u'mUBBT V. HAIiLOBT. 69& �'with the annnlar or disk-shaped iron as to hold the lid oi cap in place during the prooess of soldering. The handle by \vhioh the disk is operated is in the drawing piaced in the center of the disk, and the rod or "wire for holding the lid or eap passes through the disk a little to one side of the oenter, and at the top is connected with the handle by a loop or ring. It seems apparent that the inventer did not intend that the disk should be revolved about the rod as the axis of its motion. Constructe J as shown by the drawing, the rod can firmly hold the lid in ite place, and the heated disk can be turned back and forth sufficiently to sj^read the melted solder;' but it is obvions that a completed revolution of the disk was not contemplat ed or practicable; and even if the hole for the rod had been made in the center of the disk, and the handle put to one side, an entire revolution of the disk would not have been really practicable without great changes in every particular of the combination claimed. The difficulty which the inventer sought to obviate was a difficulty arising from the use of a disk-shaped iron. In using a disk which covered the whole lid or cap there was no way of holding the cap down firmly in its place while lifting off the iron ; and it was to remedy this difficulty that Barker put a hole through the disk, and a wire through the hole by which the cap could be held down while the iron was being raised, and until the solder hardened. The wire rod did just what the workman using the old straight soldering iron did with his finger or rod of solder. I think that the invention was the combination of the rod with the annular disk-shaped iron, and that the in- venter had no thought of claiming generaUy the device of a rod which should hold the cap in place while the iron wa» being removed, as applied to any other form of soldering iron. In his original patent he claims nothing of the sort, and he gives no intimation that the rod could be applied to a tool of any other shape. It seems to me that the form in which he made his device is of the essence of the invention, and that he orily invented what he described and claimed; that is to say, the movable rod for holding the cap in combination with an annular or disk-shaped soldering iron. ����
