The St. Johns herald., 1890-11-06
PATENT OFFICE cRANKs.
The Queer Inventions That Are Sent to
 Be Investigated.

Be Investigated.
 To fully realize how many cranks live among us one has only to visit the Pat ent Office in Washington, says the New York Herald, and examine the models which fill the shelves of that depart mont and read the specifications, in the many benefits which they pro- pose to donate to mankind. Every i'm aginable scheme is suggested and laid before the patent examiners. The ques- tion of utility, of practicability, does not enter into the taking out of pat ent; it Sufices that the invention has the feature of novelty and that the ap- plicant pay the legal fees.
 So numerous are the perpetual mo- tion" cranks, who think they have discovered the long and vainly sought enigma, that the office has prepared a circular which is mailed to any one who takes steps to enter an alleged per petual motion invention. The circular informs him ''that it is thought proper to advise him, in order to save him fur ther expense and labor, that the views Of the Patent Office coincide with those of scientists in general in regard to me- chanical perpetual motions-that they are impossibilities. Should your entry be taken, a working model will be re- quired, tho office being aware that it will be impossible for you to comply with this requirement" The specified tion and feo are then returned. Does this dampen their ardor? Doubtless thousands of them are now trying to compass the working model.
 Many of the old models were burned up in the fire of 1877. and tradition only tells of some of the queer cOntrivanceS that had been gathered in.
 One of the most curious of these was a hens nest constructed with spring trap at the bottom of the nest. The weight of an egg was sufficient to press down the spring and allow tho egg to slip out. The theory of this thoughtful inventor was that as soon as the hen laid an egg it would press down the trap-dOor and disappear. The hen. as is her GUS tom after laying an egg, would rise and caclzle, but finding no egg, would con- clude that sho Lad made mistake and would proceed immediately to lay anoth- CT, and so on cd iaf11 t1m. On this prin- cipIe tho owner of hen would have (. great monopoly.
 A trip through the model rooms re- vealed many unique and curious inven- tions, some of the more unusual of which I venture to describe and illus trate.
 One of the most original is an ordnance blow, patented by c. NJ. French and ". II. Fancher, of Waterloo, N. Y., in June, 1862. The object of the invention was to produce blow equal in point of strength and lightness to the one ordi- narily in use and yet which would com bine the elements of small sized can non, so that it could be utilized by the frontier settler both for defensive pur- poses as well as agricultural.
 The beam or tongue of the blow to which the horses or oxen are yoked is in fact gun barrel or piece of light ordnance capable of throwing projec- tile of one to three pounds weight with out rendering it cumbersome as blow.
 The plowshare takes the place of a gun carriage and serves to anchor the improvised cannon firmly in the ground and enable it to resist the recoil, while the handles furnish means of giving the blow or gun, as the case may be, direc- tion or aim. To use the language of the inventors: ''as means of defense in re- polling surprises and attacks on those engaged in peaceful avocation it is unrivaled, as it can be instantly brought into action by disengaging the team, and in time of danger may be used charged with deadly grape. This com bination enables those in agricul tural pursuits to have at hand an efficient weapon of defense at slight expense, in addition to common and indispensable implement, and one hardly inferior to expensive light ordnance on wheels" With due deference to the originality of the conception of the inventors, it does not appear that the plough gun" or ''gun plough has come into very gen. eral use.