The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LOLIDON, SATURDAY EVEYINU; NOVEMBER 1116, 1861.

was, on Monday, a little more explicit. " With
regard to patents," he said, " upon the assump-
tion that they were to be continued, there were two
great desiderata. One was that there should be
some rational and satisfactory definition of the
sort of inventions which patents were meant to
protect ; and the other that there should be some
better mode of sifting away those which were
obviously useless and bad." Upon this subject it
was satisfactory to hear a Solicitor-General admit-
ting quite frankly, as Sir ROUNDELL PALMER did
in so many words on Monday, that " If the inven-
tion
_did not involve a new principle or a new
process it ought not to be a subject of a
patent at all !" Already, thank Heaven ! " much
has been done" even now towards the diminution
of what was but a very few years back a monstrous
incubus, clog, or millstone, paralysing in a greater
measure the energies of the scientific inventor in
this country. It is encouraging at least to remember
that!

Who has forgotten the impressive Story of a
Patent, as related by the Patentee himself?—
" JOHN," the humble mechanic, an ingenious poor
man, friend of that arrant Chartist WILLIAM
BUTCHER ! Who that has ever read it—that " Poor
Man's Tale of a Patent," can lose a wholesome re-
collection of the heart breaking processes through
which the said Poor Man had to go before he
could possibly get his invention patented—pay-
ing £5 lOs 6d here, and £3 there—Xl 7s 6d for
this, and £1 lOs for that; dancing attendance at
the Attorney-General's-office, at the Privy Seal
office, at the Signet-office, at the Home-office,
and at the office of the Master in Cnancery ;
paying in hard cash for the English Patent
alone, £96 7s 8d : going through THIRTY-FIVE
different stages in all before he had done
with it—and compelled (while going through
this long agony of expense and procrastination)
to call in the aid not only of the QUEEN and her
Attorney-General, but of amazing creatures like
the Clerk of the Signet, and the Clerk of the
Patents, and the Chancellor's Purse Bearer, and
the Clerk of the Hanaper—and the Deputy Clerk
of the Hanaper, and the Deputy Sealer, and
the Deputy Chaff-Wax !—all of them requiring
to be " tipped !" Still—while, without doubt, in
getting rid of a good deal of all this, " much has
been done," as w© have said, even now—more,
considerably " more remains to do," as inventors
yet know to their cost !

American telegrams leave us still in expectation.
Not only is the great battle on the Potomac not yet
come off, but the arrival of the Great Expedition at
any destination must be learned from later infor-
mation. " Rumour " is our only informant, and
on that authority it had reached, on the 3d, as far
South as Bull's Bay, which place, with an island of
the same name, the reader will find a little to the
north of Charleston. We shall soon learn whether
the expedition has sailed past that port, so guilty
in Northern eyes, or whether it was really intended
to make the " traitors who trailed the Union flag in
the dust" at Fort Sumter do penance for their in-
sult to Yankeedom. If it passes that place, and
Savannah in Georgia, it can hardly then have any
destination but New Orleans. Any of the three ports
would be accessible to the cotton plantations, and
it is not unlikely that Manchester still has a faint
hope that it may get supplies in this way from
America still. We hope that expectation will soon
be proved to be baseless. Indeed, we imagine that
even if the North opened a cotton port in the South,
it would be as much as any man's life was worth to
attempt to convey cotton to a port of which the
North was master.

Rumour is also our only informant on military
movements. General FREMONT does not appear
after all, to have been displaced. Perhaps he is to
the PRESIDENT the IVALLENSTEIN of Missouri and
the far West. The Confederate Generals, PRICE
and M'CuLLocH, were said to have united
their forces, and to intend to give FREMONT
battle at Neostro, purposing, if victorious, to
march their Parthian-like armies on St. Louis.
In Kentucky the Confederates appear to need
more than the blankets adverted to by our
correspondent from the South yesterday—those
Kentuckians who had joined them in this divided
state, had returned ragged and hungry to their own
homes ; giving little encouragement to enlistment
for Southern independence and slavery. In Virginia
the old conspirator FLOYD is said to have got the
worst of it from RosENcaaNz ; on the Potomac
we hear of no movement, but the river is so far
open that the Powhattan had sailed up from Anna-
polis without being fired at by the Confederate bat-
teries. Perhaps they are economising that scarce
article, with them, powder. Government is looking
after the money supply—for Sicretaries CAMERON
and CHASE were busy inNew York. They must
find it there, for it will be useless to come to Europe
for it, while we do not yet know whether we have
a half, or a quarter, or less, of a Union to deal with.

STUB if SIGNALS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SIR,—A few days ago a gentleman who had
written on "Astro meteorology" ventured to pre-
dict that a storm would occur about the 17th or
18th of this month.

In consequence of this prediction appearing in
several papers application has just been made to
me, by the captain of a ship preparing to sail, to
know whether such au occurrence is expected by
and was thus foretold by this department.
Having explained why it is impossible to foretell
or'predict accurately any particular weather, at an
interval of time exceeding two or three days in ad-
vance ; and Laving assured him that no such far-
seen prediction as that of the 10th inst., adverting
to the 17th, would have been ventured on at this
office—simply because we could not have facts on
which it might be based, even approximately, I feel
it a duty to ask your assistance in attempting to
caution some persons against the perhaps apparently
plausible assertions of writers who mysteriously
refer atmospheric changes to the relative positions
of Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, but are ridiculed by
really scientific men.
While thus troublesome, may I bore you further,
for the benefit of others, by remarking that there
are numerous vendors of very inferior meteorologi-
cal instruments, who assert that they are those, or
similar to those verified at Kew, or supplied to
Government, although the fact is that they are not
so, but are as objectionable as bad watches or cheap
razors, which may deceive till proved ?

There are but few reliable nianufacturers of accu-
rate meteorological instruments, and they aro well
known in Europe, America, Australia, and India.
Faithfully yours,
ROBERT FITZROY.
Meteorological Department, 2, Parliament-
street, S.W., Nov. 15.

The Marquis and Marchioness of Normanby have
returned to Hamilton Lodge, Kensington, from visiting.
the Earl and Countess of Derby, at Knowsley Park, Lanca-
shire.

The Marquis and Marchioness of Salisbury are
enter'aining a select party at Hatfield House, Herts.

The Earl of Lonsdale returned to town a few days
since from Lowther Castle, Cumberland.

The Earl and Countess of Yarborough and Lady
Sophia Pelham have left Arlington street for Brighton.
The noble earl is, we are happy to say, convalescent.

Viscount Maynard and Hon. Miss Maynard have
arrived in town from the family seat in Essex.

Lord Adolphus Vane Tempest, M.P., has recently
returned from the United States, and has joined the Mar-
chioness (Frances Anne) of Londonderry and family circle
at Wyriyarcl Park, Durham.