Opinion of the Court. been made and answered before the boats came within eight hundred yards of each other; and, 2, that the failure of the Cotton Valley to understand the signal of doubt or fear made by the Morgan was a fault on her part. There is no complaint in the pleadings as to the time when the Cotton Valley made the first signal, and neither party at the hearing below seems to have considered that an important fact in the case. So long as it was made and assented to by the Morgan without any signal of misunderstanding, it will be presumed to have been at the proper distance, as nothing appears to the contrary. The findings show affirmatively that it was understood and assented to by the Morgan. As the "several short sounds of the whistle" were only to be given in case of doubt or fear of a misunderstanding of signals, it was not necessarily a fault in the Cotton Valley to misinterpret their meaning when made by the Morgan, so short & time after her assent had been given to the signal of the Cotton Valley to pass to the right. 2. Admiralty Rule 24 provides that in all informations and libels, in causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, "new counts may be filed, and amendments, in matters of substance, may be made, upon motion, at any time before the final decree, upon such terms as the court shall impose." 3 How. xiv. In The Lucille, 19 Wall. 73, 74, it was decided that an appeal in admiralty from the District to the Circuit Court "has the effect to supersede and vacate the decree from which it was taken. A new trial, completely and entirely new, with other testimony and other pleadings, if necessary, or, if asked for, is contemplated-a trial in which the judgment of the court below is regarded as though it had never been rendered. A new decree is to be made in the Circuit Court." Clearly, under this decision, after an appeal is taken, and the decree of the District Court vacated, a motion to amend, made while the case is pending in the Circuit Court for a new trial on its merits, will be before the final decree; and, under the operation of the rule, we have no doubt the Circuit Court may, in its discretion, permit an amendment of the libel, so as to include a claim for damages growing out of the original cause of action Opinion of the Court. and litigated in the court below, but rejected because not specified in the pleadings. It is true, that in the case of The North Carolina, 15 Pet. 40, 50, it was decided that a libel could not be amended after an appeal, so as to bring in a new claim for damages; but this was before the adoption of the admiralty rules, the decision having been made in 1841, and the rules not taking effect until September 1, 1845. 3 How. xix. The act authorizing the rules was passed August 23, 1842, ch. 188, § 6, 5 Stat. 518, and it is quite possible Rule 24 was suggested by that case. It has long been the practice of the Circuit Court to allow such amendments. Weaver v. Thomson, 1 Wall. Jr., C. C. 343, decided in 1849 in the Third Circuit; Lamb v. Parkman, 21 Law Rep. 589, First Circuit, in 1858; The C. H. Foster, 1 Fed. Rep. 733, same Circuit; The Morning Star, 14 Fed. Rep. 866, Seventh Circuit; The Oder, 21 Blatchford, 26, Second Circuit; Phenix Ins. Co. v. Liverpool & Great Western Steamship Co., 22 Blatchford, 372, same Circuit. In Lamb v. Parkman, supra, Mr. Justice Curtis, then holding the Circuit Court, said: "The twenty-fourth rule, made by the Supreme Court to regulate the practice of the instance courts of admiralty, applies to this as well as to the District Court. Pursuant to it, amendments in matters of substance may be made on motion, at any time before the final decree, upon such terms as the court shall impose. What amendments shall be allowed, under what circumstances and supported by what proofs they must be applied for, and in what form they must be incorporated into the record, are left to the sound discretion of the court, to be exercised in each case, or to be regulated by written rules of practice, so far as the court may find it useful to frame such rules." In some of the circuits, rules upon the subject have been adopted. The Second Circuit is among them. In the case of Lamb v. Parkman, Mr. Justice Curtis, after saying that there were no written rules in his circuit, proceeded to state what, from the course of decisions in similar or analogous cases, would, in his opinion, be proper guides to the exercise of the discretion of the court. If proper care is taken to avoid surprise, and to confine amendments in the appellate court to the original subject of controversy, so as not to allow matters out Opinion of the Court. side of the general scope of the pleadings below to be brought in, it is difficult to see how any possible harm can come from permitting a libellant to amend his libel in such a way as to give him the full benefit of his suit as it has been begun. 3. The finding of the board of local inspectors, and the documents connected therewith, were properly excluded. The proceeding in which the finding was made was instituted under Rev. Stat. § 4450, for an investigation of the facts connected with the collision, so far as they had a bearing on the conduct of the licensed officers on board the boats, and at most it only showed the opinion of the board upon the subject from the evidence adduced before them. It was offered, to use the language of counsel, "as tending to affect the evidence offered by the libellants to show that the Cotton Valley was in her proper position in the river, and had proper watches and lights set at the time of the collision." Clearly it was not admissible for any such purpose. 