IMPROVEMENTS IN DRAINAGE AND IN WATERCLOSETS, AND IN THE MEANS AND APPARATUS NECESSARY FOR THE SAME RESPECTIVELY
Year: 1863

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Jones at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 1st May
1863.
I, EDWARD JONES, of Charlton, in the County of Kent, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN DRAINAGE AND IN
WATERCLOSETS, AND IN THE MEANS AND APPARATUS NECESSARY FOR THE SAME
RESPECTIVELY," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object a complete system of drainage by a more
durable construction of the drains, the collection of the sewage and refuse
matters, the preservation of the drains from being choked up, and the utilising
of the sewage, the raising and regulating of the necessary supply of water for
flushing the waterclosets and drains, the trapping; cleansing, and ventilating of
the sewers, and the relieving of them at the outfall of low levels by the water
being raised to higher levels. For this purpose in the manufacture of more
sound materials of socketed blocks, bricks, or pipes for constructing the drains,
I use the machinery for which I obtained Letters Patent, July 26, 1858,
No. 1688, with the following improvements:-To the pug mill I use addi-
tional spiral knives for pressing the clay into the feed boxes containing pistons,
which pistons are acted upon in concert with the spiral knives by cams on the
shaft of the pug mill, which give an alternative horizontal motion to the pistons,
that are so regulated as to press out the required quantity of clay upon friction
rollers, or any other suitable movable bed, such as an endless chain-of-pallet
boards of a given width, and which may have motion given to them by the

page_text: action of the machinery. With the endless chain of pallet boards I should
use knives for severing the clay into the required blocks, and with the friction
rollers I should use a frame of cutting wires, which can be detached, dis
tended, or adjusted at pleasure by detached pieces with holes for the wires to
pass through, which pieces when adjusted in the frames are fastened with
thumbscrews. The severed portions are then passed onwards upon hinged
pallet boards, and turned from side to side from one board to another, and sanded
in their course by suspended sand sifters acted upon by the motion of the
machinery, and when the moulds are elevated, the shaped portions of clay being
sanded as in band moulding, they are guided and deposited in the exact
position ready for the moulds, which instantly descend, and the pistons following
them they compress the pieces into the required form, and they are afterwards
delivered out of the moulds by the action of cams upon the levers attached to
the piston and mould frames by guide rods kept in perpendicular position by
suitable bearings. The cams that work the moulds and pistons are so
adjusted as to keep the moulds and pistons in their required position of rest
or motion without the aid of other means. To the pistons I attach plates the
exact size of the moulds, which plates have felt or some substance of a like
nature loosely attached to them to prevent adhesion. The pistons are allowed
'to rise a little before the plates, and the plates which may have fretwork
forming a sort of grating to be covered with the felt will rise a little before the
felt, so as to prevent adhesion; the felt will be kept in its distended form
covering the under surface of the plates by being edged with some stiffening
material. The plates and, felt are so fixed as to be easily taken out and
renewed by fresh ones, washed and cleansed. Means are also provided for
sanding, changing, and renewing the hinged pallet boards. In connection with
the moulding, process I perforate the blocks or bricks, and then pass them upon
pallet boards, upon which they may be moulded or deposited, after being moulded
I also use any ordinary mechanical means by which the required number of
moulded blocks or bricks to be loaded upon the barrows are slided upon the
barrows from the machine, and by a movable platform upon which the barrows
stand, being so constructed as to allow the full barrow to be sided off and the
empty one to replace it, whence they are conveyed to the drying ground, and
deposited upon planks. To the planks I aitach standard pieces of wood or
iron, with pinholes in them for the purpose of fastening a frame covered with
canvas, which frame is capable of being lowered or elevated, or moved to
right or left, and so inclined as to ward off drifting rain, and preserve the
blocks or bricks, and for conveying them to the kiln when dried. I use a
light, framed truck so formed with footed levers to slide under the planks as to

