534 Notices of Books. [Oétober, 
The work before us is a valuable and a welcome contribution 
to a knowledge of our present patent-law system, a system which, 
with all its admitted imperfections, has done much for our national 
manufacturers and much for industrial science. Those very men 
who are now barking against the system owe to it, indiredtly, 
everything. It therefore deserves that we should make it the 
subject of careful study, so that its blemishes and shortcomings 
may be removed without the sacrifice of its merits. 
Mr. Higgins has given us, in a very natural and convenient 
order, the recorded decisions of the courts of Law and Equity on 
every branch of this great and difficult subject. From these 
decisions the state of the law upon any point connected with 
patents may be deduced. | 
The learned author has not, indeed, sought to explain or justify 
the decisions, to reconcile real or apparent discrepancies, or to 
furnish any note or comment whatever. Had he done so the 
volume might have been expanded to an extent which would have 
greatly interfered with its utility. But he enables even persons 
not learned in the law to form a clear notion of the circumstances 
and conditions under which patents are granted, and of the 
rights, duties, and liabilities of patentees. The decisions are 
grouped under such heads as persons interested would naturally 
expect, and within these divisions they are arranged in chronolo- 
gical order. Does the reader wish to know what may be legally 
made the subject-matter of letters-patent? He finds that head 
in the copious table of contents and under it the decisions in 
point. Does he wish for information on sale and assignment, on 
licences and royalties, on joint ownership, or on infringement? 
It is all here. The work is further provided with a ‘table of 
cases”’ showing the original documents in which the decisions 
are found and the paragraphs in which they are quoted in this 
digest. There is alsoa very elaborate index. In fine, we must 
pronounce the book not only invaluable to patent agents, but 
likely to protect inventors, patentees, and manufacturers from 
much unnecessary trouble, anxiety, and expense. 
Corals and Coral Islands. By James D. Dana, LL.D. Lon- 
don: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle. 
Corats have long been a subject for conflicting theories, and 
a theme for sentimental declamation. They were once classified 
as vegetables. By certain speculators they are even yet imag- 
ined to be purely mineral developments, a kind of crystallisation, 
due to electrical forces, which Dr. Dana justly characterises as 
‘‘the first and last appeal of ignorance.” Some even of those 
who cannot deny the evidence of their animal nature entertain 
the wildest notions as to their manner of life and as to the mode 
in which coral reefs are produced. Those delicately branched 
