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THURSDAY, December 24, 1874

PROTECTION FOR INVENTIONS HAT most active and practical body, the Society of Arts, persevering in its endeavours to place our Patent system on an efficient footing, has devoted four evenings to the discussion of the question, the debate being led off by Mr. F. J. Bramwell, C.E., F.R.S., in a paper the ability of which has been warmly and justly extolled on all sides, alike by opponents and supporters, without a dissentient voice.

Mr. Bramwell, being circumscribed by the narrow limits of a short address, confined his attention principally to the question whether or not patents should be abolished. He probably foresaw that the discussion thus provoked would cover wider ground and examine the further question whether the system of patents, if preserved, does not admit of improvement. And it accordingly turned out so, for the latter question was much more fully discussed than the former.

The unanimity of opinion, indeed, as to the expediency of continuing to grant patents for inventions was most remarkable, the principal, if not the only dissentient, being Mr. John Horatio Lloyd, Q.C. This eminent legal authority, who in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee urged the abolition of patents, now came forward, it is true, to declare that his opinions had undergone a change, and "expressed a reluctant acquiescence, though not a settled conviction, as to the expediency of protection for patents ;" and he may therefore object to be ranked amongst the dissentients. We must refer to his speech as our justification for so placing him. This speech may be commended to metaphysicians, as throwing great light on the question whether the soul and the mind of man are distinct and separate. Mr. Lloyd's soul evidently hateth patents, but his mind perceives their necessity. His mind is only permitted to admit this necessity in the brief sentence we have quoted, and his soul then for the space of an hour employs every artifice of rhetoric to prove that the mind's admission is unwarrantable and unsound. In no other way can the discrepancy between the arguments and the conclusions be explained. It is impossible that they can both emanate from one and the same mind, and that an unusually acute mind. They issue, obviously, from two distinct and indeed antagonistic sources. It is not often that the spectacle is afforded us of a good and able man the helpless sport of a psychological contest. Mr. Lloyd's speech settled the main question. Skilful though it was, and delivered with the gentlemanly grace natural to him, the meeting was against him to a man, and listened to him, latterly, even with impatience. After he sat down, no one attempted the task, in which he had so signally failed, of proving that patents are injurious to the community, and, assuming them to be abolished, of providing an effective

substitute.

The discussion then turned chiefly on the defects of the present English system and on the peculiar features of some foreign ones, particularly that of the United States, which was alternately approved and condemned. And here, as in mixed assemblages of Englishmen generally, there was much running after details, much reliance on VOL XI.-No. 269

illustrations, and but a small modicum of broad and systematic treatment. The point principally dwelt on was the necessity for a preliminary examination of patents. This, two members of Parliament-Mr. Hinde Palmer, Q.C., and Mr. Samuelson-informed the meeting, had been recommended by a Committee of the House of Commons on which both speakers had sat; but though some years had elapsed, no steps had been taken in the matter. Col. Strange caused a sensation by stating that the Patent Commissioners had applied to the Council of the Royal Society to nominate one of three eminent men of science who should perform this herculean task without salary, and that that learned body had, much to its credit, scouted the idea. This elicited strong expressions of opinion on the absurdity, injustice, and inexpediency of grudging to scientific men alone, of all those whose labours directly benefit the community, the liberal remuneration to which they are entitled. We have more than once brought this question before our readers, as one of those on which views are held in some quarters having a most prejudicial effect on those scientific reforms which are so urgently needed in England. We have never urged the proper remuneration of scientific labour on the grounds of mere philanthropic liberality to the labourer, but on the much higher ground that it is for the benefit of the nation materially, not less than for that of knowledge, that prospects should be held out of a career to those possessing talents and tastes for scientific pursuits. At present no profession, scarcely any occupation, holds out such small inducements to the rising generation of educated Englishmen as science. It needs no argument to prove that this passive discouragement of one of the spheres of intellectual activity most fruitful of advantages to mankind must have very injurious results, as we know from every-day experience that it has. We are glad to find that Mr. Bramwell, in his masterly summing up of the debate, ranged. himself vigorously on our side of this important question; and it was with pain that we noticed expressions in the contrary sense, dropped, we trust inadvertently, by Mr. Samuelson, who, as a member of the Duke of Devonshire's Science Commission, must be well aware how much science suffers by the narrow neglect with which, as a nation, we treat the investigators of nature. But to return to the question of a preliminary examination of patents.

