the result in regard to the main point, or suspend their 

 opinion altogether rather than accept the enchantment theory. Not 

 their poverty but their will consents. The witchcraft delusion had 

 long been exposed in all its bottomless absurdity when people still 

 believed in weather-wizards, were-wolves, and broomstick excursions 

 through the chimney ; and, after ninety-eight " mediums " have been 

 caught in flagranti, the ninety-ninth can collect a roomful of grown- 

 up persons who are kind enough to think it possible that disembodied 

 souls could handle a fiddle-stick, or that flying beans and cherry-stones 

 emanate from a spirit-popgun. 



Venomous serpents would disappear without the aid of St. Patrick 

 if they had to rely on the charm of their eyes for a dinner ; for a 

 rattlesnake, deprived of its chemicals, would starve as surely as a 

 " magic slate-writing medium " in a like predicament. 



NOVELTY IN PATENTS. . 



By OLIVEK E. LYMAN. 



BY the statute of 1870 it was enacted that an invention, to be 

 patentable, must possess, among other qualifications, that of 

 newness or novelty. But what constitutes novelty is not defined. 

 The solution of the question is left to be determined according to the 

 circumstances of each particular case. It is this fact which makes 

 the question such a difficult one to be answered ; for in each case there 

 is generally some little element present which distinguishes it from 

 other cases, and makes it impossible to frame one decided rule of uni- 

 versal application. The question is also rendered less easy of solution 

 from the fact that it comes up most frequently in its most difficult 

 aspect in cases of infringement, where the point under discussion is, 

 whether the alleged invention is, or is not, substantially identical with 

 some prior existing thing, which has been in common use here or de- 

 scribed in some patent or printed publication. Yet, despite the nicety 

 in which this question of novelty is involved, we are not compelled to 

 leave it entirely unsolved. A careful study of the subject discloses 

 certain principles which by their application somewhat prune down 

 the difficulty. "We are fortunate in being able to approach the ques- 

 tion from two sides ; for, as was true in the case of the two-faced 



