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called by the defendants has pledged himself that before the plaintiffs' discovery he knew that a very dilute solution containing a very small quantity of cyanide of potassium would do so. Upon this point, from among the plaintiffs' witnesses, we will take Professor Dewar, who stated : "It was not common knowledge to me that a cyanide of potassium solution was effective for dissolving gold from its ore " ; Professor Crookes, who stated that up to a few years ago his opinion was that cyanide of potassium was no practical use in getting gold out of its ore; and Sir Henry Eoseoe, who answered the following question thus : (Q.) " Did you ever hear in the whole range of your experience of that solution being obtained—that is, gold into solution from ore—by the simple action of cyanide of potassium upon metallic gold? " —(A.) " No, not without a current of electricity employed for dissolving it on one side and depositing it on the other." It is true that Mr. Eiley, one of the defendants' witnesses, in answer to a question put by Mr. Justice Eomer as to whether, in the year 1887, any chemist would have doubted that if he applied a solution of cyanide of potassium to crushed ore it would have dissolved the fine gold, answered : "It would, if the gold was in a sufficiently divided state. It is a question entirely of the division of the gold." But this, it will be seen, did not answer the learned Judge's question, and he further proceeded : " My question to you is, would a chemist in the beginning of 1887 have felt any doubt that cyanide of potassium would have dissolved the gold and silver ? " —(A.) " I should have no doubt myself; if the gold was in a sufficiently fine divided condition it would, have dissolved it." This, again, did not answer the question, so the learned Judge asked him this : (Q.) " Do you think it would have required experiment to find that out?" —(A.) " I think not. I think it was a chemical fact that was generally known." It will be noticed that even under this pressure he did not venture to say that he knew it, though he says he thought it was a chemical fact that was generally known. Again, Professor Attfield, called by the defendants, was also asked by the learned Judge : " Do you think in the beginning of 1887 any invention was required to discover that a solution of cyanide of potassium could be practically applied to dissolve gold and silver in crushed ore?"—(A.) "I do not." In which answer it will be seen he by no means pledges himself that he knew it. Both of these witnesses' answers are matters of opinion, and nothing more; and when we find such men as Professor Dewar, Professor Crookes, and Sir Henry Eoseoe stating that they did not know it, and couple this with'the fact that it never had been used for commercial purposes for so doing, we cannot doubt that the fact was not known in the chemical world, and we come to the conclusion that there was novelty in the plaintiffs' discovery, and we adopt what Sir Henry Eoseoe stated, that, taking the specification and everything as a chemist, he certainly did not find any indication that cyanide of potassium, if used alone, would be sufficient to do the work. Novelty and utility being established it goes some way, at any rate, towards carrying invention. To see if there was invention we turn to Mr. MacAithur's evidence (it is the first time we have alluded to it, simply because he is a party to the cause, though it is most important upon many parts of the case) where he describes the researches he made before he hit upon that for which he was seeking. Professor Dewar points to the fact that in Nature the conditions are so complex that could only be solved by experiment and trial; and Lord Kelvin gave evidence to the like effect. Mr. Mactear, called by the defendants, under cross-examination as to the properties of cyanide of potassium, said, " Cyanide of potassium solution is of such a peculiar nature that I do not think any chemist in the present day knows its composition or knows the reactions taking place within it, and the knowledge of it is purely experimental" ; which is entirely in accord with the plaintiffs' evidence upon this point. We would point out that the invention consists not merely in discovering that cyanide of potassium can be used to extract gold from its ore, but in showing the public the best practical method of doing it by leaving the baser metals behind, which had never occurred to any one before. We cannot doubt that, upon the evidence given in this case, of which we have only given typical extracts, if the plaintiffs' specification is to be read as contended for by them there is ample novelty and meritorious invention in the discovery. As to it having been anticipated by the prior specifications, it will be remembered that from not one of them has any commercial result ever been attained. The law applicable to paper anticipations, which all these are, if anticipations at all, is clear, whether you take what Lord Westbury said in Hills v. Evans, in 4 De Gex Fisher and Jones, page 299, or Lord Bsher in Otto v. Linford, in 46 Law Times, new series, page 39, or Lord Justice Cotton in Brlech v. Ihlee, three patent bases, page 437, or, indeed, any one of the cases upon the subject. It is this : That to constitute a paper anticipation, the description in the prior specification must be such that a person skilled in the matter reading it would find in it the invention which is sought to be protected by the patent, and unless this can be found in the writing itself it is not an anticipation at all. In our judgment the existence of a chemical patent, wherein the combined effect of two or more chemicals is claimed in order to bring about a desired result, does not by any means constitute an anticipation of a subsequent discovery that by the use of any one of the named chemicals the desired result can be attained, and a fortiori when the compound of two or more has failed to do so, for, as stated by Professor Mills, there "are any number of cases known in chemistry where two things when put together act very differently from what they do apart." We entirely agree with an answer of the defendants' witness, Mr, Vautin, that where the public are told to use a compound of two chemicals such information certainly does not disclose the fact that either of the two alone will suffice. We are of opinion that neither Simpson's specification, nor any of the other four, are anticipations of the plaintiffs' invention. We now come to what appears to us to be by far the most formidable part of the case as regards the plaintiffs' patent. It is this: Upon the true construction of the plaintiffs' specifica* tion have they, or not, claimed for the use of any cyanide of potassium in solution, no matter what, for the extraction of gold from its ore ? If they have we agree with Mr Justice Eomer that the patent is bad, and it is upon this that the learned Judge has it appears to us mainly based his judgment ; for it is then a claim not only to apply a well-known substance to another well-known sub-