There was some difference of opinion, though not of an irreconcilable nature, as to the expediency of this measure. It was too much assumed, even by Mr. Bramwell himself, that if such an examination were established here, it would necessarily be conducted in the same manner and with the same objects as in America-a perfectly gratuitous assumption. In America patents are examined mainly for novelty and utility, and are often rejected for failure in either respect. It is apprehended that, since inventors are often in advance of their age, an indiscriminate exercise of the power of rejection may retard the introduction of useful improvements — and several alleged instances of this were adduced. It is not always safe, however, to argue by illustration alone. The illustration may be inaccurately stated or wrongly applied, as in the case of one of those cited by Mr. Cole, who said that the power of rejection "would have prevented the building of the Crystal Palace, which wise men said must

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inevitably be blown down." The speaker no doubt had before his mind an imperfect recollection of the discussion which followed the reading of Mr. (now Sir Digby) Wyatt's paper on the first Great Exhibition building at the Institute of Civil Engineers in January 1851, when one "wise man," the present Astronomer Royal, objected to so purely rectangular a structure of iron, and insisted on the necessity for adding diagonal braces, giving at the time a full demonstration of his views. The question was one of Elementary Mechanics, which should have been better understood than it seems to have been. The "wise man" was right, as is proved by the adoption of his suggestion in the construction of the Crystal Palace; and his dictum, so far from retarding or preventing its erection, has probably saved that and similar structures from a hideous catastrophe. This is an instance of a wrongly applied illustration telling strongly against the argument it was intended to enforce. The power of rejecting patents is one, however, which, we fully admit, if conceded at all, should have its limitations, and should be exercised exceptionally rather than generally. But the staff which, under the American system, exercises this power, as some think too freely, is still indispensable for other purposes, as pointed out by Mr. Bramwell in his concluding address. They should, as a matter of duty, be ready and able to afford to inventors the fullest information, and should render them all reasonable assistance in steering clear of those shoals which must surround any patenting system. They should do this, not merely out of kindness to ignorant though ingenious inventors, but on behalf of the community, whose interest it is that a really useful improvement should be introduced in the most perfect possible shape. They should also revise specifications, which, often in ignorance, and sometimes from motives of questionable honesty, vaguely, imperfectly, or incorrectly set forth the invention. They would also sit with the judges on the trial of patent cases, affording that technical and scientific knowledge of the matters at issue in which it is admitted that both the Bar and the Bench are deficient.

mittees and acts of the Legislature should not suffice to preserve a constitution so inherently bad. What is it? The Patent Office is governed by four commissioners, the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney-General and the SolicitorGeneral for the time being, and the Master of the Rolls. Of these four, not one is presumably qualified by special knowledge, and three out of the four are liable to change frequently with changes of the Ministry. Nor is it even expected that any one of the four can or will give a moment of his time to Patent Office duties. The late Lord Chancellor candidly avowed to a deputation of the Society of Arts that he had never once entered the Patent Museum. The Master of the Rolls presides over perhaps the hardest worked court in the kingdom. And the two law officers, besides their duties as advisers to the Crown, are encumbered with their still more exacting duties to themselves as barristers in large practice. Notoriously and avowedly these four high legal functionaries leave the

