fat-tailed ram, from the steppes on the lower Volga.  From this region come also the large-boned, fat-rumped sheep, which have a large mass of fat on each side of the stunted tail.  In the illustration this peculiarity does not show well, on account of the thick winter wool.  Their color is red, with dirty white.  When Wissman and Bumiller returned from their last expedition, they brought a fine ram of a different breed of fat-rumped sheep, which are raised by the Kirghise, on the Altai Mountains.  They are smaller than those from the steppes of the Volga, but have finer wool, and evidently belong to a finer breed.  As mutton tallow is very useful, and has been used even from the most ancient times by sheep raisers in the preparation of food, they prize sheep with these masses of fat on the tail and rump, which were purposely developed to the greatest possible degree.

[Illustration:  Fat-tailed sheep (four-horned ram).]

[Illustration:  Fat-rumped sheep.]

The steinbock and the chamois, which live in the highest mountains, are still found, but other breeds, such as the argalis, which inhabited the foot hills and the high table lands, have disappeared, as Europe has become more thickly populated.  We know that they formerly lived there, by the fossil remains of the oldest Pliocene in England (Ovis Savinii Newton), of the caves of bones near Stramberg in Moravia (Ovis argaloides Nehring), and of the diluvial strata near Puy-de-Dome Mountain in the south of France (Ovis antiqua Pommerol).

For the above and the accompanying illustrations we are indebted to
Daheim.

* * * * *

[Continued from supplement, No. 1172, page 18756.]

PATENTS.[1]

    [Footnote 1:  To be presented at the Niagara Falls meeting (June,
    1898) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and
    forming part of Vol. six of the Transactions.]

By James W. See, Hamilton, Ohio, Member of the Society.

EMPLOYERS’ RIGHTS.

An invention, to be patented, must be applied for by the actual inventor, and in the absence of acts constituting a transfer, the patent, and all legal ownership in it, and all rights under it, go exclusively to the inventor.  In the absence of express or implied contract, a mere employer of the inventor has no rights under the patent.  Only contracts or assignments give to the employer, or to anyone else, a license or a partial or entire ownership in the patent.  The equity of this may be appreciated by examples.  A journeyman carpenter invents an improvement in chronometer escapements and patents it.  The man who owns the carpenter shop has no shadow of claim on or under this patent.  Again, the carpenter invents and patents an improvement in