An Improvement in the Means and Proportions of Materials Used for the Deodorization, Evaporation, and to a Certain Extent Decomposition of Human Excrement, and its Transformation into a Nearly Inodorous and Valuable Fertilizer.
Year: 1890

page_text: Date of Application, 11th Feb., 1890-Accepted, 22nd Mar., 1890
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
An Improvement in the Means and Proportions of Materials Used
for the Deodorization, Evaporation, and to a Certain Extent
Decomposition of Human Excrement, and its Transformation into
a Nearly Inodorous and Valuable Fertilizer.
.
I, CHARLES WESLEY DOUGHTY, residing at Central Hotel number 722 Broad
Street, in the City of Augusta, County of Richmond and State of Georgia, one of
the United States of America, Sanitarian Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of
this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement :-
My invention relates to a new and useful improvement in the means and proportions
of materials used for the deodorization, evaporation, and to a certain extent decom-
position of human excrement and its transformation in a nearly inodorous and
valuable fertilizer. :.
The material consists of calcareous marl, well dried and finely pulverized, and the
means employed are ordinary privy boxes in closets preferably provided with the
means commonly used to produce circulation of air therein.
This native mineral (marl), is first mechanically treated as follows: It is dried by
artificial heat at a temperature below 400° Fahrenheit, (a higher temperature will
expel the carbonic acid,) and then comminuted and ground about as fine as flour, and
stirred at the same time. This material, thus prepared is then enclosed in bags or
barrels to facilitate its transportation.
To properly use it, about fifty pounds of said dried pulverized marl is placed in an
empty privy receptacle and the latter is ready for use. The urine dropped upon it is
absorbed and the liquid in the solids is mostly extracted by absorption from the dried
marl under it, and the dry air over it, and a few ounces of the powdered marl may
from time to time be dropped upon the deposits.
The pulverized dried marl has the property of combining with and fixing putrescible
matter whether animal or vegetable and preventing putrefactive decomposition. By
this physical or chemical action, and evaporating process, the focal deposit becomes
dried about as fast as deposited from day to day, and the marl becomes charged with
the concentrated mineral, animal and vegetable elements of ten times its weight of
foecal matter.
To instantaneously deodorize and disinfect the composted privy boxes before
removal, possibly through rooms or passages of a house, a few pounds of the following
compound are dusted over the contents.
The 70 to 80% of the carbonate of lime in the marl has the property of combining
with and " fixing" animal and vegetable putrescible matter and preserving the
nitrogen, the latter to be decomposed into ammonia, only by contact with acids as
those exuding from the roots of growing plants and the effects of copperas and
chlorine of lime are too well known to need further explanation.
As a fertilizer, the base marl is calcareous soil without which the aluminous and
silicious elements can hardly be made productive, and when said powdered marl is
mixed with human excrement, a very valuable fertilizer is obtained; the marl in said
dried condition is a great absorbent and evaporator and permits the oxygen of the air

page_text: to complete the deodorization; as the privy receptacles generally used are connected
with an uptake flue to cause a rapid current of air over the compost; said privy
receptacles are generally removed and an empty one substituted once in ten to fifteen
days and the contents placed in a drying chamber through which dry air not
exceeding 250° Fahrenheit is conducted, and in a few hours the products are ready
for grinding and sacking for shipment.
For urinals and closets the marl may be used, and dried and used over again and
again eight to ten times and thus be made to contain 20% of ammonia, which is thus
richer than Peruvian-guano.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what 1
claim is-
First. An absorbent and evaporating medium for night-soil consisting of artificially
dried and pulverized marl, substantially as described.
Second. Artificially dried and pulverized marl applied in said for in upon the
bottom of privy boxes in combination with said boxes, substantially as and for the
purpose described.
Dated this 11th day of February 1800
JENSEN & SON,
77, Chancery Lane, London, W.C., Patent Agents.