Patent Office to the care of its clerical staff. Should so monstrous an abuse be suffered to continue? Is it

possible that, whilst it continues, necessary reforms will

be introduced and efficient administration maintained? Nothing is more obstructive and more demoralising than a sham—and no worse or more glaring sham than this exists at the present day in a country in which shams are not very few or very retiring. The remedy is perfectly obvious. The Patent Office should be under a Minister

of the Crown, directly responsible to the nation through Parliament for its good government. The Society of Arts have been for some time most properly urging that the Patent Museum, considerably expanded, should be placed under a Minister, with other Museums. Surely they cannot contemplate such a disruption of the whole system as would be perpetrated by placing the Museum under one authority, and the office to which it is an adjunct under another. We trust therefore they will insist that the whole system should be ministerially governed. For the present we abstain from indicating the particular Minister who should have charge of this and similar institutions, not because the appropriate arrangement is at all doubtiul, but because our space today does not admit of our delineating it with the necessary

fulness.

In conclusion, we hope that the unanimity in the late debate and in the press, in favour of retaining Patent Laws, will silence effectually the feeble cry for their abolition which from time to time contrives to make itself No one can now, at any rate, be considered qualined to raise that question who has not read this discussion, and especially Mr. Bramwell's two closely reasoned masterly addresses.

In the consideration of this most important question, One of the uses of a well-organised patent system has hitherto been too little noticed—namely, that it may be made, both directly and indirectly, a powerful instrument of public instruction. A body of highly qualified responsible men, eminent in different departments of science and technology, acting in concert, and having at their command the resources and influences of a great depart-heard. ment founded specially for introducing material improvements, including a complete collection of all the machines and appliances of manufacturing industry, and all the instruments and apparatus used in both abstract and applied science, which they should explain in public lectures, could not fail to disseminate widely that peculiar class of knowledge which it is found so difficult to engraft on any ordinary educational system.

Nor is this the only important point that entirely escaped notice in the recent discussion. The present constitution itself of the Patent Office was not challenged. It seemed to be considered that this having been, not

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LIVINGSTONE'S "LAST JOURNALS" The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa, from 1865 to his Death. Continued by a Narrative of his last moments and sufferings, obtained from his faithful servants, Chuma and Susi By Horace Waller, F.R.G.S., Rector of Twywell, Northampton. In two vols. With portrait, maps, and illustrations. (London: John Murray, 1874.)

very long ago, settled by a Committee of the House of THE opinion which we expressed of Dr. Livingstone's

Commons and an Act of Parliament, must be taken for granted as inevitable and unassailable. But fifty com

character and of the value of his work, when the sad tidings of his death reached this country last spring,

is amply confirmed by the simple narrative before us. No one, we presume, who knows the work that Livingstone has done, and how he has done it, will hesitate to place him in the front rank of explorers, and award him a niche among the few whom men deem worthy of the highest and most enduring honour. It is, we believe, the simple truth to say that he has done more than any other man to fill up that vast blank in inner Africa which in the maps of twenty or thirty years ago was occupied only by the word "Unexplored" in large and widespread letters, delightful enough to the hearts of lazy schoolboys. Now, what with the labours of Livingstone in the south, and those of Baker, Burton, Speke, Grant, and others in the north and north-east, this blank space is reduced to a comparatively small circle around the equator on the 20th degree of east longitude. We have no doubt that within the space of the next twenty years, or less, the heart of Africa will be as fully and accurately mapped as that of South America, if indeed not more so. And when the geography of this region of the earth is complete; when science shall have been enriched with the knowledge of its multitudinous products organic and inorganic, when a legitimate commerce shall have brought its many blessings to the native population, who seem possessed of many capabilities for good; when Central Africa shall have taken its place among the civilised nations of the world-the memory of David Livingstone will be cherished by its peoples as worthy of the greatest reverence and gratitude. It will be long ere the tradition of his sojourn dies out among the native tribes, who, almost without exception, treated Livingstone as if he were a superior being; indeed, had it not been for the baneful influence of the Arab slave-traders, and the troubles which arose from the debased characters of the majority of his own retinue, Livingstone's last journey would have been one of comparative case, would have been accomplished probably in about half the time, might possibly have been even more fruitful in results than it has been, and, above all, he himself might now have been among us, receiving the honours which he so nobly won.

As it is, we are thankful for the grand results that Livingstone has left behind him, which he achieved in the face of difficulties that would have daunted almost any other man, and which in the end brought himself to death; thankful are we also to the brave and loyal Susi and Chuma, who stuck so faithfully to their master, and preserved so religiously the invaluable record of his achievements. Their conduct has won for them the admiration of the civilised world, and their care for their master's remains has earned for them the gratitude of all Englishmen.

If this record of Livingstone's last wanderings is a sad one, it is not on account of any wailings that escape from the traveller himself. His journals were faithfully kept day after day, but the entries in them are brief, though pregnant. He wastes no useless words on his sufferings; nearly every sentence is a statement of an observed fact. Indeed, he distinctly says, when his difficulties beganand they began at the beginning-that he looked upon all his troubles as necessarily incident to the work he had set himself to do, and to be taken no more account of than the little difficulties which everyone must look for in carrying out his work in the world. Like all really great men,

he did his work and made no fuss about it. Until near the end, when his sufferings must have been extreme, nothing like the cry of an afflicted man escaped him; his difficulties of all kinds were regarded merely as hindrances to the great work which he was so anxious to achieve. His journal is written in the simplest style, and never betrays any consciousness on his part that he was doing anything very extraordinary. His was no attempt to accomplish a mere traveller's feat; he had a definite task before him— the exploration of the lake region of Central Africa, a task which he never once lost sight of. True, in the end, his work concentrated itself on the discovery of the four fountains of Herodotus, which he expected to find away to the west of Lake Bangweolo, and among which he firmly believed he would find the long-soughtfor source of the Nile. It was on the road to these supposed fountains that he died; had he lived to discover them or to disprove their existence, he would have considered his work as an explorer at an end, and would have returned to spend his remaining days at rest among his friends.

Livingstone's theories as to the sources of the Nile may very possibly turn out to be mistaken; but this can in no way detract from the value of his work. The "Nile mystery" cannot now long remain unravelled; but, compared with the large and substantial achievements of Livingstone, the solution of this is little more than that of an ingenious puzzle. Under all circumstances, Livingstone must ever stand forth as one of the world's greatest explorers, not only on account of his own immediate discoveries, but on account of the impetus which he has given to African discovery; for it is mainly owing to the enthusiasm generated by his noble example that so much has been done during the last thirty years to fill up the great blank on the map of Africa. His own travels, extending over a period of thirty years, embraced an area of some millions of square miles, reaching from the Cape to within a few degrees of the equator, and from the mouth of the Zambesi to Loango. And, as we have said, his aim was not to get over so much ground in the shortest possible time, and return to reap the reward of his feat. Like the native Africans, he travelled slowly and leisurely by short stages, mainly on foot, carefully and minutely observing and recording all that was worthy of note in the natural productions and phenomena of the region over which he travelled, studying the ways of the people, eating their food, living in their huts, and sympathising with their sorrows and joys. Already have various departments of science been enriched by his observations; and, what is perhaps of more importance, he has shown that in Africa a fertile field remains for the minute observations of the trained naturalist, ethnologist, geologist, and meteorologist.

It is impossible in the space at our disposal to give any adequate idea of the results of his last seven years' journeys. Indeed, as we have said, the records in his journals are so terse, there is so little of what is superfluous and so much of the highest value, that anyone wishing to have a satisfactory notion of what he accomplished must go to the work itself. Mr. Waller has wisely printed the journal as he found it, making no attempt at a systematic arrangement of the material; this will, no doubt, be done gradually, and the observations

which he made day by day take their place in the various sciences to which they belong. We are glad to see from the preface that there still remains for future publication a valuable mass of scientific observations. "When one sees," to quote the preface, "that a register of the daily rainfall was kept throughout, that the temperature was continually recorded, and that barometrical and hypsometrical observations were made with unflagging thoroughness of purpose year in and year out, it is obvious that an accumulated mass of information remains for the meteorologist to deal with separately, which alone must engross many months of labour." We hope that no time will be lost in giving the world the benefit of this valuable material.

