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T H E J O L R L V A L O F I L V D L S T R I ~ ~A LN D E N G I i V E E R I N G C H E M I S T R Y
registration of any trade mark the proprietor whereof is a subject of any State a t war with His Majesty. The Board of Trade has set up the necessary machinery t o carry out the Act, and has issued rules from which i t appears that they may, on the application of any person, and subject to such terms and conditions, if any, as they may think fit, order the avoidance or suspension of the rights of patent and registers of trade-marks of aliens. The Board, before granting any such application, may require to be satisfied on three points. The first point of which the Board will require t o be satisfied is that the patentee, licensee, or proprietor is the subject of a State a t war with His Majesty. This point looks very simple and easy of proof, but when the time comes, i t may raise difficulties that are not apparent t o those who are not well posted as to the preparations of our enemies. The second point requiring proof is that the person applying intends to manufacture the patented article, or to carry on the patented process, or intends to manufacture the goods in respect of which trade mark is granted. We cannot say what sort of proof the Board will require on this point, but it, and the third point, are evidently intended t o prevent applications under the Act by persons who have no interest. The third point on which the Board will require to be satisfied is that it is in the general interests of the country or of a section of the community or of a trade, that such article should be manufactured, or such process carried on, or the registration of the trade mark avoided or suspended. The Act and Rules made under the new Act are to continue in force only during the continuance of the present state of war in Europe and for a period of six months thereafter. This provision raises an interesting question. Are patents, designs, and trade marks t o be avoided or suspended for not longer than six months after the termination of the war, and then to be automatically restored, or is the avoidance or suspension t o be irrevocable? Evidently the latter is not to be the case, for the Board of Trade have powers to revoke any avoidance or suspension a t any time in their absolute discretion. The matter appears to us to be in a state of confusion, and the Government has evidently found it to be so, for the President of the Board of Trade introduced a Bill into the House of Commons to amend the Patents Act they passed only a few days previously. The President in his introductory remarks explained that the new Act was not as clear as it might have been.
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have been used with more or less success for gears in machinetool construction. One machine-tool builder in the MiddleWest has tried both these alloys for gears; very unsatisfactory results were obtained, and he has gone back to ordinary carbon steel, having a carbon content of 0 . 2 0 per cent, heat-treating the steel in the most scientific manner known. The article states that with special alloy steels the limits of fluctuation in the heat treatment are much narrower than in ordinary carbon steel, and the material must be handled much more carefully if good results are to be expected. Since using carbon steel the machine-tool builder in question has found that his troubles in the way of breakage and stripping of gear-teeth are practically eliminated. THE UNITED STATES COAL OUTPUT The Iron A g e states that the coal output in the United States for the year 1913 has again broken all previous records. The figure given by our contemporary is 570,048,125 net tons, or considerably more than double the output of 1900, and more than eight times that of 1880. The value of the coal mined in 1913 is given as $760,488,785. Compared with the year 1912, the output for 1913 shows a n increase of 35,581,545 tons, or nearly 7 per cent. Pennsylvania mined more coal in 1913, both anthracite and bituminous, than in any previous year in the record of the industry. The output reached 265,306,139 tons, of which 91,524,927 tons was anthracite and 173,781,212 tons bituminous. BY-PRODUCT COKE OVENS IN RUSSIA The United States Consul a t Odessa reports that there are in South Russia ten plants owned by nine firms for the production -and utilization of coke by-products. In the first nine months of 1913 these firms were operating 887 coke ovens producing by-products, besides a large number of the old type. The increase in the last four years in these ovens was 563, or 15.8 per cent. In 1912 5,689,411 tons of coal were consumed to produce 4,252,697 tons of coke, as compared with 2,774,733 tons of coal to produce 2,020,831 tons of coke in 1903. Sulfate of ammonia is beginning to be used in Russia as a fertilizer; but most of i t is still exported. The pitch is used mainly, if not exclusively, for the production of briquettes, and the heavy oils for the impregnation of railroad sleepers.
THE IRON AND STEEL TRADE
O N ACCUMULATOR ELECTROLYTES
Manufacturers are beginning t o find that the decline in activity is not nearly so sharp as they were led to expect, though i t is entirely possible that by the time this is published, some new turn of the situation will have changed this. According to London Engineering (98, 276 August 28, 1914), while “the condition of affairs in the malleable-iron trade in the west of Scotland is most satisfactory and makers are very busy, business in the Scotch steel trade has been rather a serious problem t o the different managements for a long time back, and the newer phase is also one requiring careful handling. During the past week the outlook has improved considerably, as shipping facilities are more favorable, but heavier freights and increased costs for raw material are all against buyers, who are still somewhat backward t o fix up contracts. The mails from abroad are bringing in very satisfactory inquiries and orders from markets which have remained loyal t o the Scotch makers, and those which in recent years purchased large quantities of steel material from the Continent will now require to pass their business here or else to America.”
The July issue of the Proceedings of the Soci6tC Belge des electriciens states that most of the patents taken out in those countries where there is no preliminary examination cover reinventions, not genuine inventions. This is due to the fact that the majority of researchers explore fields which are not familiar to them and neglect to inform themselves thoroughly on all points. According t o our contemporary, this state of matters prevails in the construction of electric accumulators more than in any other branch of industry. The immobilization of the electrolyte, for example, constantly gives rise to a number of patents dealing with processes, some of which have been known for the last thirty years or more.
ALLOY-STEEL GEARS IN MACHINE TOOLS The issue of Machinery, for August of this year, says that alloy steels, such as chrome-vanadium and chrome-nickel,
THE FULLAGAR INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE A gas engine of such novel type and combining many new features was recently demonstrated a t a joint meeting of the Institutions of Naval Engineers and Shipbuilders a t Newcastleupon-Tyne, that it is worthy of a fairly extensive description. Three fundamental factors are chiefly responsible for the difficulties in the construction of internal combustion engines of existing types. These factors are: ( a ) That the heat per unit of surface radiated by the flame to the cylinder walls increases with the size of the cylinder, while the thickness of metal through
