A large library, of great value, is attached to the Patent Office, containing many volumes of the highest scientific value. Under judicious arrangement, a collection already rich and ample is forming, of every work of interest to the inventors, and that new, increasing, important class of professional men—the attorneys in patent cases. Upon its shelves may be found a complete set of the reports of the British Patent Commissioners, of which there are only six copies in the United States. The reports of French patents are also complete, and those of various other countries are being obtained as rapidly as possible. A system of exchanges has been established, which employs three agents abroad; and, in addition to various and arduous duties, the librarian annually dispatches several hundred copies of the reports. CHAPTER XLI. THE BUREAU OF PATENTS—CRAZY INVENTORS AND WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. Patent-Rights in Steamboats—Origin of Copyright and Patent-Laws—Congress Settles the Matter—A Board of “Disinterested, Competent” Persons—Destruction of the Patent-Office by Fire—The New Building—The Corps of Examiners—The Commissioner’s Speech—Twenty Thousand Applications _per annum_—Fourteen Thousand Patents Granted in One Year—Wonderful Expansion of Inventive Genius—“The Universal Yankee”—Second-hand Inventions—Where the Inventions Come from—Taking Out a Patent for the Lord’s Prayer—A Patent for a Cow’s Tail—A Lady’s Patent—Hesitating to Accept a Million Dollars—How Patentees are Protected—The American System—What American Inventors Have Done, and What They Haven’t—The First Superintendent—The Present Commissioner—Exploits of General Legett—His Efficiency in Office—The Inventor Always a Dreamer—Perpetual Motion—The Invention of a D. D.—His Little Machine—“Original with Me”—Silencing the Doctor—A New Process of Embalming—A Dead Body Sent to the Office—Utilizing Niagara—A _Generous_ Offer—An Englishman’s Invention—Inventors in Paris—How to Kill Lions and Tigers in the United States with Catmint—A Fearful Bomb-shell—Eccentric Letters—Amusing Specimens of Correspondence. With the settlement of the English colonies in America came a great many English customs and laws, and among those adhered to was that of granting patents or passing special Acts for the protection of inventors.