We shall briefly run over the ground traversed by Livingstone. He left Zanzibar on March 19, 1866, in the

Penguin for the mouth of the Rovuma in about 10° S. latitude. His company consisted of thirteen sepoys, ten Johanna men, nine Nassick (Bombay) boys, two Shapanga men, and two Wayaus (South Africans), Wekatani and Chuma. He had, besides, six camels, three buffaloes and a calf, two mules, and four donkeys. This seems an imposing outfit, and so it was, but it soon melted away to four or five boys. Rovuma Bay was reached on March 22, and a start for the interior was made on April 4. His course for the first three months was mainly along the banks of the river Rovuma, turning south-west after a march of about 300 miles, towards the south end of his own Lake Nyassa. On starting he has recorded some reflections on the advantages of travelling, which, for their own value and as giving an insight into the character of the man, we wish we had space to quote. The first part of his

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course was through a dense jungle, and here the botanist | difficult and expensive to procure. However, this was an will find some observations worthy of his attention. The gum-copal tree is here in great abundance, and some curious geological phenomena are noted. Ere he reached the Nyassa he had to send his sepoys back, as they were worse than useless; a set of lazy, degraded blackguards, whose brutal usage of the animals and that of the Johanna men, left him in the end with only his goats and a little dog. The Johanna men, ere they were well round the end of the lake, deserted, and Livingstone was no doubt well rid of them, though it left him with so diminished a retinue that it made him dependent on native carriers, who were often

It will be remembered that these men screened their cowardice by

spreading a report of Livingstone's death.

evil that gradually lessened as he went on; for as he conscientiously paid his way wherever he went, his baggage was gradually diminished to no great bulk. In the first part of the route, also, the party frequently suffered from want of food, an evil which was of but too frequent occurrence during the long and intricate journey, not so much from unwillingness on the part of the natives to give or sell it, but simply because the brutal half-caste Arab slavedealers, who were met with everywhere, had so desolated the country that the terrified and demoralised people were often themselves famishing. The horrors of this trade, "the open sore of the world," as Livingstone calls it, are the sorest trials which the humane traveller had to endure shown on almost every page of this journal, and one of

was to be an almost daily witness of its inconceivable cruelties, and to feel himself powerless to help. Even in this matter, however, we believe his words and example will have had a good moral effect on many of the native chiefs, if not on the degraded dealers; for the people are so demoralised by the latter, that they hunt and sell each other. This Arab slave-hunting was a great hindrance to Livingstone's progress, as the dealers had so terrified the people as to make them suspicious of every stranger, and, with one or two creditable exceptions, did all in their power to poison the native mind against the white man, for they knew that he regarded their doings with unmitigated disgust. No good can come to Africa, and no exploration of her rich interior can be carried out with complete success, until this cruel traffic is abolished; and in the interests of science as well as humanity, we hope that the British Government will never cease to use its powerful influence until it is stamped out. We only wish that the Sultan of Zanzibar, whose subjects the half-caste traders nearly all are, could be induced to follow the example of the Khedive of Egypt, and depute some man of determination and vigour to sweep the interior of the entire horde of slave-hunters.

And here we cannot help saying that we almost wish that Livingstone had possessed some of Pasha Baker's wholesome sternness and disregard to the trivial scruples of his men and of petty village chiefs. It would have saved him many annoyances, and might in the end have been the means of saving his life. But he was so full of the great object of his mission that he did not care to waste the time and energy required to bring his lowminded sepoys and Johanna men under discipline; and his conscience was so tender, his humanity so strong, and his desire to live at peace with all men so much of a religion, that he would rather stay weeks at a village to suit the caprice of its childish chief than break away at the risk of giving offence or provoking hostility. His genuine tenderness of heart peeps out unconsciously every now and then, his charity was wonderfully wide, and his forbearance often almost annoying.

