IMPROVEMENTS IN THE APPLICATION OF STEAM FOR USEFUL PURPOSES, AND IN THE APPARATUS REQUIRED TO EFFECT THE SAME
Year: 1808

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
PRICE, of Bilston, in the County of Stafford, Coal Master, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-fourth day of August,
in the forty-eighth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Thomas Price, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power,
sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Thomas Price, my exors, admors,
and assigns, during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE APPLICATION
OF STEAM FOR USEFUL PURPOSES, AND IN THE APPARATUS REQUIRED TO EFFECT THE
SAME;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging
me, the said Thomas Price, by an instrument in writing under my hand and
seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within one calendar month after the date of the said Letters
Patent, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully
and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Thomas Price, do describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention in
manner following, that is to say:-
_ A wheel of cast iron or other metal, the outer circumference of which forms
the two sides and bottom of a circular trough or cavity, which is divided into

page_text: two or more compartments or chambers by means of partition plates of iron or
other metal firmly fitted to the bottom and sides thereof; the circumference
is then surmounted by a cap or cover, the inner surfaces of which are so fitted
to the outer surfaces of the trough or cavity as to be steam-tight, or nearly so,
except in those portious of the circle which are comprehended between 1 and 2,
and 3 and 4, but nevertheless so as to admit of the wheel revolving on its axis;
thus will be formed two, three, or more distinct close compartments or chambers
in the outer circumference of the wheel, the cap or cover of which will be fixed
and the wheel moveable. In two or more places in the cap apertures are made
to admit steam, to which apertures are fitted pipes connected with a steam
engine boiler; immediately behind each of these apertures is either a hanging
or a sliding valve, which I call the resister, and which fits the inner surfaces of
the before-mentioned compartments or chambers so as to be steam-tight, or
nearly so. Thus, when steam is admitted through one of the aforesaid aper-
tures it acts against the resister and one of the partitions plates; the cap being
fixed, and the wheel moveable on its axis, the latter will be carried round by
the expansive force of the steam; when it has performed a portion of its revo-
lution it arrives at another aperture in the cap to which is fitted a discharging
pipe, through which the steam escapes; but just before this compartment or
chamber arrives at the discharging pipe another of the. compartments arrives
within the action of another steam pipe and resister, which continues the
motion of the wheel till it arrives at another discharging pipe, before which
the first-mentioned steam pipe and resister will have another compartment
within their action. In each of the steam pipes is fitted either a valve or a
cock, to admit or exclude the steam as may be necessary, and these cocks
or valves may be worked by rods.or-lovers-and-gears affixed to the arms of the
wheel or sides of the circular trough or cavity, or by any eccentric wheel on
the shaft of the main wheel. The resisters may have weights connected
with them to operate as counterbalances to their weights respectively, or they
may be connected with each other by means of rods or levers, so that one may
act as a counterbalance to another.
A convenient form of this engine is to have two steam pipes and resisters at
equal distances in the cap or cover, and three compartments or chambers
at equal distances in the wheel, and the discharging pipes may be made very
convenient supporters of the cap, as is shewn in the subjoined Drawings, where
A is the wheel, of which the dotted circle is the circumference; B, B; the cap or
cover; C, C, the steam pipes, with the cocks; D, D; D, the partition plates; E, E,
the discharging pipes; F, F, the resisters; G, G, is the trough or cavity, seen in
a side view; H, one of the partition plates; I, the resister, removed from its

page_text: place, with the cap K. The cap may be constructed in various ways, either
by two flat sides joined to a circular rim, and divided into parts for the con-
venience of fitting on, or it may consist only of such portions of a circle as are
comprehended within the action of the resisters and their respective discharging
pipes. The inner surfaces of the trough or cavity may be lined with brass or
copper when the wheel is of iron. The resisters may be made entirely of iron,
brass, or copper, or with iron bound with brass or copper, and they, as well as
the rims of the cavity, may be provided with grooves to receive a packing of
hemp or other convenient material, when necessary.