page_text: take up a load on each side of the truck by the lift of levers or screws. A
crane attached to the truck or otherwise, may also be used to lift each loaded
plank to the elevation required at the kiln, by which much hard labour may
be avoided.
5 In moulding drain pipes, I use additional feed boxes with spiral screws in
them, ramifying from the bottom of the pug mill. The spiral screws are "set
in motion by bevil gearing from the outside of the feed boxes fixed to the
spiral screws within, and the same being continually moved by the action of
the pug mill shaft with a continual supply of clay, an unceasing stream of
piping will be forced through the dies.
The second improvement is a new description of watercloset, trap, tanks,
and valves, by which the water is allowed to flow off freely through the tanks
where the sewage is retained, and the water allowed to pass onwards, &
filtered before it enters the drains. The closet pan retains the water to a
given elevation by a valve fixed to a side opening in the pan, above which by
an opening left for that purpose just above the valve the waste water passes
off-when-the-valve is closed:
Another method is by an elbow pipe being attached to the opening in the
.side of the pan by a flexible joint to allow the lower elbow branch to descend
"when the apex of the elbow is so lowered as to allow the pan to be emptied
and flushed out. The lower part of the elbow pipe is so formed as to fit
closely in the trap below, and when elevated it forms a close air-tight valve
against the inner collar of the trap, which collar is so made as to allow the
pipe to enter before it is completely formed or finished, by the filling up of the
same with cement or other material. Beneath the closet or in the direction
of the drain I fix two small portable tanks, the first one to receive the
sewage, with suitable filter and gratings to allow the water to pass to the
second tank, which may be filled with soil, ashes, or any other deodorising
material. The tanks will have a small compartment divided off, into which
the water enters before passing off through suitable filters and gratings into
the drain. The tanks are so attached to the closet trap, and to each other as
to be easily removed for emptying. The branch pipe from the closet can be
formed double mouthed, so as to close the opening to the first tank to direct
the waste water to the second tank, by a curved door plate made to slide and
close one mouth of the pipe whilst it opens the other by the action of the
closet handle which acts upon the valves. I also use a peculiar closet service
valve, which opens_and_shuts_against_the_end_of_the_service_pipe within the
fan of the closet pan by which no leakage can ever occur outside of the pan."
The third improvement consists in-procuring a good supply of water for

page_text: flushing out the drains and waterclosets. To this end.1 purpose having two
water pipes fixed perpendicularly at a given distance from each other of any
required elevation, with a trough or reservoir of head water connecting them.
At the bottom end of each pipe I fix a valve or stop-cock, and a small stuffing
box.to act like the piston of a steam engine, only stationary, and so fixed as to
allow a movable cylinder or pipe to work up and down the required length for
a given stroke as in a steam engine. A valve is also fixed at the bottom of
the working part of the cylinder, which opens when at its lowest extremity of
descent, and at the same moment closes the valve or stop-cock at the lower
end of the perpendicular stationary pipe, and in order to reduce the con-
cussion occasioned by the sudden stoppage of the valve, I introduco a small
piece of elastic tubing, or other such effective means, capable of yielding to
the momentum. Below the valve fixed at the lower end of the working part of
the cylinder the circumference is enlarged to from one to two feet in diameter
for 6 or 9 inches deep below which it continues, a simple solid shaft or con-
necting rod attached to one end of a beam below as in a steam engine, so that
when the valve or stop-cock is opened at the end of the fixed perpendicular
pipe upon the elevation of the cylinder, the force of the water in the standing
pipe acting upon the water in the enlarged chamber an increase of power is
obtained upon the well-known principle of the hydrostatic paradox for forcing
down the cylinder and one end of the beam, and consequently causing the
other end to rise with similar cylinder and valves attached to the other
stationary pipe, and being connected to the end of the beam, the stroke being
repeated, a continuous up-and-down motion will be procured.
effect will be produced by steam or any other fluid when adjusted.
The fourth improvement for relieving the sewers at the outfall of low
levels consists in a number of hydraulic pumps being brought to bear upon
cylinders of large dimensions attached to fixed upright pipes of proportionately
equal dimensions, so as to allow the cylinders to pass outside of them with a
stuffing-box joint made water-tight. The movable cylinders, and the stationary
pipes with the stuffing boxes, having valves to each of their lower ends opening
inwardly, it will be evident. that upon the descent of the cylinders into the
water they will become filled, and upon the cylinders being raised the valves
will close, and the valves at the bottom of the stationary pipes will open, and
the water from the cylinders being forced into the stationary pipes will cause
the same to overflow at any required elevation by the action of the hydraulic
pumps, and if allowed to fall upon a water wheel, power can be obtained to
aid in working the hydraulic pumps, and when a sufficient number of these
pumps are set in motion to work a series of cylinders, it will be evident that a
The same

page_text: continual stream of water of great force can be procured. The force from the
pumps of exhausted cylinders will be turned to act upon newly charged ones
by the action of the cylinders and machinery attached. A wire fence must be
set in the water to surround the cylinders to keep off any floating or refuse
matters from entering to injure the action of the valves.
The next improvement relates to the trapping and ventilating of the sewers,
and the means of preserving them from being fouled up. The sewage
tank described in my former Patent (which the Queen's most Excellent
Majesty was pleased to grant to me), I so fix within the sewers as to rest
upon a ledge of brickwork with feet so fixed as to take their bearings at the
bottom of the gulley. The tanks in the street gullies, for intercepting the road
drift and refuse, I so form in like manner, with provision for the bearings of
the curved plates which form the trap to rest upon. The curved plates I have
so cast with a heavy weight-piece on the upper edge as to keep them down in
its their places, in which a handle is formed for lifting it in and out. The trap-
plate is so fixed as to yield to any force of explosion which might happen
within the drains. I form the area and sink traps in like manner, and the
area traps are so fixed as to break the connection between the house drains
and the main sewers. I also attach the trap-plates to the gratings and the
tanks, so that when the gratings are lifted up the traps and tanks are lifted,
also I make the sluice gates with a hollow space at the edges joining the
frames for the purpose of passing hempen cordage along to form an economical
water-tight joint with tightening screws.