514 Thoughts Suggested by Patent Rights. [October, 



must have something more than a wooden fire under a sand 

 pot in a desert; we must have the fine adjustment of the 

 silica to the soda and the potash, and the lead or the lime ; 

 the fine toning of shade at times by manganese ; the 

 colouring by oxides of copper, of zinc, of uranium, and other 

 metals ; the Siemens's furnace for the large pots, and the 

 heavy machinery for lifting the melted mass pouring on 

 the thick iron tables, and rolling it ; the fine arrangements 

 for annealing at a proper temperature, and the machinery 

 as well as the choice of sand, emery, and oxides of iron for 

 the polishing. Then the blowing, colouring, cutting, mould- 

 ing, designing. We shall not enumerate all the complicated 

 labours of sugar refiners. The hen and the clay have long 

 been forgotten, and the sugar refiner must use the latest 

 inventions of science, namely, the newest forms of polari- 

 scope, and the finest chemical tests to examine the samples 

 in order to see whether the sugar is worth buying and 

 worthy of his labour. No accidents help men as a rule in 

 inventions, except such as happen to all men who are ready 

 to see the phenomena of nature as they occur. There are 

 a few accidental appearances, slight openings into unknown 

 chambers of nature and art, which are shown but for a moment 

 as if some stone had fallen down and the slaves of nature had 

 not had time to cover it; but as a rule inventors dig and 

 fight these slaves on their own ground until by conquest 

 the two become friends. We could tell of many patents 

 that required years of labour before they were fit for the 

 public, and even of some which were the result of the ex- 

 perience of half a life. We could tell also of others taken 

 by two persons in the same month ; of these many came 

 to nothing. One, as an instance, was an idea caused by the 

 general current of thought regarding atmospheric railways, 

 and the people preferred to have the patent first lest it should 

 be lost to them, so much do inventors live in terror of pirates. 

 We are led again to this point, Do individuals think, or 

 does the community ? We agree with the writer in the 

 January number of this Journal, " It is to the individual 

 that nature and providence give the rich rare gifts that 

 advance humanity. The history of the few has been the 

 history of human progress ; and a lost thought may roll for 

 ages through creation without finding a mind to comprehend 

 it or a brain to make it useful to society." Had Horace not 

 lived, who would have given us his charming odes ? would 

 they ever have been written by Virgil instead, in order to 

 make up for the want of a Horace ? Who would have given 

 us the rich gossips of the east of the Mediterranean if 



