others, is that of Mr. Joseph Hunter Dickinson, of New Jersey. Mr. Dickinson's specialty is in the line of musical instruments, particularly the piano. He began more than fifteen years ago to invent devices for automatically playing the piano, and is at present in the employ of a large piano factory, where his various inventions in piano-player mechanism are eagerly adopted in the construction of some of the finest player pianos on the market. He has more than a dozen patents to his credit already, and is still devoting his energies to that line of invention.

The company with which he is identified is one of the very largest corporations of its kind in the world, and it is no little distinction to have one of our race occupy so significant a relation to it, and to hold it by the sheer force of a trained and active intellect.

Mr. Frank J. 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 Washington there are several colored men who have made inventions of more or less importance which were suggested by the mechanical problems arising in their daily occupations.

Mr. Shelby J. Davidson, of Kentucky, a clerk in the office of the Auditor for the Post Office Department, operated a machine for tabulating and totalizing the quarterly accounts which were regularly submitted by the postmasters of the country. Mr. Davidson's attention was first directed to the loss in time through the necessity for periodically stopping to manually dispose of the paper coming from the machine. He invented a rewind device which served as an attachment for automatically taking up the paper as it issued from the machine, and adapted it for