of equity to appoint other trustees in its stead, according to the maxim, expressly affirmed in the Code of Georgia, that a trust shall never fail for the want of a trustee. Reeve v. AttorneyGeneral, 3 Hare, 191; Winslow v. Cummings, 3 Cush. (Mass.) 358; Code of Georgia of 1873, sect. 3195.

The residuary clause of the will disposes of real and personal estate to the amount of $300,000, and is as follows:

"Twenty-first. All the residue of my estate, of whatever the same may consist, real, personal, and mixed, and wherever situated, I hereby give, devise, and bequeath to my executors hereinafter named, and to the survivor of them, and to the successors in this trust of said survivor, in trust, to use and appropriate the proceeds arising from the same to the building and erection and endowment of a hospital for females within the City of Savannah, on a permanent basis, into which sick and indigent females are to be admitted and cared for in such manner and on such terms as may be defined and prescribed by the trustees or directresses provided for in this item or clause in my will. The income, rents, and profits of such portion of the residuum of my estate as may not be expended in the building, erection, and furnishing said hospital shall be annually appropriated to the support and maintenance of the same. My desire and request is that a thoroughly convenient hospital, of moderate dimensions, suited to the wants of the City of Savannah, and capable of enlargement if necessity should require, may be built and erected, with no unnecessary display connected with it. And I do hereby nominate, as the first trustees, managers, or directresses of said hospital, Mrs. Louisa F. Gilmer, Sarah Owens, Mary Elliott (formerly Habersham), Susan Mann, Florence Bourquin, Eva West, and Eliza Chisolm, all of Savannah, Georgia, and do request and instruct my executors to advise and consult with the ladies named as to the construction, arrangement, and furnishing of said hospital. It is further my wish and desire, and I do hereby request, that a suitable and proper act of incorporation for said hospital shall be obtained from such tribunal in the State of Georgia as may have jurisdiction in the premises, to be called and known as the Telfair Hospital for Females,' with the ladies above named, or such of them as may consent to serve, and such others as they may apply for to be associated with them, as the first trustees, managers, or directresses under said act of incorporation, with power to fill any vacancies that occur in their number. And for the purpose of accomplishing the objects contemplated in this item or clause of my

will, I do hereby authorize and empower my executors, or the survivor of them, to sell and convey all or any portion of the real estate, or any interest in the same, which I may have or be entitled to, and not given or devised in any of the previous items or clauses of this my will, using their discretion as to private or public sales, and as to whether and at what time such sales shall be made."

That this devise and bequest to establish a hospital for sick and indigent females in the City of Savannah is sufficiently definite, and that its validity is not impaired by the provision of the will requiring an act of incorporation to be obtained, are clearly settled by the cases of Inglis v. Sailor's Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99; Ould v. Washington Hospital, 95 U. S. 303; and Russell v. Allen, ante, p. 163.

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The bequest, in the twenty-third clause of the will, of $1,000 to the first Christian church erected or to be erected in the village of Telfairville in Burke County, or to such persons as may become trustees of the same," is supported by the same authorities, and is directly within the decisions of Lord Thurlow in Attorney-General v. Bishop of Chester, 1 Bro. Ch. 444, of Sir John Copley, Master of the Rolls (afterwards Lord Lyndhurst), in Society for the Propagation of the Gospel v. Attorney-General, 3 Russ. 142, and of Lord Hatherley in Sinnett v. Herbert, Law Rep. 7 Ch. 232. See also Cumming v. Reid Memorial Church, 64 Ga. 105.

The result is that all the devises and bequests contained in Miss Telfair's will are valid as against her heirs at law and next of kin.

Decree affirmed.

ATLANTIC WORKS v. Brady.

BRADY v. ATLANTIC WORKS.

1. Letters-patent granted to Edwin L. Brady, Dec. 17, 1867, for an improved dredge-boat for excavating rivers, are invalid for want of novelty and invention.

2. The design of the patent laws is to reward those who make some substantial discovery or invention, which adds to our knowledge and makes a step in advance in the useful arts. It was never their object to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures.

3. Although letters-patent are not set up by way of defence in an answer, yet if the invention patented thereby is afterwards put into actual use, their date will be evidence of that of the invention on a question of priority between different parties.

4. One person receiving from another a full and accurate description of a useful improvement cannot appropriate it to himself; and letters-patent obtained by him therefor are void.

APPEALS from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.

