which differed from one previously known in nothing but the omission of a step, has been decided by a court of law to be patentable. The fact that an invention has been patented abroad does not prevent an inventor from obtaining a patent in the United Kingdom, provided that the particulars of the invention have not been made known here. The business relating to patents is conducted at the office of the Commissioners of Patents in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, where there is a collection of books connected with all departments of invention, to which the public have free access. Prints of specifications (ie., descriptions of inventions that have been patented) are sold at the same office at a cheap rate; as well as some useful abridgments of specifications grouped under the different heads of invention. The Commissioners have a museum of models and patented machines at South Kensington, which is free to the public. The number of patents annually granted is about 2000. FOREIGN MONEY. The following table may be of use to strangers from abroad :---- CHAPTER THE FOURTH. ROYAL PALACES IN LONDON. Buckingham Palace-St. James' Palace-Marlborough House-Whitehall-Kensington Palace. THE palaces belonging to the Crown in London are-Buckingham Palace, where the Queen resides; St. James', where Court drawing-rooms, levees, etc., take place; Kensington Palace, which has been for some time unoccupied ; a fragment of the large palace which formerly stood at Whitehall, namely, the Chapel Royal, built for a banquetting house; and Marlborough House, Pall Mall, the residence of the Prince of Wales. BUCKINGHAM PALACE, St James' Park.-On this site stood a house, built in 1703 in the Dutch style by Sheffield Duke of Buckingham. George III. purchased it in 1761 for £21,000, and shortly afterwards removed there from St. James'. All their children, except the Prince of Wales, were born in that plain brick mansion, where the splendid library was formed which is now at the British Museum. George III. passed away, but the house, dull, dowdy, and decent," stood on until 1825, when, by direction of his successor, Nash undertook to reconstruct it, but adhering to the old site and dimensions. It is much to be regretted that an entirely new palace was not built by some architect of skill and taste. Neither George IV. nor his brother William IV. lived in it, but it was open to the visits of the public in 1831. Mr. Blore had previously raised the building a storey. In July 1837, Queen Victoria took possession of the palace, and has continued to reside there when in London ever since. The private apartments extend along the north front. The palace having become too small for the Queen's increasing family, and affording no accommodation for the reception of foreign sovereigns when visiting Her Majesty, a large addition, in the |