IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING MANURE
Year: 1856

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Francis Cook Matthews, of Great Driffield, in the
County of York, Manufacturing and Agricultural Chemist, for the
Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING MANURE."
Sealed the 27th March 1857, and dated the 31st October 1856.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Francis Cook Matthews
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
81st October 1856.
I, FRANCIS COOK MATTHEWS, of Great Driffield, in the County of York,
Manufacturing and Agricultural Chemist, do hereby declare the nature of the
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING MANURE," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in a method of preparing the substance known as
Colombian guano, or an impure native pyrophosphate of lime, by treating the
same with sulphuric or muriatic acid in suitable proportion for combining with
the lime, and liberating the phosphoric acid contained in the mineral, which
when it has been thus treated may be employed as a manure, either alone or
mixed with other substances.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Francis Cook Matthews in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 27th April 1857.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, FRANCIS
COOK MATTHEWS, of Great Driffield, in the County of York, Manufacturing
and Agricultural Chemist, send grecting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Thirty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, in the twentieth year of Ier reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Francis Cook Matthews, Her special licence that I, the said Francis Cook
Matthews, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the
said Francis Cook Matthews, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all
times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "Im-
PROVEMENTS IN PREPARING MANURE," upon the condition (amongst others) that
I, the said Francis Cook Matthews, my executors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals,
should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to
be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Francis Cook Matthews, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, that is to say:―
This Invention consists in preparing the substance known as Columbian
guano or an impuro pyrophosphate of lime by treating the same with sulphuric
or muriatic acids, so as to render it suitable for use as a manure, either alone
or mixed with other substances.
Columbian guano is a substance recently imported in considerable quantities
from abroad, and is, as before mentioned, an impure pyrophosphate of lime.
Now, pyrophosphate of lime contains for a given proportion of phosphoric acid
a much smaller proportion of lime than that contained in the phosphate of
lime of bones, coprolites, and apatites, and I am well aware that these sub-

page_text: stances bave frequently been treated with acid to render them suitable for use
as manure.
When preparing Columbian guano according to my Invention, I grind it to
powder, and then mix with it sulphuric or muriatic acid, but I use sulphuric
acid by preference, and I find it necessary to employ about one-half the
quantity of acid which it would be necessary to employ in treating a coprolite
or similar substance containing the same per-centage of phosphoric acid. The
mixing operation is conducted in a manner similar to that employed when
sulphuric acid is mixed with a coprolite as heretofore.
The manure prepared from Columbian guano, as above described, is thus
produced with a much less expenditure of acid than the manure prepared from
coprolites and similar substances, which manure is also much superior, as it
contains a smaller proportion of sulphate of lime, a substance which is valueless
or nearly so, both commercially and as a manure.
In witness whereof, I, the said Francis Cook Matthews, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-fifth day of April, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven.
Witness,
JNO. TOMLINSON, Clerk,
Driffield.
FRANCIS COOK MATTHEWS. (L.S.)