The English Patent Office Library

If the poor inventor is not eutirely jgDoraiit oí patent procedure, htt knows that the pateutoírice niukes uo.searcb to test tbo validity of bis iuventiou, aud so he couics to nndertnke it himseif. 11 he fiuds tbat bis inveuüon ippears in no previous patent, be is coufhined iu bis belief tbat be will at last see bis dreams realized and tbat he will in a sborfc time pessess grein wealth. If, on the other bami, be liuds bis ideas bave been autioipated, bis dreams of fortune lade away iike mint before a uioruing suu, auc! üfe, as be bas known it for so mauy weary years - hard, toilsouie, pitiless to tbose wbo, Iike hirnself, lack money - lies paiufally clear before his view. A short tbrtn liours - or even less - ppeut iu tbis library may plunge tbe man wbo entered it bopeful and brigbt into deepest despair, and it is certaiu that within its walls inany silent tragedies of this kind are enacted week by week and noticed by only few if any of tbose arouud. But inventora are a bopeful race, and though some who suffer such adisappointmeut of all theirhopes may never recover from it there is no doubt many recommeuce tlieir experimenta and elabórate other inventions from which they expect the same, or even greater, realities of wealtn and