810 Transactions of the American Institute. 



' One of the principal incentives to the formation of a stock company 

 to work a patent, is the certainty with .wliieh the patent can be 

 managed. The majority of tlie stock dictates the policy. There 

 may not be harmony among the owners, but there is pretty certain 

 to be a unity in action. "Where patents are owned in fractions by 

 individuals, either owner, hanging back, can veto the action of the 

 others, and the whole proceedings come to a dead lock. An owner 

 of stock in a company cannot do this ; he can only exercise his rights 

 in electing the directors. If his party is defeated, his power is at an 

 end until the next election. An incorporated company threatens or 

 sues, compromises or surrenders, as its officers judge for the best 

 interests of the whole, without any compelled deference to the wishes 

 of the inventor or any other partial owner. 



In the discussion which followed Mr. Stetson's paper, Dr. Parmelee 

 remarked, that when the improvement in children's shoes, by having 

 the toes copper-tipped, was first introduced, he thought very little of 

 it, and a friend of his was ofiered one-quarter of the patent for $500 ; 

 but after two years, that interest could not be had for $25,000. 



The chairman presented his usual budget of scientific news, as fol- 

 lows: 



Great Bridge over the Ohio Eiver. 

 The iron railway bridge now in course of construction between 

 Louisville, Ky., and Jefi'ersonville, Ind., will be just one mile in 

 length. It will have twenty-four spans, two of these wiU be 370 feet 

 each, and six, 245.5 feet each. Excepting on the longest spans, the 

 rails will be placed on the tops of the girders, these being of the class 

 known as the Fink truss. A description of the truss is here quoted 

 from a paper on " American Iron Bridges," read by Mr. Colburn, 

 before the London Institution of Civil Engineers. " In this bridge a 

 pair of diagonal tension bars connect the foot of the principal strut or 

 ' king-post ' in each truss, with the ends of the top chord. This pair 

 of diagonal bars supports one of the whole weight of the truss and 

 its load. Each half span is subdivided by a strut ; and two diagonal 

 tension bars extend, one to the nearest end of the top chord, and the 

 other to the top of the center post. Each quarter span is again sub- 

 divided into eighths, and these again, for spans greater than 100 

 feet, into sixteenths. In a truss of this kind, having sixteen panels, 

 the weight of the bottom of the strut nearest to either of the piers is 

 distributed as follows: Calling the weight one, one-hall' is trans- 



