Sometimes this is sad—quite as often it is funny. The procession which started, far back in the ages, with its machine of “Perpetual Motion,” long ago reached the doors of the American Patent Office. The persons found in that procession are sometimes astonishing. A doctor of divinity, well-known at the Capital, and not suspected of studying any machinery but that of the moral law, appeared one day in the office of the Commissioner. “I know I’ve got it,” he said. “What, sir?” “PERPETUAL MOTION, sir. Look!” and he set down a little machine. “If the floor were not in the way, if the earth were not in the way, that weight would never stop, and my machine would go on forever. I know this is original with me—that it never dawned before upon any other human mind.” So enthusiastic was the doctor, it was with difficulty he could be restrained from depositing his ten dollars and leaving his experiment to be patented. The Commissioner, quietly, sent to the library for a book—a history of attempts to create Perpetual Motion. Opening at a certain page, he pointed out to the astonished would-be inventor, where his own machine had been attempted and failed, more than a hundred years before. The reverend doctor took the book home, read, digested, and meditated thereon—to bring it back and lay it down before the Commissioner, in silence. No one has ever heard him speak of Perpetual Motion since. It would take a large volume, to record all the preposterous letters and inventions received at this office. A very short time since, a man sent a letter to the Patent Bureau describing a new process of embalming which he had originated. It was accompanied by a dead baby—“the model” which he requested should be placed in one of the glass cases of the Exhibition Room. He considered himself deeply injured when his request was refused. A letter was recently received by the Commissioner of Patents, from a man in Portsmouth, England, offering this Government the benefit of an invention of his own for utilizing water-power, so as to force the water to a great height when confined in reservoirs constructed for the purpose. He offers the invention free of all charge, because, he states, that it pains him to see “such mighty power as there is at the Niagara wasted.” In addition, he offers his own services at the _low_ rate of £1,000 per annum, to build and operate the invention. He says in his letter, that “if the mighty great power in Niagara was accumulated, it would move a great deal.” He also states that he “has a good plan for a velocipede and a bicicle, that he thinks would be a good thing for this country,” but admits that “people in England don’t like it.” Referring again to his water-power, he claims that if this Government would build the road, he can take ships across the isthmus of Panama “in a box, water and all.” The Commissioner recently received the following communication from the Legation of the United States: