"'That is quite likely,' the Doctor answered. 'Many a man has applied for a patent on something that he had honestly invented; he thought it out himself, and kept it from the knowledge of everybody else till he sent his model to the Patent-office. Then he learned to his surprise that his invention was an old one, and either secured already, or had been so long in use that no one could get a patent for it. The experts in the Patent-office at Washington could tell you of hundreds of instances of this kind, and they could also tell you that it not unfrequently happens that two or three persons in different parts of the country, and wholly unknown to each other, have hit upon the same thing at almost the same moment, without the least suspicion that either of them knew what the other was doing. "'One instance that occurs to me is of the use of chloroform and similar substances for preventing pain during surgical operations. There were no less than four claimants to the honor of the discovery of anæsthetics, and monuments have been erected to the memory of two of these gentlemen. There is no ground for believing that either of them encroached on the other, for their experiments were quite independent, and in different parts of the country, and each believed he was the first in the field. The invention of printing by means of movable types is claimed for two men; the steam-engine had two or three inventors, and so had the system of electric telegraphy. A curious circumstance is that many things which have been considered new in our times were known to the ancients. Samuel Colt received a patent for the revolving pistol, when the same weapon had been made in Europe two or three centuries ago; and patents have been taken out for the invention of things that were afterward found in the ruins of Pompeii, where they had been buried for 1800 years. Of course there are many new things under the sun, but not everything is new that appears so when we first see it.'" [Illustration: MODERN "KELEKS," OR SKIN RAFTS.] CHAPTER XIV. GIRGEH AND KENEH.--THE TEMPLES OF ABYDUS AND DENDERAH.--AN EGYPTIAN DANCE. [Illustration: GIRGEH.]