Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/178

166 one-half ounce of flour or less; and the other, which throws the box into the air, three-quarters of an ounce, unless, as I think quite probable, an additional amount of air is drawn in through the cracks as soon as the vent is opened at the top of the box. In fact, these experiments work better if a few small holes are made near the bottom of the boxes.

It may be worthy of mention here, as a point of interest to insurance companies that, in all dust-explosions, a fire precedes the explosion in every case. The dust must burn before the heat that produces the immense expansive force is generated.

Too great precaution cannot be taken in all kinds of manufactories, where combustible dust is produced, against fire, especially in those establishments where it is conveyed in thick clouds by air-draughts through spouts and rooms.



HAIRMAN. Your attention has, no doubt, been called to the copyright question in a practical shape?

Answer. Yes.

Q. Will you kindly give the commission a general outline of the way in which it presents itself to you?

A. It appears to me, in the first place, that, if there be any foundation for property at all, it is as clear in the case of a book as of anything else, a book being the investment of a man's capacity and knowledge, and requiring the sacrifice of a vast amount of his time. Under those circumstances it appears to me that prima facie it has the same right to be protected as any other kind of property. But then, of course, a practical difficulty arises from the fact that a book can be readily copied, and that under those circumstances what evidently amounts to stealing the property of the author cannot very well be brought under the ordinary conditions of theft. I should, however, be glad in the first place to express my belief that, so far as a matter of right is concerned, if there be any foundation for rights of property, the right of an author in a book is as complete, and extends as far, as the right of any person to any property whatever. I think that my view upon the subject will be clear if I take the concrete case of a man who has written a book and who has a certain number of printed