intermediate stations, and would leave no greater width of water than that between Dover and Calais. The Russian government might easily keep a watch upon the part of the line in its dominions; and the governments of the United States and Great Britain might do the same in their respective territories. Any damage done by accident to any part of the line might be as easily repaired as if it had happened between New-York and Albany. Hence this route would always be free from such dangers as would constantly threaten a line connecting Halifax with the Irish coast. This is a great advantage; and besides, a line from St. Petersburg to San Francisco would establish a connection between two important places. The telegraph would pass through all the principal provincial towns between the capital and Behring's Straits, and would doubtless be daily employed for forwarding government dispatches to and fro. On the Continent of North America an important communication would be kept up between Behring's Straits and San Francisco, leading to a large increase of mercantile and other intercourse. Over all this vast space would the telegraph be usefully employed in many ways by the two governments of the United States and Great Britain. It would pass through the British possessions in North America, including the Hudson's Bay district, and become a most valuable means here of forwarding mercantile communications to England, as well as along the coast from one station to another. Stations would also be formed on the borders of the lakes, for the conveyance of messages and news from the British vessels which ply in these waters. The great whale-fishing interest, which carries on its operations in the north, would also derive much advantage from this part of the line. During the years 1849 and 1850, as many as 199 of our whalers passed Behring's Straits, with a larger number of men on board than is usually employed by the whole marine of our country; and during the same period the total value of oil procured amounted to somewhere about three millions and a half sterling. It is needless to say how greatly so numerous a body of men, exposed to all sorts of dangers, would be benefited by an instant communication between Behring's Straits and San Francisco.

Thus, a telegraph between San Francisco and St. Petersburg would be the medium of numerous communications to and from all intermediate points, in addition to those which could be conveyed by a submarine line across the Atlantic. And it is easy to see that it might soon become a main line of telegraphic communication all round the habitable globe; for, having connected two places separated by so vast a space and such a variety of apparently insurmountable obstacles, it would be a matter of comparatively little difficulty to carry on lines from

Petersburg to all the principal cities of Europe. In time, branches might be extended over the civilized regions of Asia, the vast territory of India, and ultimately even to the inhospitable empire of China.

By some one of these methods we cannot but think the idea of an electric telegraph round the world might be reduced to practice, and thus a great system of international intercourse, carried on with all the rapidity of thought itself, might ultimately pervade the whole earth, banishing discord, and bringing about that happy millennium of universal peace and prosperity for which humanity is ever sighing."

Art VI.-DECISION OF SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

F. O. J. SMITH US. H. B. ELY, HENRY O'RIELLY, et al.

Decision was rendered February, 1854.

THIS suit reached the United States Supreme Court from the Circuit Court for the District of Ohio, on a division of opinion of the Judges therein. The case originated on an application for an injunction by F. O. J. Smith, representing Morse patents for the American Electro-Magnetic Telegraphs, against Henry O'Rielly and associates, requiring the said defendants to desist from the use of the Morse patents, on the lines built by said O'Rielly, under his contract with Morse of 1845. The case was argued below fully, and the two judges presiding differed in opinion on some points at issue; this non-agreement placed it in the Supreme Court for a decision in the premises. The case involved all the points that were in the case from Kentucky, and this decision refers to that case for further particulars.

The cause was ably argued in the Circuit Court, and for this and other reasons, the Supreme Court denied the defendants the privilege of re-arguing it before that body. The counsel for the defendants presumed they had some technical advantage of the plaintiffs in the pleadings, and therefore hoped to re-argue the case; but the Chief Justice very justly rebuked that disposition of the counsel, which will be seen in the latter part of the decision. We presume it will have a good effect upon members of that bar, deterring them in future from seeking the technical advantage of justice within the pale of that sacred temple. We did intend to give a definition of the legal terms in the decision, but in order to do that we should have to extend our number to several hundred pages. We therefore give it without any further remarks. EDITOR.

Mr. Chief Justice TANEY delivered the opinion of the Court.

The plaintiff in error is the assignee, within a certain tract of country, of the two patents granted to Morse for his ElectroMagnetic Telegraph-one in 1840, and the other in 1846, and both re-issued in 1848. And this action was brought in the Circuit Court for the District of Ohio for infringements of both of these patents, within the limits assigned to the plaintiff.

The defendants did not proceed in their defence in the manner authorized by the act of Congress, but pleaded the general issue, and seventeen special pleas. Upon some of these pleas issue was joined, and others were demurred to; and upon the argument of the demurrers, the judges of the Court were divided in opinion on the following questions, which they have certified for decision to this Court:

I. Upon the demurrer to the sixth and seventh pleas, respectively, whether the said letters patent to the said Morse are void, for the reason that the same do not on their face respectively express that they are to run for fourteen years from the date of the patent issued to said Morse in the kingdom of France.