Lake Nyassa was reached on August 8, and passing down its east and round its south side, Livingstone struck out in a generally N.N.W. direction for the south end of Lake Tanganyika. We need scarcely say that this part of the journal, recording a journey through a country much of which had not hitherto been explored, is full of valuable notes on geology, botany, zoology, geography, topography, and the manners and customs and connections of the people. Here, as in almost every other part of his journey, the number of streams met with flowing into the great lines of drainage is astonishing; a dozen would sometimes have to be crossed in a day's march. After rounding the south end of Nyassa, however, he first met with those bogs, or earthen sponges, which abound also around Lake Bangweolo, and in the midst of which, and no doubt partly through their malarious influence, he died.

forming kind, falls down, rots, and then forms thick dark loam. In many cases a mass of this loam, two or three feet thick, rests on a bed of pure river-sand, which is revealed by crabs and other aquatic animals bringing it to the surface. At present, in the dry season, the black loam cracked in all directions, and the cracks are often as much as three inches wide, and very deep. The whole surface has now fallen down, and rests on the sand; but when the rains come, the first supply is nearly all absorbed in the sand. The black loam forms soft slush, and floats on the sand. The narrow opening prevents it from moving off in a landslip, but an oozing spring rises at that spot. All the pools in the lower portion of this spring-course are filled by the first rains, which happen south of the equator, The when the sun goes vertically over any spot. second, or greater rains,'happen in his course north again, when, all the bogs and river-courses being wet, the supply runs off, and forms the inundation: this was certainly the case as observed on the Zambesi and Shiré, and, taking the different times for the sun's passage north of the equator, it explains the inundation of the Nile."

This is an important observation with regard to the Nile, though it may very well turn out that Livingstone himself was mistaken with regard to its source or sources. He found, as we have said, the same phenomenon in a much higher degree on the east and south sides of Lake Bangweolo, and believed it to be "the Nile, apparently enacting its inundations, even at its sources."

We wish we could linger with the traveller and speak in detail of some of the multitude of interesting observations he made as he sauntered along. The people themselves between Nyassa and Tanganyika are full of interest to the ethnologist, the sociologist, and the student of the ways of men. Their physique and intelligence are of a high order, and they have scarcely any of the negro characteristics. They are by no means savages, and

The

in almost every village Livingstone was well and kindly treated by the chief and his people. There is no such thing as a national bond of union here, each village being a separate community, presided over by its chief. region here, as everywhere else in Livingstone's journey, is thickly populated. The people are polite, industrious, and on the whole peaceful, the great disturbers of their peace being the Mazitu, a people to the north of Nyassa, who rove far and wide in search of slaves, leaving death and desolation in their track. The great industry here, and over a great part of the region visited by Livingstone, is the smelting and manufacture of iron, which is obtained in abundance from various ores. In this industry the people display considerable skill and ingenuity, and manufacture the metal into a great variety of implements, utensils, and weapons. Each tribe has its separate tattoo badge. The country itself, hilly, and well wooded, is of the most fertile kind, and abounds in buffaloes, elands, haartebeest, and other large animals, and evidently with not a few birds that are new to the zoologist. (To be continued.)

INDIAN METEOROLOGY

Report of the Meteorological Reporter to the Govern ment of Bengal for 1873. By Henry F. Blanford, Meteorological Reporter.

"The bogs, or earthen sponges, of the country," he says, "occupy a most important part in its physical geography, and probably explain the annual inundation of the rivers. Wherever a plain sloping towards a narrow opening in hills or higher grounds exists, there we have MR. HENRY F. BLANFORD'S annual Meteoro

the conditions requisite for the formation of an African sponge. The vegetation not being of a healthy and peat

logical Reports for Bengal, of which this is the seventh, have come to be looked forward to with much

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