THOKSON V. PEiEESON. 517 �Iewin and another v. Metropolitan Telephone & Telegraph Co. �and another. �(Circuit Court, 3. I). New York. October 21, 1881.) �1. Lettbks Patent. �JS^eitlier claims 1 and 2 of letters patent No. 209,266, nor claim 3 of letters patent No. 225,388 are infringed by the defendants instrument. �F. H. Beits, for plaintifs. �C. Smith and /. J. Storivw, for defendants. �Blatchford, g. J. I think the proper and necessary construction of claims 1 and 3, of No. 209,266, is that the normal pressure of the electrodes must be obtained by means of gravity, counteracted partly by a delicate retractile spring, elastic in the direction opposed to gravity. The spring must suspend the needle against the force of gravity. The defendants' instrument does net employ gravity to seeure pressure, nor a spring to modify the force of gravity, but it obtains the normal pressure of the electrodes by the direct strain of a flat spring. As to No. 225,388, there is no infringement of claim 3. The vibrating disk of the defendants does not have free edges, and is not capable of vibrating bodily, in the sense of the patent. In consequence of being held by the spring and the clamp, it bends, and some parts between the center and the edge move more than others. �The bill will be dismissed, with costs, when the case is disposed of as to the Bell Company. ���Thorson and another w. Peterson and othera. (District Court, N. D. Illinois. November 26, 1881.) �1. fiVIDEIICE. �Courts will take judicial notice of the boundaries of the different States. �2, CONTliACTS OF BeAMEN. �Seaxnen's contracts to ship on a sailing-vessel for the voj'age are terminable at the will of the parties, on her arrivai at a port of safety, by the dismasting of the vessel in a collision. �In Admiralty. �W. H, Condon, for libellants. �C. E. Kremer, for respondents. �Blodgett, D. j., (orally.) This is a libel for wages, and charges that on the seventeenth of November, 1880, libellants shipped on the schooner Winnie Wing, of which respondents were owners, and the ��� �
