rms: FIRE-EXTINGUISHEB cass. 41:
prior to the grant of the patent. In his application and specifica-
tions, Graham claimed that he had discovered that carbonic acid gas
compressed in water in the proportion of ten or more volumes of gas
to one of water, in portable fountains or nxed reservoirs, could be
usefully applied to extinguishing fires, and that he had devised suit-
able apparatus by which a stream of gaseous water, by the elastic
force of the gas, would be projected a distance of 40 feet, so as to
quickly, cheaply, and effectual1y subdue the fire. He fully described
what he claimed as his invention, and accompanied his specihcations
with diagrams and descriptions of his apparatus. The commissioner
of patents refused to grant him a patent, upon the ground that the
specifications were not found to contain any practicable device for
carrying the alleged discovery into operation, and because it did not
appear that it admitted of being carried into operation. Graham
made many unsuccessful efforts to convince the commissioner that
his plan was useful and practicable, but want of means and ill-health
prevented his exhibiting in Washington the apparatus with which he
expected to demonstrate its efficiency, and he_ died in 185'Iwithout
obtaining a patent. In 1869 a patent was granted by the United
States to Carlier & Vignon, of Paris, France, (No. 88,844, April 13,
1869; reissued, No. 4,994, July 16, 1872,) for "an improvement in the
art of extinguishing fires, by throwing upon the fire or conilagration
a properlydirected stream of mingled carbonic acid gas and water
‘ by means of the pressure or expansive force exerted by the mass of
mingled gas and water from which the stream is derived." Carlier
& Vignon had previously obtained patents in France and England,
but the date of their invention was not shown to have been earlier
than 1861. The portable apparatus described by them was substan-
tially identical in principle and operation with the apparatus de-
scribed by Graham. Suit having been brought on their reissued pat-
ent in the circuit court for the Eastern district of Pennsylvania, it
was tried in April, 1874, before Circuit Judge LIGKENNA. To show
want of novelty in the patent, the respondent in that suit put in evi-
dence the identical apparatus constructed and used by Graham, and
Judge MCKENNA, in a carefully considered decision, held that it was
clearly proved that Graham, as early as 1852 or 1853, had made a.
public trial of this very apparatus in Lexington, Virginia. He held
that it was proved that Graham was, as he claimed to be, the hrst,
inventor "of an original method of extinguishing fires by the combined
agency of carbonic acid gas and water, and that he perfected and
adopted his invention by embodying it in the form of mechanical ap-
pliances, capable of operative and successful use." ‘ Northwestern
Fire-extinguisher O0. v. Phila. Fire-extinguisher Oo. 1 Ban. & A.
177. After the decision of this case the administrator of Graham,
in 1876, filed in the patent-office another application for a patent for
Graham’s invention, but was refused upon the ground that in conse·
quence of the long delay the invention had gone into public use.