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Spring Wheels To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: Referring to the letter in your issue of February 1st entitled Fallacy of the Spring Wheel,Mr. Fischer states that the spring wheel will never become a practical success, his reason being that the springs in the wheel must undergo so many more flexures than the elliptical springs of the car. This is of course true of a great number of spring wheels, but the obvious answer is that if the flexures of the springs in the wheel are in excess of the elliptical springs, the springs must be so placed in the wheel that no flexures occur in excess of the flexures of the elliptical springs. New York city. HARRY E. SIPE. The Bow Rudder To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN : In your issue of January 25th, answering the letter of A. H. Kiehl, you make the following statement: The bow rudder is in use on special types of vessels, particularly on ferryboats, the practice being common in American harbors. All of the ferryboats on the Atlantic coast, of which I have record, are steered entirely by the after rudder, the forward rudder being locked, thereby losing the function of a rudder, in fact the forward rudder can be controlled only from the after pilot house. I believe that under certain common conditions of current, the bow rudder could be used with success, but I have yet to see one in operation. Princeton, N. J. ROSWELL DAVIS. Position of Projectiles in Flight To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: The Flight of Projectiles.Re article of Sidney Bal-lou in your issue of December 21st, 1912, page 581. His second paragraph is as follows: If a projectile rotated on an axis absolutely identical with its trajectory, the criticism would be sound; but it is just the slight departure from this condition that causes the drift. The moment the projectile leaves the gun, the force of gravity begins to pull it away from the path of the axis of its rotation, and this slight deviation is enough to make the analogy of the baseball applicable. It might be well for the writer to point out the analogy referred to, especially since the drifts of a baseball and of a bullet are in opposite directions, as pointed out by Twining, and especially since Twining states that the causes of the two drifts are entirely distinct and different, in other words, that there is no analogy whatever. Red Deer, Alberta. C. C. GRANT, M.D. The Nature of the Patent Monopoly To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: Regarding the proposed legislation for eradication of the monopoly element from our patent laws: Would it not be well to consider with exceeding care the matter of this alleged monopoly element, and to demonstrate conclusively its existence, before moving to eradicate it? While in a general way it might be admitted by some that the inventor is a producer, there appears to be no intelligent understanding of the fundamentals of this so important subject, and the general opinion appears to be that in granting a patent to an inventor, society confers upon the latter a favor, a benevolence, and at the expense of society, for which gratuitous gift the inventor is obligated to society, as, for instance, he would be should he receive free a valuable franchise, by means of which franchise he might live in idle luxury at the expense of society. In short, the inventor is considered, whatever attitude toward him be professed, a privileged seeker, a delver into the pork barrel,a monopolist, and a blackmailing grafter. It is denied that the inventor is or can be a producer; he is considered merely a forestaller, an appropriator of natural laws in justice free to all, for that no man can produce by mental exercise alone. This inventor, who may be without hands or feet, says to society, after sitting for years in exhaustive thought, I have produced a mechanical design which, expressed materially in the form of a machine, will save the labor of a thousand men, enriching society by the labor saved. What will you give me to disclose it, and how will you guarantee payment? Society at present replies: In the first place, you are a liar; you have produced nothing, for you have neither hands nor feet to produce with. Secondly, you are a thief, because you have appropriated and hold secret possession of our natural rights, but, as we know no means by which we may forcibly dispossess you and recover these our rights, and as we greatly desire possession of them, we will agree to pay your blackmailing claim, by granting you a patent right upon the design. But, if the inventor cannot produce without limbe, how can he steal without them, and what thing economically has he stolen from society? If all the wheat or cotton be gathered into the possession of a Patten or a Sully, how can monopoly result from such concentration, the wheat or cotton being a labor product, and therefore property? How can more than temporary inconvenience result, provided the land from which the wheat or cotton was produced be still accessible to society for the production of a further supply of the desired product? Thought, applied to language, produces word combinations or literary designs, for the expression of opinions or ideas. Unless title to language be conferred upon an individual, so that he alone may produce literary designs, how can monopoly result from any individual possession of copyrights on these literary designs, which rights concern a labor product? Thought, applied to the laws of mechanics, produces mechanical designs, which expressed materially are valuable to society. Unless title to the laws of mechanics be conferred upon an individual, so that he alone may produce mechanical designs, how can monopoly result from individual possession of patent rights on these mechanical designs, which patent rights concern a labor product? A chemist burns the midnight oil in useful research for fifty years while his fellows carouse. Feeling his energies weaken, he writes the results (in a few hours perhaps) of his years of study, copyrights, and rests from labor upon the sale of his book. There are many--aven millions of--people sufficiently hardy to deny that this writer is a producer, and to assert the equal right of the public to publish and sell this man's book without payment to him. The inventor, whose is undoubtedly the most exhaustively consuming and poorly paid of labor, he being well-nigh universally a loser physically and financially, produces his mechanical design by years of conscientious, grinding, slavish mental toil and financial expenditure, while the public idly await his product, whereupon these latter, too lazy to produce their own designs, or too graftingly dishonest to acquire them by purchase, proceed to slanderously declare him a grafter and to actually demand equal rights with him in the use of his product. I must deny that the inventor is a grafter, and that a patent monopoly ever existed or is possible of existence while the basic laws of mechanics are maintained freely accessible to society for the production of mechanical designs. If Congress, therefore, in well-intentioned ignorance, or at the behest of selfish interests, legislates away from the inventor his property rights into the hands of non-producers. Congress will be guilty not alone of confiscation, but of the very warst sort, because confined to a particular class. It will discourage unto death the inventive art, the most useful of arts, and when all too late, society will realize that in thus socializing the product of the inventor's toil, greed has at last burst the bag. Newark, N. J. J. H. RrsBr. Snow-rollers To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: The little article Wind-rolled Snowballsin your issue of March 1st is an interesting contribution to a subject with which meteorologists are tolerably familiar, but apparently the scientific world at large is not. Snowballs of the character described are known technically as snow-rollers.(See the Supplement to the Century Dictionary.) It is likely that some of your readers will be glad to be referred to further literature on the subject. The most extensive account of snow-rollers in the English language is that given in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 34, 1908, pages 87 to 96. This is mainly a compilation of accounts of the phenomenon previously published in scientific books and journals, and is illustrated. Some of these accounts appeared in the Monthly Weather Review (published by the U. S. Weather Bureau). Probably the most important contribution to the subject of snow-rollers is the article Schneewalzen,by Rudolf Meyer, in Korrespondenzblatt des Naturforscher-Vereins zu Riga, vol. 52, 1909. This gives a list and analysis of all cases known to the writer between the years 1808 and 1909, and is accompanied by a bibliography which lists 35 previous papers on the subject, in several languages. Snow-rollers were observed in Morris County, N. J , in January, 1809, by Rev. D. A. Clark, when it is stated that the whole landscape was covered with snow-balls, differing in size from that of a lady's muff to the diameter of 2\'2 or 3 eet, hollow at each end to almost the very center, and t'l as true as so many logs shaped in a lathe. C. PITZHUQH TALMAN, Washington, D. C. U. S. Weather Bureau.