II. Whether upon the demurrer to the eighth, ninth, and eighteenth pleas, said letters patent to said Morse assume, as to the matter alleged in said eighteenth plea, to patent a principle, or a thing which is not an art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any improvement on any art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter; and if so, whether, and to what extent, said letters patent, or any part thereof, are void in consequence thereof; and also whether said pleas are bad, respectively, for the reason that they assume to answer certain material and substantial parts of the plaintiff's claim, without averring that there are no other material and substantial parts embraced in his claim, which can be distinguished from the other parts averred to be so claimed without right, and on which he would be entitled to recover.

III. Whether, upon the demurrers to the fourteenth and fifteenth pleas, said patent, issued April 11th, 1846, and re-issued June 13, 1848, is void; and if so, to what extent; for the reason that it embraces as a material and substantial part thereof, a material and substantial part of a former patent issued to said Morse.

IV. Whether upon the demurrers to the eighth, ninth, fourteenth, and fifteenth pleas, said letters patent issued to said Morse are void, for the reason, as averred in said pleas, that he was not the original and first inventor of the several matters in said pleas respectively set forth; but the same had been, prior to said invention by said Morse, known and used in a foreign country.

The questions certified, so far as they affect the merits of the case, have all been substantially decided in the case of Morse and others vs. O'Rielly and others at the present term. But several questions are presented by the certificate upon the construction of the pleas and the extent of the admissions made by the demurrers, and the legal effect of such admissions upon the plaintiff's right of action.

In relation to the questions which go to the merits, as they have been already fully heard and decided in the case above mentioned, they are not open for argument in this case. And it would be an useless and fruitless consumption of time to hear an argument upon the technical questions alone. For, however the points of special pleading might be ruled by this Court, they could have no material influence on the ultimate decision of the case. Because if it is found that errors in pleading have been committed by either party injurious to his rights, an opportunity ought and would certainly be afforded him to correct them in some subsequent proceeding, so as to bring the real points in controversy fairly before the Court.

For these reasons, the motion of the counsel for the defendants for leave to argue the points certified is overruled, and the case remanded to the Circuit Court.

Under such circumstances, we deem it proper to remand the case without argument to the Circuit Court for the District of Ohio, where either party may amend his pleadings, and where the defendants, if they can distinguish their case from that above mentioned, will have an opportunity of being heard.

Art. VII-A NEW TELEGRAPH BATTERY.

THE ELEMENTS OF THE GROVE, DANIELL, AND SMEE BATTERIES-THEIR RESPECTIVE POWERS-BATTERY OF QUANTITY AND OF IN

TENSITY-A NEW BATTERY PROPOSED.

BY CHARLES T. CHESTER.

THE battery has not received from telegraphers the attention due to its importance as generator of electrical power-that fountain-head of the subtle fluid, which courses over wires, and animates our machinery. Innumerable varieties of instruments, insulators and conductors, have been tested, and improvements are being constantly made upon them; but the battery now generally used is the same that was employed during the infancy of the telegraph enterprise. Its power and general reliability have made its friends lose sight of the fact that its expense is altogether disproportioned to the work it accomplishes. It is

troublesome, unhealthy, and inconstant, requiring frequent attention and renewal.

My attention was called, some years since, to the great waste of battery power, and to the means of preventing it. From many experiments, I was led to infer that the amount of electricity used on lines was exceedingly small, and that the great consumption of battery material was due to some other cause than the demands of the line, and that if a perfect battery could be constructed this fact would be proved. In submitting the battery that is the subject of the present sketch to the most severe practical tests, these ideas have been entirely sustained.

Without entering upon any history of the forms of galvanic batteries used in the early history of electrical science, I will briefly describe those now used for telegraph purposes in the United States, premising a notice of the principle on which they all generate the electric current. They all demand the presence of two metals and an exciting fluid-one metal acted upon by the fluid, the other negative to its influence. Place in a tumbler containing an exciting fluid, say sulphuric acid and water, two metallic plates, zinc and platina. Upon touching these plates together, an electrical current passes from one to the other, and through the fluid. The water is resolved into its two elements-oxygen going to the zinc, forming oxide of zinc, and hydrogen to the platina, and thrown off in bubbles of gas. In all galvanic batteries this same decomposition must take place. The oxygen of the water going to the zinc, and its hydrogen being disposed of at the platina plate, or its substitute or equiva lent. Upon the different modes of disposing of the hydrogen thus set free depends one important element of power in batteries. I say one element of power. They may possess the power due to quantity or intensity. The quantity of electricity developed by any galvanic battery depends practically upon the size of the plates used. The intensity is the force with which this quantity is brought to bear upon anything to produce a given result its energy in overcoming obstacles, impediments to the free passage of the electric current. And this intensity is generally acquired by increasing the number of cells, and is proportioned to that numerical increase.

I will now briefly describe the construction and operation, the anatomy and physiology, of the three batteries that have been used on telegraph lines, with particular reference to show. ing the different modes adopted to dispose of the element hy drogen. In Grove's battery, a tumbler holds a dilute sulphuric acid; within this stands the zine cylinder; within the zinc a porous cup, holding nitric acid, into which dips a slip of platina. In this arrangement, the hydrogen of the decomposed water enters the nitric acid cell, decomposes an equivalent of the acid,