The case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. William A. Abbott and Mr. Albert A. Abbott for Brady. Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Maury, contra.

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court. This case arises upon a bill in equity filed by Edwin L. Brady against The Atlantic Works, a corporation of Massachusetts, having workshops and a place of business in Boston, praying for an account of profits for building a dredge-boat in violation of certain letters-patent granted to the complainant bearing date Dec. 17, 1867, and for an injunction to restrain the defendants from making, using, or selling any dredge-boat in violation of said letters-patent. The bill was filed on the 9th of April, 1868, and had annexed thereto a copy of the patent alleged to be infringed. The following are the material parts of the specification:

"The excavator consists of a strong boat propelled by one or two propellers placed in the stern of the boat. I prefer two pro

pellers, as affording greater power and rendering the boat more manageable in steering in crooked channels. This propeller is driven in the ordinary manner by steam-engines of ordinary construction. Near the bow of the boat I place another steam-engine, driving what I call the 'mud-fan,' which projects from and in front of the bow of the boat. This is formed by a set of revolving blades shown at A, turned like the propellers, by a shaft passing through a stuffing-box, D. The blades are shaped somewhat like those of a propeller, but they are sharper on their fronts and less inclined on their faces. These blades should extend, say, two feet below the bottom of the boat, and their object is by their rapid revolution to displace the sand and mud on the bottom, and stirring them up, to mix them with the water so that they may be carried off by the

current.

"The motion of the 'mud-fan' tends to draw forward the boat, assisting the propellers.

"All the engines may be driven by one set of boilers, F, placed amidships. In order that the 'mud-fan' may be brought in contact with the bottom, I construct the boat with a series of watertight compartments, E, placed in the bow and stern, and on each side of the centre amidships, into which the water may be permitted to flow through pipes so as to sink the vessel to the required depth; the compartments being so placed and proportioned that the vessel shall sink with an even keel, by which the effective action of the 'mud-fan,' the propellers, and the steering apparatus is preserved, the boat being manageable at any depth. A large pump, B, driven by the engine, is connected by pipes with all the compartments, so that the water may be pumped out when necessary to raise the boat.

"I am aware that boats have been constructed with compartments to be filled with water, to sink the dredging mechanism to the bottom, by loading the end of the boat in which such mechanism is placed; but this construction is subject to the disadvantage of requiring more complicated machinery for dredging, in order that it may be accommodated to the inclination of the boat, and to the further disadvantage that the boats thus inclined are comparatively unmanageable.

"What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by letterspatent, is:

"1. A dredging-boat, constructed with a series of water-tight compartments, so proportioned and arranged that, as they are filled with water, the boat shall preserve an even keel, and the

dredging mechanism be brought into action without any adjusting devices, substantially as set forth.

"2. The combination of the mud-fan' attached to a rigid shaft, and a boat containing a series of water-tight compartments, E, so adjusted as to cause the boat to settle on an even keel as the compartments are filled with water, and a pump, B, for exhausting the water from all the compartments, substantially as set forth."

The defendants, in their answer, denied the validity of the patent, and denied infringement of any valid patent of the complainant. They then stated the circumstances under which they came to construct the dredge-boat complained of; namely, that in October, 1867, the government of the United States advertised for proposals for building a dredge-boat for the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to certain plans and specifications; that the defendants, being manufacturers and builders of marine engines and steamboats, examined the plans and specifications, and made proposals for building the boat according to the same; which were accepted; and they at once began the construction of the boat and completed it under the inspection and supervision of a United States officer, in conformity with the stipulations; and the boat went in charge of said officer to the mouth of the Mississippi River; that the said plans and specifications were made and furnished by General McAlester, of the engineer corps of the United States, for the use of the government, and were the result of his own study, observations, and experience, and that so far as they were original he was the author of them. They further alleged by their answer (as amended) as follows: "That the plans and specifications by which the said dredge-boat was constructed were not, and the said dredge-boat itself was not a new invention, or nove! and original; but the same, and the principle of said dredge-boat, had been substantially known and publicly used before, to wit, at New Orleans, on the mouth of the Mississippi River, in the year 1859, in the steam dredgeboat Enoch Train,' by Charles H. Hyde, by Thomas G. Mackie, and William A. Hyde, copartners, under the firm of Hyde & Mackie, and by Henry Wright, and had also been used and applied in the construction of light-draft monitors, so called, built by the United States government during the late rebel