Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

The Flight of Birds Mr. F. W. Brearey rea'i the other day before the London Aeronautical Society a papei on the action of the pectoral muscle in the flight of a bir<i. Experimenters in artificial flight, he said, should reduce their theories to a demonstrable form. It had often been stated, for instance, that the power exerted by a bird in its flight had been greatly exaggerated, but no one had hitherto proved his assertion. It was capable, however, of satisfactory proof by demonstrating artificially the ac tion of the pectoral muscle, by the aid of which weight became an accessory to power. When the bird committed itself to the air the upward pressure in the wings stretched the elastic liga ment, which formed part of the mus cle, to such an extent as to all >w the bird’s gliding upon the air without any exertion. The weight of tne bird was the measure of this elasticity. It was said by some that at least the bird must possets the power by the down ward stroke of the wing to raioe its own weight. But Mr. Brearey said that this was not an absolute necessity, because the reaction of this elastic liga- msnt aided the force of the down stroke. He proceeded to verify his assertion by the action of a model, with wings of four fe >t spread, under which he had attached an elastic cord passing under the body of the model. Upon committal to the aii this just allowed of the wings being expanded, so that the model would glide downward. He then de tached the cord and wound up his power, calling attention to the fact that he had wound the india-rubber strands thirty-two times. He showed, however, that although this was suffi cient to create a vigorous flapping of the wing when held in the hand, yet when committed to the air it had not the power to give one downward stroke, and therefore it could only glide as before. Holding it again with the cord attached and the power wound up the same number of times, he showed that it was unable to flap the wing, because the two forces were exactly held in equilibrium. There was a thir 1 factor wanted before it con Id fly —and that was weight. The model being liberated, flight was well sus tained, and upon being set free sev eral times without being wound up any further, It appeared able to fly with a very weak power. The same thing was observable with another model, compesed entirely of a loose surface thrown into a wave action— his own invention. Mr. Brearey re marked that this economy in flight can only be obtained by something of the nature of wing action, and must be wholly wanting in any apparatus actuated by the screw. Rabbits in New Zealand. Rabbits are playing hob with New Z-aland. They begin breeding at the age of 3 months, and produce twelve large families a year. This prolific in crease has overrun the country with the pests introduced by patriotic Englishmen and Scotchmen, and mil lions of dollars’ worth of property bre being destroyed annually. Crops ave feasted upon, streams are obstructed, and in some places the devastation has been so great that farmers have been driven from their farms. From 50,- 000,000 to 60,000,000 of the frisky inno cents are killed every year, but, with their reproductive capacity, the living rabbits do not mind a little thing like that, which only amounts to a decima tion. The ferret has been Introduced as an antido'e, but that unreasoning bit of condensed agility has no less a nose for chicken than for rabbit, and utterly refuses to make distinctions in behalf of the farmer. And so bunny goes on multiplying, with a fair pros pect ahead that the short-tailed inva ders will have the island entirely at their own disposal before an act of Parliament is discharged upon them. A few radish seeds should be planted every week from the time the frost is out of the ground till the commence ment of the fall. Spanish radishes for winter use can be planted as late as the first of September. Radishes are among the most valuable of our garden vegetables, but to be truly excellent they must be quickly grown and be eaten while they are tender. A tablespoon ful of saltpetre dissolved in an ordinary bucketful of water and sprinkled on cabbage will destroy the worms without injuring the plants. Fob Felon.—'Take equal parts of gum oamphor, gum opium, castile soap and brown sugar; wet to a ftaste with spirits of turpentine. Prepare it, and apply a thick plaator of it. Longfellow's Queer Visitors. During the Centennial year we were sitting together, one beautiful after noon, on his piazza smoking and talk ing. While we were in the midst of our conversation I ooserved two men and two women owning toward us across the lawn. They <vereobviously New-Eagland country folks retain iug from the Centennial Exhibition. The men had the slow, deliberate, rustic walk, and were dressed in ill - fitting black broadcl >th, the very look of which made one perspiro. Tne women, who were leading the way, had an appearance of pluck and enter prise, as if they were determined to cinquer the modest diffi lence of their companions. Mr. Longfellow was sitting with his back to the street, and did not observe them until they were withlu a yard of the piazz i. He looked a little surprised, but arose and saluted the intruders with his wonted courtesy. "Be you the poet Longfellow?’ asked one of the women, in a voice that was incredibly unmelodious. "Yea, I am Mr. Longfellow,” he answered. There was an awkward pause, dur ing which the visitors stared at the poet with unabashed glances as if he had been a Centennial relic on exhibi tion. "Now ho# old a man might you be?” queried the other female ab ruptly. "I am sixty-nine years old, madam.” " ’Pears to me you look consid’ably older,” said one of the men, looking up sideways to Mr. Longfellow’s face with a critical air. "My looks may belie me. I am no older.” I could not but wonder at the ex treme urbanity with which he an swered these blunt questions, showing no annoyance in his face and no resent ment. And when, Anally, at their re quest, he conducted the party through his house, he submitted with the same gentle courtesy to a cross-examination regarding his family and personal af fairs which would have tried the patience of the archangel Gabriel. When at the end of half an hour he returned, apologizing for his absence, I made a remark which was, perhaps, a little disrespectful to his late visitors. "They meant no disrespect to me by their questions,” he answered, with that beautiful gentleness which was so characteristic of his manner. It is perfectly proper, where they came from, to interest one’s self in the per sonal affairs of everybody.” "But it must be a great inconve nience to you,” I observed, "to b9 so frequently disturbed by such excurt sionists.” "Well, during the present year I ad mit it has been a little trying. Never theless, I always dislike sending a man or woman away who has come out here for the purpose of seeing me or my house. Of course, I have to do it occasionally, but it is always disa- gresable to me needlessly, to dasap- point anyone. Those women whom you saw are a good staunch New-Eug land type, and I like them in spite of their lack of tact and their abrupt manners. They are good, hard- vork- iug women, who make good wives and good mothers. And yet, the other day, I was greatly amused at one of the same class who came here with a large basket—whether she had anything to sell I did not ascertain—apparently for the purpose of telling me that she had read ‘Evangeline’ from beginning to end, ‘and,’ she added, 'there ben’t many folks can say that.’ I am con vinced now that she had no intention whatever of being rude to me ; she was merely awkward and nervous, and said what she did not mean to say. I asked her if she had found the reading of ‘Evangeline’ such a dreadful task. The question seemed to surprise her; she grew embarrassed, and shiwed plainly that she had no recollection of having said anything uncomplimen tary.” It was, as far as I can remember, on the same occasion that Mr. Longfellow told me of a young man from some where in New-England who wrote to him, saying that he was in love with a young lady whose name was given, and a description of whose appearance was also subjoined. The writer had been devoting himself for a long time to the task of winning this young lady’s affection, but she had so far given him no encouragement; and he had arrived at the conclusion that "nothing but poetry would fetch her.” Now, would Mr. Longfellow, whom he understood to be a poet, write some suitable stuff for him that would ap peal to the young lady’s heart, and would he first let him know how much he charged for a poem of this kind? Whether Mr. Longfellow bur lesqued a little this iucldent iu relating it I am unable to say; but from the gravity of his manner, and still more from hia temperamental inaptness for burlesque exaggeration, I concluded that the incident had occurred exactly as he reported it. Hints to Inventors In the absence of all other proof, the date of the patent will be taken as the date of applications and the date of as signment. The government of the United States has no right to use a patented inven tion without compensation to the owner of the patent. A corporation may bind itself by a contract not under its corporate sea 1 when the law does not require the con tract to he evidenced by a sealed in-itrument. The second clause of rule 93 has no application to such a case, the patent here referred to being one which was granted before the pending application was filed. Such contracts may be executed by an agent, and the rule is that the agent should, in the body ol the contract, name i he corporation as the contract ing body, and sign as its agent or offi cer. Assignments of patents are not re quired to be under seal. The statute simply provides that "every patent, or any interest therein, shall be assign able in law by an instrument in writing.” The inventor cannot relieve himself of the consequences of the prior public use of his patented invention by assign ing an interest in his invention or patent to the person by whom the in vention was thus used. Where one or two conflicting appli cants have inadvertently obtained a patent without notice to the other, an interference may then be declared nunc pro tunc between the application and the patent, under authority of the first clause of Rule 93. The fact that i person holds stock in a company gives him no right to its property, and the attachment of such stock in the hands of a stock holder, for a personal debt of the stockholder, does not in any way en cumber the property of the company. Conflicting applications under ihe law and the rules sustain a hostile re lation each to the other, irrespective of their relative datei of filing, and the premature issue of a patent to one ap plicant is not conclusive either for or against the right of the other. A patent for a machine cannot be reissued lor the purpose of claiming the process of operating that class of machines, because, if the claim for the process is anything more than for the use of the particular machine patented, it is for a different invention. A paten'ee cannot claim in a patent the same thing claimed by him in a prior patent, nor what he omitted to claim in a prior patent in which the invention was described, he not hav ing reserved the right to claim it in a separate patent, and not having season ably applied therefor. If a patent fully and clearly de scribes and c’aims a specific invention, complete in itself, so as to be inopera tive or invalid by reason of a defective or insufficient specification, a reissue cannot be had for the purpose of ex panding and generalizing the claim so as to embrace an invention n >t speci fied in the original patent. The statute of 1870, relating to reis sues, authorizes the insertion of new claims founded upo n the original in vention as exhibited by the specifica tions or drawings in reissues when the omission results from "inadvertence, accident, or mistake,” and where the claimant has not by some act or omis sion estopped himself from exercising the right to amend. An assignment, therefore, purport ing on its face to be the contract of the corporation therein mined, declaring that the consideration has been re ceived by the company, that it is exe cuted in pursuance of a resolution passed by the company, and purport ing to be signed by Smith, President of the company, who declares that he signs as the act of the company, is transfer of said company, and not the personal deed of Smith. If a person employed in the manu factory of another, while receiving wages, makes experiments at the ex pense and In the manufactory of the employer, has his wages increased in oonsequence of the useful results of his experiments, makes the article invene ted, and permits his employer to use it, no compensation for its use being paid or demanded (for more than two years), and then obtains a patent for it, the patent is invalid and void. The French Bourbons. A Love Affair of Henry V.’* Father. The Count de Ciiambord, known to a faithful few as Henry V., King of France, is ill with fever at his Frobs- dorf chateau, and although he by no means causes the Fieucb Republic as much fli-quietude as he caused the Second Empire, he is still a very im portant public character. He is the chief of the elder branch of the Bour bon family, the direct descendant of Louis XVI., who lost his head by a stroke of the guillotine during the reign of terror. His father was Charles Ferdinand, Due de Berri, the younger son of Charles X., who had to leave his throne In a hurry one July day, fifty two year; ago. His mother was the famous Duchess de Berri, known before her marriage as the Princess Caroline Ferdinande Louise of Naples. The Count de Chambord’s father was mortally wounded on the night of Feb. 13, 1820, as he was leaving the Paris Opera-H >use, by a man named Louvtl Seven months after this event the son was born. His mother left France in 1830 with Charles X., but in 1832 she returned ior the pur pose of stirring up an insurrection and claiming the crown for this son. She landed at Marseilles, but finding no support there she made her way to La Vendee, where she succeeded in rally ing a few adherents. They were quickly subdued, however, and she tried to make her way secretly out of the country. She was betrayed, how ever, to Louis Phillippe’s Govern ment and imprisoned in the castle of Braye, Where she gave birth to a second son, the fruit of a secret mar riage between her and a young Italian nobleman. The publication of this fact made her harmless in the eyes of the Government, and she was released in June, 1833. She retired to Sicily, where she lived up to her demise in 1870, with her husband and his rela tives. The legality of the marriage of the Due de Berri with the Princess Caro line Ferdinande Louise, of Naples, has been questioned by English Protes tant writers, as if their views were to be accepted as the correct ones, the two daughters born to the Duke by Amy Brown are the only legitimate representatives of that gay and gallant nobleman, while, had certain formali ties been complied with by the Duke immediately after his marriage to Amy, in 1806, a quiet gentleman who lived until recently, bearing the com monplace name of George Granville Brown, would have stood in the Count de Chambord’s shoes in the eyes of these same writers. The D ic de Berri, after the revolu tion, served in the French Legitimist army, and subsequently in that of Russia, but in 1801 he went to Eng- land, and three years later he made the acquaintance of Amy, the daughter of Joseph Brown, vicar of the Church of All Saints, Maidstone. S;ie was a great beauty and he was a dashing, handsome fellow. He was 26 -she 21 They fell madly in love with each other, and in April, 1805, she gave birth to a son, the George Granville Brown here mentioned. A year after tne two were married in the Catholic chapel in King street, Portland Square, London, according to English law, in the presence of witnesses, and without objections from the relatives on either side. The son was not legiti mated, however, as the mother doubt less expected he would be. Amy gave birth to one of the two