Excerpt from An Address Delivered August 14, 1844, Before the Society of Phi Beta Kappa in Yale College Hitherto the patents granted have been on the gradual increase, amounting to an average of two hundred and fifty per annum. Last year the number allowed amounted to five hundred. The spacious and beautiful edifice of the Patent Office. Is' already crowded; the spectator is lost amidst the confused mass of improved ploughs, fanning mills, furnaces, chronometers, philosophical instruments, water wheels, and printing presses, to say nothing of the innumerable improvements in the various processes of the arts, as in the preparation of leather, glass, building mate rials, and wearing apparel. This too, it will be observed, is the result of but a few years in an Obscure quarter of the world. All Europe, with her two hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants, has been engaged in this career for two hundred years, and is now pursuing it with increased ardor and success. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.