ft on the
expedition to the Cape of Good Hope to observe the transit of Venus,
and never learned what had been done with the claims of Mr. Jennings.
It might naturally be supposed that when an official report to
the Navy Department showed that he had no claims whatever except
those of a patriotic citizen who had done his best, which was just
nothing at all, to promote the common end, the claim would have
received little attention. Possibly this may have been the case.
But I do not know what the outcome of the matter was.

Shortly after the death of the President, I had a visit from an
inventor who had patented a method of cooling the air of a room
by ice. He claimed that our work at the Executive Mansion was an
infringement on his patent. I replied that I could not see how
any infringement was possible, because we had gone to work in the
most natural way, without consulting any previous process whatever,
or even knowing of the existence of a patent. Surely the operation
of passing air over ice to cool it could not be patentable.

He invited me to read over the statement of his claims. I found that
although this process was not patented in terms, it was practically
patented by claiming about every possible way in which ice could be
arranged for cooling purposes. Placing the ice on supports was one
of his claims; this we had undoubtedly done, because otherwise the
process could not have been carried out. In a word, the impression
I got was that the only sure way of avoiding an infringement would
have been to blindfold the men who put the ice in the box, and ask
them to throw it in pellmell. Every method of using judgment in
arranging the blocks of ice he had patented.

I had to acknowledge that his claim of infringement might have
some foundation, and inquired what he proposed to do in the case.
He replied that he did not wish to do more than have his priority
recognized in the matter. I replied that I had no objection to his
doing this in any way he could, and he took his leave. Nothing more,
so far as I am aware, was done in his case. But I was much impressed
by this as by other examples I have had of the same kind, of the
loose way in which our Patent Office sometimes grants patents.

I do not think the history of any modern municipality can show an
episode more extraordinary or, taken in connection with its results,
more instructive than what is known as the "Shepherd regime" in
Washington. What is