daughters in 1808 and to the other in 1809. They were taken by her to France, and edu cated and married there, the husband of one being the Prince Fauoigny Luoinge, the other the Baron de Cha- rette. They are still living and have large families. When tlie Duo de Berri married Amy there seemed to be little chance of the Bourbons ever coming to their own again. As their prospects brightened his passion for Amy cooled, and when Louis XV ill. came to the throne that monarch formally petitioned the Pope for annulment of the marriage on the ground that it had been contracted without the consent ot the head of the family. This petition was granted after some delay, and in 1816 the Due de Berri married the mother of th Count de Chambord, the herione > £ the episodes that culminated in Castle Braye. It must be said In justice to the Count’s father that he took excellent care of Amy and her daughters. The three of them were invited to come to Paris after his second marriage, and every afternoon up to the time of his death, he oame to see the daughters. The son, George Granville, was, how ever, not allowed to come to France to see his mother even, until after the revolution in 183 ». According to Mr. Theodore Cuild writing in the Phila delphia American, he lived nearly fortj year* in the house No 7 Rue Haiut Pierre, at Montes, having mar ried Miss Charlotte Louise (> Jbrown, and, spending a fair in ;o:ue, doubtless given to him by nis father, in work* of charity. A remnant of the once powerful Pequod race stilt maintains a tribal organization in Connecticut. Sohagh- ticoke, the ancient seaffof this people, is situated in the town of Kent, under the Schaghticoke mountain, in the middle of the valley of Hausatonic. Bchaghtiooke now consists of six little, brown, clapboarded, one*story houses, tenanted by some seventeen persons, and the whole tribe numbers about fifty. The reservation of 300 acre comprises Schaghticoke mountain, valuable only for timber. Vinnie, the aged Queen of the tribe, is nearly white, earns her livlDg by basket- miking, and is a member of the nearest Congregational church. A Ceylon Jungle. Prof. Haeckel, who is giving iu the German jRundschau some ace >mt of his travels iu Ceylon, thus ti cribes his first attempt to pen trate a Ceylon jungle: The jungle, he says, is not, properly speaking, primeval forest- forest, that is, untrodden by the toot of man (such are in Ceylon of^small ex tent and rare occurrence); but it cor responds to our idea of such a forest in that it consists of a dense and im penetrable mass of mighty trees of all kindB, which have sprung up without regularity or any interference from man, and are surrounded and over grown by a wilderness^of creeping and climbing plants, of feitis, orchids, and other parasites, the Interstices being so completely filled * motley mass of smaller weeuf quite impossible to disent coil of tendrils so as to distil species from ihe other* tempt to penetrate such a jungle as this was sufficient to convince me of the impossibility of the undertaking except with the aid of axe and fire. A hard hour’s work brought Tie only a few steps into the thicket ai^^hen I was obliged to acknowledge jnyself vanquished and make good a Retreat, stung by mosquitoes, bitten by ants, with torn clothes, and arms f legs bleeding from the thorns and (^ckles with which the climbing palm' (Cala mus), the climbing Hibiscus, the Eu phorbia, and a multitude of other jun gle plants repulse every attack r^ade' on their impenetrable la&yfintSr But the attempt had not been’made altogether in vain, for it enabled me to gain a very fair idea of the jungle as a whole, more especially of tli^mag- nificence of its trees and creepers, sides introducing me to many separate varieties of animal and vegetable life, which were of the highest interest; here I saw the magniflcent^Glojdess superba, the poisonous climbit^iily of Ceylon, with its red and amber flow ers ; the prickly Hibiscus radiatus, with large cup-shaped brimstone-col ored flowers, deepening lo vlolec_in the hollow ; while around them flut tered gigantic black butterflies wi&T blood-red spots on their tail-shaped wings, and chafers and dragon-flies flew past with a metallic gleam. But my delight reached its height when on this, my first attempt to penetrate a jungle in Ceylon, I came across tjjjr two most characteristic of its inffab tants from among the higher clas animals—parrots and apes. A green parrots flew screech) lofty tree, as they became aw gun in my hand, and at the ment a herd of great black a with a growling cry into the I did not succeed in getting a either one or the other; they a to be too familiar with the look I was consoled, however, by set, with my first shot a colossal iguana six feet long, of a kind much awe by the supersti tives (Hydrosaurus salvator h uge erocodile-like beast was himself on the edge of a wa and the shoe hit him so preo the head as to kill him at opce struck any less vital pait he probably have dived into the w*d and disappeared ; when seized, ti iguana has the power of hitting sharp a blow with its scaly tail as cause a severe wound and even sou times a broken limb. A Sure Cure for Chilblains.— Three applications of vaseline will oure the worse case of ohllblain s. For ordinary cases one or two applications will be suffioient. Although vaseline is made from petroleum, it is far more rapid in its work of healing than ker- oeene.