As the Patent Office has been doing a good business lately, there appears to be some attempt at rivalry at the Capitol, as the following list of applications for extension will show:

LIST OF APPLICANTS FOR EXTENSIONS OF PATENTS NOW BEFORE CONGRESS.

—— Reynolds, power loom brake. Strong & Ross, scales. Wm. & W.H. Lewis, photographic plates. T.A. Weston, differential pulley. S.S. Hartshorn, buckles. H.A. Stone, making cheese. N. Whitehall, cultivator. J.R. Harrington, carpet lining. H.L. Emery, cotton gins. J. Stainthorp, moulding candles. Walter Hunt's heirs, paper collars. A.B. Wilson, sewing machines. S.A. Knox, plows. Rollin White, firearms. Aikin A. Felthousen, sewing machines. H. Woodman, stripping cotton cards. L. Hall, heel trimmer. J.A. Conover, wood splitter. J. Dyson, carding engine. G. Wellmann, card strippers. E. Brady, safety valves. Jearum Atkins, harvester rakes. John Thomas, re-rolling railroad rails. Thomas Mitchell, hair brushes. Stephen Hull, harvesters. T.R. Crosby, wiring blind slats. G.W. Laban, mitre cutting machine. T.A. Whitenack, harvesters. J.J. Vinton, furnaces. A. Fuller, faucets. D. Baker, pitcher spouts and lids. G.F. Chandler, refining sugar. G.H. Nott, boiler furnace. William Hall, lightning rods. B.F. Rice, paper bag machines. S.D. Nelson, shovels. E.T. Russell, car springs. Hubbell & Conant, steam pumps. C.A. Chamberlain, shovels. C.A. Adams, locks. E.A. Leland, paint can.

In addition to the above, I find the following names as applicants for extensions, but the inventions covered by the patents sought to be extended is not mentioned: S.S. Turner, Arculous Wyckoff, De Witt C. Cummings, Moses Marshall, J.W. Fowler, and Holloway & Graham. Many of the applicants have apparently given up their cases for this session, but they may be only lying back to its close in hopes that in the final rush their "little bills" may slip through easily.

Several bills tinkering at the patent laws are before Congress, and one of these (House Bill, No. 3,370) passed the House on the 30th ult. It has one section that may be made to work great harm to inventors, as it prevents infringers being sued for more than one year's damages previous to notice of infringement being given. By this bill, if it is allowed to become a law, a person will be able to build and use patented machines or processes for years in some out of the way place where the inventor cannot easily find him; and should he be discovered, he can only be sued for one year's damages. There are other sections in this bill which will bear ventilating.

Another bill, introduced into the Senate by Mr. Paddock, provides that all appeals from the Board of Appeals shall be direct to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, instead of to the Commissioner as heretofore; and that the fees shall be the same as now paid to the latter official.

Mr. Sampson has introduced into the House a bill changing section 4886 so that it shall read as follows: "SEC. 4886. Any person who has discovered any new or useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new or useful improvement thereof, not known or used by others in this country, and not patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, before his invention or discovery thereof, and not in public use or on sale for more than two years prior to his application, unless the same is proved to have been abandoned, may, upon payment of the fees required by law, and other due proceedings had, obtain a patent therefor: Provided, That the manufacture or composition of drugs as a medicine shall not be patentable." The change is the addition of the words in italics.

The Smithsonian Institute has sent to Congress a memorial setting forth that the present Institute building is already too small for the vast amount of articles already placed there on exhibition; that at the late Centennial Exposition the Commissioners of various countries presented their entire collection of exhibits to the United States, which had delegated their care to the Smithsonian Institute, and they had no place for them; that the armory building was being fitted up for the reception of the United States Centennial collection, and they therefore asked that a building be erected for the foreign collection, which could be used as a national museum, or otherwise we should have to offend the donors by keeping their valuable gifts stowed away in cellars and other rubbish receptacles.

Mr. Eads, who is now here on the lookout for his pay for his work on the South Pass of the Mississippi's mouth, has received intelligence from the resident engineer at the jetties that the channel through the shoal at the head of the South Pass is now twenty-two feet deep, and that the least width at which twenty feet depth is found is one hundred and ten feet. The principal works to improve this shoal were constructed during the last six months. The low stage and feeble current of the river has delayed their effect until the recent flood from the Ohio reached them, and the problem of deepening the shoal has been fully solved by the rapid scouring away of the obstruction. It is stated that the channel is quite straight and is deepening rapidly. The channel through the jetties at the mouth of the Pass is twenty-one feet deep. The entrance from the sea through the jetties is one thousand feet wide, and through the works at the head of the Pass eight hundred feet.