1840.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



429 



fiat remained. Unless the court had jurisdiction, the fiat wouhl, in altering 

 the records of the Court, be conclusive not only against the Court, hut against 

 the Attorney and Solicitor-General themselves, for the act had not provided 

 a mode of amending any mistakes they might have been led into. Where 

 surreptitious or forged documents were discovered to he placed upon the rolls 

 of the court, it w-ould he no answer to an application for theu- removal to say 

 that an action could not be brought upon them. The Court would order an 

 invalid instrument to be delivered up, on the ground that it formed a cloud 

 upon the title of the individual whose interest was sought to be affected by 

 it. 



Mr. Hill and Jlr. Bacon, for Mr. Sharp, against the jietition, said the argu- 

 ments for the petition were, that the specification witli the alteration was a 

 record of the court, that such records might be amended by his Lordship, 

 that the prayer was in substance for an amendment, and that the petitioner 

 had that interest in the question wiiich authorized him to make the applica- 

 tion. The specification with the alterations might for many purposes be a 

 record, but under the colour of that general term inferences not quite sound 

 had been drawn. The patent was granted upon a proviso that the patentee 

 should at a certain time enrol a specification ; but that proviso did not give 

 the specification any of those high attributes of records which had been 

 claimed for it. A record imported verity, and if the petitioner's argument 

 was well-founded, no person could defend an action in which the patentee 

 could prove an infringement of his patent. But from the statute of James I. 

 these records had been treated only as the statement of a party who was 

 bound to prove every averment he made, as that there was an invention, that 

 he was the first inventor, &e. The patentee could not hold up his specifica- 

 tion, and say " Here is a record, you are estopped from saying I am not the 

 first inventor ; my case was determined before we came into court." NotJiing 

 of that sort could be said. The specification was not a record in the sense 

 and for the purposes for which that word had been used, nor was the memo- 

 randum incorporated in the specification such a record. In one of the cases 

 cited (Redmond's) there was a clerical error, and that which had been in- 

 tended was not done. If that had been the case here, his Lordship might, 

 but with considerable trepidation, go back and bring the intention and the 

 act which had parted company into agreement again ; but his Lordship had 

 heen required to erect the Court into a court of appeal over judgment of the 

 Solicitor-General, and to do what that officer might have done had he viewed 

 the matter in a different light. Such a procedure would not come within the 

 doctrine of amendments. It might as well be said that the reversal by writ 

 of error of a judgment at common law was an amendment of the record ; it 

 was confounding things entirely different ; it was not an amendment of the 

 record, but the correction of the errors of an inferior court. In analogy to 

 the practice of the common law, there must be something to amend by. The 

 present was not a question of amendment. Before the statute of William IV. 

 there was no authority that could enable a patentee to disclaim any part of his 

 patent ; it was a new power given to the Crown, and vested in its legal offi- 

 cers. By the common law the Crown had great powers in granting monopo- 

 lies, which by the statute of James were restricted to new inventions, and to 

 the term of 14 years, and where the patentee by his specification had made 

 his claim too large, it was fatal to his patent ; but the late act had given the 

 Attorney-General power to permit the patentee to disclaim a portion of his 

 patent. When a power was created by the Legislature and vested in a cer- 

 tain tribunal, then no other court had jurisdiction. The invention was only 

 one condition — the inventor must have a patent and specification. The me- 

 morandum remaining on the files of the Court decided nothing but that the 

 memorandum was authentic; it did not decide tliat there was an invention, 

 or that the patentee was the inventor. The alleged invention might not be 

 new, but that would be no reason for taking the memorandum oft' the files of 

 the court. A bill in equity was not taken off' the files of the coiu-t because it 

 contained false allegations. If a judgment were eiToneous, it would be a 

 reason to appeal from it, but no reason to take it off" the rolls of the court. 

 The difl'erence was between what was genuine and what was authentic. He 

 did not argue that all was necessarily genuine, but he did say it was all 

 authentic, and the question was to try the authenticity. The argument for 

 the petition went to change the whole course of proceedings in patents from 

 the time of James I., and he would advise his friend, who was the inventor 

 of the doctrine, to get a patent for it. Whether it would stand as a new ma- 

 cliiner}- for trying the validity of patents by their specification before the 

 Master of the Rolls, would be a question. It was said that whatever had any 

 vice would be tak en oif the roUs of the court, which would not bear anything 

 on its rolls which contained an erroneous allegation. The question was, who 

 was the new inventor ? An issue could not be gi'anted to determine the ques- 

 tion of amendment. The SoUcitor-General required advertisements to be 

 made of the application to him, and gave it two hearings ; so that the fiat for 

 filing the memorandum of alterations was not granted in haste, but after due 

 consideration. The validity of patents ought not to be decided in the pre- 

 sent mode of proceeding. The mode of trying those questions had been 

 settled for years, and ought not to be altered. 



Mr. Pemberton replied. As long as the memorandum of the alterations 

 with the fiat of the Solicitor-General remained as part of the rolls of the 

 court, it would not be competent for any person to deny that the memoran- 

 dum was a part of the specification on which the patent was granted. The 

 statute did not authorize the memorandum to be placed on the rolls, for the 

 memorandum did not form part of the specification. He would ask, had the 

 Crown granted letters patent with the alteration ? If it had, the objection 



that his Lordship had no power to interfere would be good ; but if the me- 

 morandum were improperly placed, then it formed no part of the grant, and 

 his Lordsliip would remove it from the record, as he would remove a forged 

 specification or correct a clerical error. 



Lord Langdale said, it was his duty to receive the records of the court, 

 and in his character of recipient he had no doubt of his jurisdiction. He 

 was to receive such documents as parties presented as tlie records of their 

 own acts. If it were shown that documents had been presented which were 

 not an accurate record, it would be his care to discover where the error arose, 

 and to satisfy himself that it was an error. He would see what had been 

 done upon former occasions. 



Mr. Pemberton. — The question was not whether his Lordship could alter 

 a record, but whether the enrolment as it stood was a record. 



NEW INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS. 



An impxoved method of retarding and stopping railway trains ; patented by 

 Henry Montague Grover, of Boveney, Buckingham, Nov. 7.— Claim first.— 

 The application of electro or other magnetism, for the purpose of retardins 

 or stopping railway trains — A magnet, of the ordinary burse-shoe form, is 

 let into a block of n'ood. and fixed by sustaining rods in such a position that 

 its ends are a shnrt dist-.nce from the face of the tire of one of the wheels. 

 A galvanic battery is placed on the bed or platform of the carriage, and a 

 connection of the 'magnet and the face of the tire of the wheel formed when 

 necessary, by means of connecting wires, which will cause the wheel to be 

 retarded or stopped. These magnets may be applied to any number of wheels 

 in this manner, or through one magnet to a kver, and by cranks or otherap- 

 paratus, indirectly to the wheels.— /noc/i^ors' Advocate. 



An improved apparatus or process for producing sculptured forms, figures, and 

 devices, in marble and otiier hard substances ; patented by William Newton, of 

 Chancery-lane, Middlesex, (being a communication from a foreigner residing 

 abroad), Oct. 22.— These improvements consist, first, in the construction of a 

 mould, die, or matrice, of metal or other hard substance, in which the coun- 

 terform of the figure or device intended to be sculptured has been made, and 

 its application to the stone or marble intended to be cut.— Secondly, in the 

 means by which the sculpturing is effected ; viz., by the repetition of slight 

 but rapid blows of the nidvdd. or die, struck against the face of the stone, by 

 which the surface becomes abraded, and particles are gradually broken off, 

 leaving the stone ultimately in a form, or figure, corresponding to the mould 

 or die which has been working upon it.— Claim.— Application of a mould or 

 striking die, which being by any arrangement made to strike a rapid succes- 

 sion of light blows on the substance to be sculptured, shall abrade or wear 

 away the superfluous parts of the surface of the material under operation, and 

 produce a form, or figure, corresponding with the mould or die. — The mould 

 must be mounted in any convenient mechanical apparatus capable of holding, 

 raising, and depressing it, that it miy strike very light but rapid blows on 

 the face of the block to bo sculptured, which must be supported upon firm 

 stationary bearings ; the mould or die is securely atlached to a lever, which 

 is a stronK frame of iron, mounted on pivots, which are made adjustable, in 

 order to regidate the height of the frame, from the block of marble or stone ; 

 to the outer end of the lever a staple also adjustable by a screw and nut is 

 fixed, to which is attached a cord, also connected to a series of cranks and 

 rods, which are mounted in a horse-shaped frame ; a crank in the lower end 

 of this series is acted upon by stops, notches, or teeth, in the periphery of a 

 tappet or rachet wheel, which is acted on by a pulley being made to revolve 

 on its axis driven by a band from any first mover ; so ihat on a rotary motion 

 of the tappet wheel, its teeth will ac"t against the arm of the lower crank, and 

 produce a slight reciprocating motion in the series of cranks and rods, which 

 nill be communicated through the cord to the lever which holds the mould, 

 thereby causing a rapid succession of slight blows to bear upon the surface of 

 the block, and in a short time to abrade all those parts of the stone against 

 which the mould or die strikes. The process will be facilitated by the intro- 

 duction of sand, emery, or diamond dust, with water, at an early stage of 

 the work, and may be introduced by a simple inclined plane, or in any con- 

 venient manner ; towards the end of the process a finer powder should be 

 used and the work will leave the mould in a highly-finished state. This in- 

 vention applies to busts, statues, and groups of figures, even the most com- 

 plicated and extensive, and finishes them with the greatest dehcacy, only it 

 is necessaiT to employ several small moulds instead of one, and it will act 

 equally well on crumbling stone, that would not bear the chisel, as upon a 

 solid mass.— The inventor claims no particular arrangement of apparatus for 

 causing the mould to strike the face of the block, although he considers that 

 above described suitable and appropriate for the purpose.— /i/rf. 



A composition for tlie prevention of corrosion in metals, and for otiier purposes ; 

 patented by Arthur Wall, of Bermondsey, surgeon, October 15, 1840.— This 

 composition is prepared in the following manner :— 20 lb. of strong muriatic 

 acid are diluted with 3 gallons of water and placed in a shallow cast iron 

 vessel ; 112 lb. of steel or iron filings are heated to redness and quenched in 

 the diluted acid to eff'ect their oxidation ; to facilitate this action, the pan is 

 placed on a furnace or sand-bith, and the contents repeatedly stirred for 

 about 24 hours, or until ebullition lakes place, the liquor is then drawn off, 

 and the foregoing process repeated with such portion of the filings as remain 

 unoxidized. The oxide thus obtained is exposed on a red hot iron plate, till 

 all the moisture has been driven off, and the oxide assumes a red appearance. 

 When cold, 161b. of quicksilver are to be added to the mixture, by sifting 

 through a fine sieve, and afterwards intimately incorporated in a mortar ; 

 enough water to cover the surface is then poured over it, and from 8 to 9 lb. 

 of strong nitric or nitrous acid added ; this mixture is to be placed in a sand- 

 bath till all the moisture is driven off. When the mass is dry it is to be well 

 pounded in a mortar till it assumes a uniform state of blackness. All the 



