594 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 276. 



finest technical library in the world, to need 

 larger and better quarters for its work, and it is 

 even crowded in its own building by squatting 

 bureaus of the Treasury Department Land 

 Office. 



The report on the number of patents issued 

 in 1899 gives the number from New York as 

 3798; Pennsylvania, 2355; Illinois, 2152; 

 Massachusetts, 1774 ; Ohio, 1501. Connecticut, 

 however, as famous as ever in this direction, 

 leads the list in inventiveness, securing one 

 patent to each 945 inhabitants ; the District of 

 Columbia, curiously enough, but probably by 

 a legal fiction, follows with 1 to every 1151, 

 Massachusetts with 1 to each 1261 people, Rhode 

 Island with 1 to 1270, New York coming in as 

 number eight, with 1 to 1579. South Carolina 

 ends the list with 1 to 25,024 people and North 

 Carolina is next with 1 to 21,012. New Eng- 

 land, as always, stands in the van, for the United 

 States and the world, in inventiveness. 



Of other countries, Great Britain leads, Ger- 

 many stands next, and France is third in the 

 list of foreign patentees in the United States 

 Patent Office. 



In performing their work of research, to solve 

 the question of originality on the part of the 

 inventor, the examiners have to seek among 

 700,000 earlier United States patents, 1,250,000 

 foreign patents and 74,000 published volumes 

 of inventions and scientific and industrial 

 treatises. But, as the Commissioner states, 

 " The lack of suitable room greatly hampers 

 and unnecessarily delays the work in many 

 divisions." 



This is now the regular and invariable gen- 

 eral formula of the report of the United States 

 Patent Office. It has been thus for many years 

 past ; exhibiting an enormous amount of work, 

 performed under most unfavorable conditions ; 

 giving our country the leading position in 

 invention, and in many industries ; promoting 

 the wealth of the nation enormously; earning 

 an annual surplus ; yet refused the use of its 

 own earnings even to provide imperatively 

 needed space and equipment, and forbidden 

 even to add to its own library, its most es- 

 sential tool, or to dispose of duplicate and useless 

 books in exchange for others more needed. 



Through the efforts and the genius of our in- 



ventors, the cost of products in every depart- 

 ment of industry has been reduced to a fraction 

 of the figures of a generation ago ; the work of 

 one man had been made more effective than 

 was then the work of, in some cases, a dozen, 

 and the wealth of the country is, by these means, 

 being augmented, and all its attendant comforts 

 and privileges increased to the average citizen, 

 at the rate of one hundred per cent, in a gen- 

 eration. Yet the inventor is ungratefully neg- 

 lected, and Congress devotes itself to 'politics' 

 rather than statecraft. 



Many organizations, and hundreds of indi- 

 vidual citizens, made aware of these discredit- 

 able facts, are urging upon members of Congress 

 to give proper attention to the Patent Office ; 

 but it apparently will require more pressure 

 than the American Society of Mechanical En- 

 gineers, and all the other national associations 

 seeking to promote this reform, can exert to 

 insure attention to a primary duty. Every citi- 

 zen has an interest in this matter, and should 

 do what he can to bring about a reform in Con- 

 gress, and the provision for the Patent Office of 

 every need and convenience. 



E. H. Thueston. 



BRINTON MEMORIAL CHAIR IN THE UNI- 

 VERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



Scholars the woi-ld over are appreciative of 

 the achievements of the late Daniel Garrison 

 Brinton for he established on a firm basis the 

 branches of learning to which he devoted his 

 life. He is justlj' named the 'Founder of 

 Americair Anthropology.' 



A close student of the intricate problems of 

 his science, he possessed the rare art of clearly 

 and concisely presenting facts at their true 

 values. He believed in ' The general inculca- 

 tion of the love of truth, scientific, verifiable 

 truth ' and that knowlege should subserve use- 

 fulness. 



A keen observer, a classical scholar, an adept 

 in the methods of logic and philosophy. Dr. 

 Brinton had ever the practical application of 

 truth in view. To the systematic study of man 

 he brought to bear his all rounded culture to 

 further the happiness and fullness of the indi- 

 vidual life. He regarded the individual as the 

 starting point and goal of anthropology. Upon 



