d by the Woods brothers to this
company. The record shows that the American Bell Telephone Company
purchased Woods' patent No. 315,386, granted April 7, 1885, for the
latter's invention of an apparatus for transmitting messages by
electricity. The same inventor sold to the General Electric Company,
of New York, his patent No. 667,110, of January 29, 1901, on his
invention for electric railways.

We should mention here also two other inventors of importance in the
line of appliances for musical instruments, Mr. J. H. Dickinson and
his son S. L. Dickinson, both of New Jersey. They have been granted
more than a dozen patents for their appliances, mostly in the line of
devices connected with the player piano machinery. They are still
engaged in the business of inventing, and both are holding responsible
and lucrative positions with first-class music corporations.

The inventions of W. B. Purvis, of Philadelphia, in machinery for
making paper bags are reported to be responsible for much of the great
improvement made in that art; and his patents, more than a dozen in
number on that subject alone, are said to have brought him good
financial returns. Many of them are recorded as having been sold to
the Union Paper Bag Company, of New York.

Another instance is that of an invention capable of playing an
important part in the cotton raising industry. This was a
cotton-picking machine covered by two patents granted to A. P. Albert,
a native Louisiana Creole. Mr. Albert invented a second machine which
is said to have the merit of perfect practicability, a feat not easy
of accomplishment in that class of machinery. Special significance is
attached to this case because of the inventor's experience in putting
through his application for a patent. He was obliged to appeal from
the adverse decision of the principal examiner to the Board of
Examiners-In-Chief, a body of highly trained legal and technical
experts appointed to pass upon the legal and mechanical merits of an
invention turned down by the primary examiners. Albert appeared before
this Board in his own defense with a brief prepared entirely by
himself, and won his case through his thorough painstaking
presentation of all the legal and technical points involved. Mr.
Albert is a graduate of the Law Department of Howard University in
Washington, and is connected with the United States Civil Service as
an examiner in the Pension Office.

Other colored men in the Departmental