Evohition of the Mechanic Arts. 209 



something like 1500 pages each, or 6,000 pages in all, con- 

 sisting only of what may be called the cream of invention 

 and Patent-Office work for the year, separated from the 

 skim-milk. These 6,000 pages contain only the claims of 

 the patents, and one figure from the drawings of the patent 

 intended to aid the understanding of the claims of the 

 inventor. Including design patents, the patents for that 

 year were upwards of 20,000, involving an average issue of 

 400 patents or more per week, not counting the applications 

 for patents not issued. These volumes are made up of 

 weekly issues of the Patent Office Gazette, containing from 

 125 to 150 pages, costing ten cents each, or $5.00 per year. 

 It is, as you will recognize, a marvel of cheapness, perfec- 

 tion and rapidity of execution, that in itself makes the 

 Patent Office Gazette a worthy badge of the evolution of 

 the mechanic arts, since the whole of the work is mechani- 

 cal, i. e., done by machinery. Contrast with these four 

 volumes the volume (a small book of 519 pages) consisting 

 of the Patent Office reports for 1851, and you will begin to 

 obtain a glimpse of what has been done in the evolution of 

 the mechanic arts during the last forty years. 



In the year 1851, 872 patents were granted ; frequently 

 now, 500 patents are issued in a single week, and on an 

 average more than 800 are issued every two weeks. If I 

 could set before you in a row the Patent Office reports 

 and Gazettes, you would have the means, if inclined to phi- 

 losophic speculation, of mapping or plotting out the various 

 social, political, business, military and other cataclysms 

 that have happened in this country during the past forty or 

 fifty years, together with the intervals of peace and gen- 

 eral uplift to the table-lands of national and individual 

 prosperity. Prior to 1855 was the day of small things ; 

 the patents issued per year did not average 1,000. An in- 

 crease in prosperity is indicated in the number and size of 

 the volumes and the number of patents issued during 1854, 

 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858 ; then an ominous drop, pitching 

 toward 1861. From this there was no recovery before 1864. 

 Beginning, however, in 1865 and 1866, there was a rapid in- 

 crease in the number and size of the volumes and number of 

 patents issued, in accordance with the increase of national 

 prosperity. From 1872 to 1879, inclusive, the two annual vol- 

 umes about equalled in size and contents one of these large 

 quarter-yearly ones. Then, following the adoption of specie 