4. The specific objection to the depositions in the Menge cases that were offered for the purpose of impeachment, is that they were not exhibited to the witnesses whose testimony was to be impeached upon their cross-examination, or otherwise verified, as the evidence of the witnesses in the former causes. The rule is, that the contradictory declarations of a witness, whether oral or in writing, made at another time, cannot be used for the purpose of impeachment until the witness has been examined upon the subject, and his attention particularly directed to the circumstances in such a way as to give him full opportunity for explanation or exculpation, if he desires to make it. Conrad v. Griffey, 16 How. 38, 46. If the contradictory declaration is in writing, questions as to its contents, without the production of the instrument itself, are ordinarily inadmissible, and a cross-examination for the purpose of laying the foundation of its use as impeachment would not, except under special circumstances, be allowed until the paper was produced and shown to the witness while under examination. Circumstances may arise, however, which will excuse its production. All the law requires is, that the memory of the witness shall be so refreshed by the necessary inquiries as to enable Opinion of the Court. him to explain, if he can and desires to do so. Whether this has been done is for the court to determine before the impeaching evidence is admitted. Here the cross examination, on which the right to use the depositions depended, has not been put into the record, but the bill of exceptions shows "that, in the crossexamination of each of said witnesses, the attention of the witness was called to the evidence given by him in the cases of Menge, and the said witnesses were specifically examined as to the correctness of said evidence, and admitted having testified therein." From this, and the failure to incorporate the cross-examination into the bill of exceptions, we must presume that ample foundation was laid for the introduction of the evidence, unless the failure to show the depositions to the witnesses at the time of their cross-examination was necessarily and under all circumstances fatal. The objection is pot to the cross-examination as to the contents of the depositions without their production, but to the admission of the depositions after a cross-examination which was, as we must presume, properly conducted in their absence. It is also stated in the bill of exceptions that, "at the offering, no objection was made that the evidence offered was not the evidence of said witnesses respectively, or that the same had been imperfectly taken or reported." This shows that the depositions must have been sufficiently identified as the evidence of the witnesses in the former cases. In the case, as it comes to us, we find no error. The decree of the Circuit Court is affirmed and interest al lowed. Opinion of the Court. CLARK v. BEECHER MANUFACTURING COMPANY & Another. APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT. Argued April 17, 1885.-Decided May 4, 1885. Letters patent No. 66,130, granted to James B. Clark, June 25, 1867, for an "improvement in the manufacture of blanks for carriage thill shackles," are not infringed by the manufacture of blanks for shackles in accordance with letters patent No. 106, 225, granted to Willis B. Smith, August 9, 1870. The features of the Clark patent are, that, by dies, the arms of the blank are bent into an oblique direction, and the body into a curved form, so that the parts where the arms join the body are rounded on the outside as well as the inside; and that when, subsequently, the curved body is straightened, there will be in it sufficient metal to form sharp outside corners, by being pushed out into them. The arms of the Smith blank are not bent in an oblique direction, its body is not curved, the parts where the arms join the body are not rounded, either on the inside or on the outside, and, in afterwards straightening the back, surplus metal is not pushed towards or into the corners, to form them, but the existing corners, already formed, are forced further apart, by driving surplus metal into the back, between the corners. In view of the state of the art, and the terms of the Clark patent, it must be confined, at least, to a shape which, for practical use, in subsequent manipulation, has a disposition of metal which causes a sharp corner to be formed in substantially the same way as by the use of his blank. This was a bill in equity to restrain an infringement of a patent. The facts are stated in the opinion of the court. Mr. William Edgar Simonds for appellant. Mr 9. H. Platt for appellees. MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD delivered the opinion of the court. This is a suit in equity, brought in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut, by James B. Clark against The Beecher Manufacturing Company, a Connecticut corporation, and D. F. Southwick, for the infringe ment of letters patent No. 66,130, granted to the plaintiff, |