Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/619

 ELECTRIC, ETC., SIGNAL CO. V. HALL, ETC., SIGNAL 00. 60T �and iinetruinents -frhicli the new plan required till the fall of 1873. In the latter part of April, 1873,; a new frack circuit doser was plaeed on the down track of the Hartford & New Haven Eailroad at Meriden, and a Une of telegraph poles was extended to the shop about an eighth of a mile away. Upon these poles wires were put which oonneoted with the track and the battery in the shop. The signais were prop- erly arranged, and were operated by ail the down trainE on the road. The mechanism remained in position for moaths» The arrangement describedin Pope's patent and this Meriden arrangement were substantially the same. �Subsequently, in December, 1873, after the new track cir- cuit closers were finished, Snow went to the Eastern Bailroad to put the new System in operation. Here a practieal diflS- eulty was experienced, which is thus explained by Alvah W. Hall, the son of T. S. Hall: "The first diffioulty we found, was that the magnots, being wound with ooarse wire,, and thus adapted for the short circuits and comparatively weak batteries with which they had previously been used, required too much battery power to work them on a long circuit. Therefore, when a battery was applied strong enough to work the most distant signal, which signal would have the longest circuit of any of them, it made the current too intense when the signal nearest the battery, which would be on the shortest circuit, was operated to work satisfactorily. The spark, on breaking contact with the circuit doser of this short circuit, following in a burning flame between the points of the circuit doser after the said points were removed from each other their proper distance, destroyed the points and burned them up." A change was made on February 14, 1874, which ob- viated the diffioulty, and which mainly consisted in bringing the ground into use to form part of the circuits. This is the change which the plaintiffs insist was simply mechanical in its character, and which the defendant daims made its eom- bination a new invention, Subsequently, the System of Mr. Hall was introduced upon other railroads, and a large amount of money was paid to his company therefor. ■ I am clearly of opinion that the application of the oae-bat- ��� �