Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-09-25
PECULIAR PATENTS.
QUEER INVENTIONS WHICH
REACH THE PATENT OFFICE.
The Perpetual Motion Machine Chaps
are the Most Persistent = Odd
Farm Patents-wild Ideas.

tAdIllluG hOluc CQIlOuS tO4bllNdANG BiN
sented with an application for patent,
whose exhibition before a commission de
lundtico inquirendo would convict the
applicant beyond all hope of appeal, OF
being of unsound mind. Sometimes
these requests are denied; sometimes the
patents are issued, for it is not within
the province of the Patent Office to say
that there is no utility in an invention.
So long as the idea is new and practi-
cable, the patent is issued; and, like
many another curious product of misap-
piled genius, it probably goes on the ''re-
tired list" to be heard of no more.
Thousands of patents, issued since the
foundation of the Patent Office, have
fonnd no recognition in the practical
world, and hundreds of curious models
decorate the shelves of the great cases In
The top of the Interior Department build
ing, whose only use in all time will be to
amuse visitors to the nations capital.
The most persistent of the applicants
is the man with design for a perpetual
motion machine. Inventors are required
to file plans and specifications in all cases
except when the Patent Commissioner
asks for working model. The crowded
condition of the Patent Office has rem
dered the filing of models burdensome,
and SO they are omitted, usually But
the applicant for perpetual motion pat
ent is always asked to file working
model, and with that request he is dis
posed of as effectually as though his
throat had been cut. Hundreds of plans
for perpetual motion machines have been
filed with the Patent Office within the
century One of the latest of these pro-
posed to send a steamer across the Attain
tic Ocean without the expenditure OF a
single cent for fuel The vessel. the in
ventor said, was to be operated by cleo
tricity. The electricity was to be gener-
ated by steam, and the steam, in its turn,
was to be generated by the electricity,
and so the forces were to be interchanged
without waste. The usual request for a
working model was made of him, and the
Patent Office is still waiting for the
model.
Some of the farm patents which have
been taken out are curiously useless.
One inventor patented, great many
years ago, a pair of stills to be used by
horse blowing side-hill. Another man
proposed to take out patent for tying
weight of specific gravity to cows
tail to keep her from switching it when
YOU are Mixing The examiner wrote
to the applicant that his suggestion was
old, and referred him to 'Don Quixote,"
and the device of Sancho Panza, to keep
his mule from braying by tying weight
TO its tail An old patent granted many
years ago was for shoe to be worn by
horses in the field. The shoe was, in
fact, a corn-planter, and when the horse
walked across the field with it, he (theo-
retically) punched holes in the ground
and deposited seed in them. One in
ventor has patented device to keep the
moth-miller out of bee-hives. He noticed
that the miller got into the hives at the
time the chickens went to roost, and,
utilizing this coincidence, he pro-
posed to construct an automatic
device by which the roosting
of the chickens would close the
hives. In his application the inventor
says: "But expect that after time the
miller may get sense enough to keep
watch of the chickens and come in few
minutes earlier.n A "chicken hopplen
is among the agricultural patents. 1t
is guaranteed to walk the chicken out Of
the garden as soon as he begins TO scratch.
Another invention, which combines the
uses of agriculture and war, is "ean-
non-plow,n the iron beam of which is IN
effect cannon from which the peaceful
agriculturist can pour desolation into the
ranks of party invading his field. The
inventor of the device is, believe, the
man who devised the ''pocket-book pis-
toln-in appearance pocket-book, but
in practice single barfeled pistol. A
shen-surpriser'' is counted among the
rural devices. 1t is patent nest de-
signed to drop the egg through into
safe retreat, so that the hen, looking
around and thinking that perhaps she has
failed in her duty to the community, will
lay another.
One of the warlike devices which has
never been brought into active service IS
a pair of springs to fit the hind hoofs OF
a mule On the back of mule noun
tain howitzer is to be mounted, and from
that position it is to be fred, the recoil
being taken up by the springs, which
will thus prevent the breaking of the
mules legs.
An effort has been made to patent the
Lords Prayer-the applicant claiming a
new device in that the rapid repetition Of
the prayer will cure stammering. This
patent has not b. en- granted.
An inventor has taken out patent for
sinking a boiler into the earth to such
depth that natural heat will develop
steam in it. Another proposes to put
springs under house to prevent damage
in case of earthquakes suggestion that
might have been very valuable if
Charlestown could have anticipated her
celebrated disaster in time to get
mounted.
An application, which is still hung up
in the Patent Office, is for a patent on
device ''to enable a dog to turn short
corner" The specification calls for the
attachment of palm-leaf fan to the dogs
tail to enable him to change his course
more readily.
A wooden cat, covered with luminous
paint, is supposed to sit up all night to
scare the rats and mice away.
In 1868 New Jersey man patented
device for preventing the possibility OF
burying anyone alive. The design was