Ferrell, of New York, has obtained about a dozen patents
for his inventions, the larger portion of them being for improvements in
valves for steam engines.

Mr. Benjamin F. Jackson, of Massachusetts, is the inventor of a dozen
different improvements in heating and lighting devices, including a
controller for a trolley wheel.

Mr. Charles V. Richey, of Washington, has obtained about a dozen patents
on his inventions, the last of which was a most ingenious device for
registering the calls on a telephone and detecting the unauthorized use
of that instrument. This particular patent was only recently taken out
by Mr. Richey, and he has organized a company for placing the invention
on the market, with fine prospects of success.

Hon. George W. Murray, of South Carolina, former member of Congress from
that State, has received eight patents for his inventions in
agricultural implements, including mostly such different attachments as
readily adapt a single implement to a variety of uses.

Henry Creamer, of New York, has made seven different inventions in steam
traps, covered by as many patents, and Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama, has
about the same number to his credit for inventions in car-coupling
devices.

Mr. William Douglass, of Kansas, was granted about a half dozen patents
for various inventions in harvesting machines. One of his patents, that
one numbered 789,010, and dated May 2, 1905, for a self-binding
harvester, is conspicuous in the records of the Patent Office for the
complicated and intricate character of the machine, for the extensive
drawings required to illustrate it and the lengthy specifications
required to explain it--there being thirty-seven large sheets of
mechanical drawings and thirty-two printed pages of descriptive matter,
including the 166 claims drawn to cover the novel points presented. This
particular patent is, in these respects, quite unique in the class here
considered.

Mr. James Doyle, of Pittsburgh, has obtained several patents for his
inventions, one of them being for an automatic serving system. This
latter device is a scheme for dispensing with the use of waiters in
dining rooms, restaurants and at railroad lunch counters. It was
recently exhibited with the Pennsylvania Exposition Society's exhibits
at Pittsburgh, where it attracted widespread attention from the press
and the public. The model used on that occasion is said to have cost
nearly $2,000.

In the civil service at Washing