IM- PROVEMENTS IN DRYING PEAT AND OTHER SUBSTANCES, AND IN Apparatus for ACCOMPLISHING THE SAME
Year: 1875

page_text: ·LETTERS PATENT to Robinson Gale Perry, of the City and County
of Dublin, in the Kingdom of Ireland, for the Invention of "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN DRYING PEAT AND OTHER SUBSTANCES, AND IN Apparatus for
ACCOMPLISHING THE SAME,
"
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Robinson Gale Perry
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 14th January 1875.
I, ROBINSON GALE PERRY, of the City and County of Dublin, in the
Kingdom of Ireland, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN DRYING PEAT AND OTHER SUBSTANCES, AND IN APPARATUS
FOR ACCOMPLISHING THE SAME," to be as follows:-
The failure of so many schemes for drying peat, &c., has been caused
by their heavy cost. It is to accomplish the work in a cheap manner
that this my Invention is designed.
The drying chamber employed can be of any suitable form, but I
prefer a long rectangular or arched tunnel, open at one end and having

page_text: a tight fitting door at the other. The open entrance can also be arranged
to be closed more or less at the option of the attendant.
At the closed end I place a tall chimney, and usually surmount the
same with a revolving wind turbine, with a cowl attached nearly similar
in principle to those so frequently seen on chimneys and the ventilating
shafts of cabins on shipboard to increase the draft.
At or near the open end of the tunnel I usually place a furnace, pre-
ferably of coke or peat charcoal, the gaseous products of which are
carbonic acid and nitrogen only (and hot water also, as in the case of
fuel containing hydrogen). This warms the air, and induces a further
current through the open end of the tunnel to the chimney shaft. Some-
times I arrange this furnace so that the products of combustion (and
occasionally also induced currents of cold air) can enter the tunnel at
several points in the course of its length, so as to gradually increase the
heat toward the chimney, or vice versa.
In case articles of food have to be dried, where the products of com-
bustion would cause a deleterious taste and colour, instead of having a
furnace at the opening into the tunnel I place one just under the
chimney shaft (or actually in the same), and sometimes the said furnace
takes the form of a single gas light. Sometimes I employ both forms of
heating.
Several of these tunnels can be arranged side by side connected with
the same shaft or placed on opposite sides thereof, with a turntable and
branch flue at their ends.
.
The peat or other articles to be dried are introduced at the door in the
chimney shaft end of the tunnel, and are gradually made to traverse its
length till they eventually reach the open end, and are removed in a
dried or nearly dried state. By this means the fresh and wet material
'meets the nearly saturated air, and in proportion as it becomes more
dissicated does it meet with dryer air. This is a very important point in
the case of peat, which when nearly dry will bear a high heat, but in
the wet state is liable to crack or fall to pieces if heated above 60°.
There are numerous modes of causing the material to travers the
tunnel. The one I prefer is arranging the stuff in open cages of a cross
section similar to but slightly smaller than the tunnel. These cages are
mounted on wheels, which run on a tramway through the kiln.

page_text: Sometimes it may be useful to substitute endless bands arranged on
rollers, or the cages can be propelled on a rope or suspended rail, but
these forms are simply mechanical equivalents of the one I prefer.
In substances excessively tenacious of moisture it is necessary to have
a subsidiary drying chamber, into which the material, after being nearly
dried in the above-mentioned tunnel, is carried to be thoroughly dessi-
cated by hot air or otherwise, and the hot air used therein, or the
products of combustion employed in heating the chamber are further
utilized in the tunnel, and thus enable us to frequently dispence with
a furnace therein. Occasionally, also, when the peat is made into
"charbon roux or submitted to destructive distillation the heat of the
coking ovens or the retort furnace is employed in the drying chamber
and tunnel. Occasionally, too, the waste heat of a lime kiln can be
used, or the saturated air from the tunnel directed into a lime kiln,
moisture as is well known having a very beneficial effect in such kilns.
"
Any other source of heat when available, such as the waste gasses from
boiler flues, can be used also for any of the aforesaid purposes, either
alone or in conjunction with others.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Robinson Gale Perry in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 9th July 1875.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBINSON
GALE PERRY, of the City and County of Dublin, in the Kingdom of
Ireland, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Fourteenth day of January, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, in
the thirty-ninth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, "give and grant unto the said Robinson Gale Perry, Her
special licence that I, the said Robinson Gale Perry, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Robinson
Gale Perry, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times

page_text: 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 In-
vention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN DRYING PEAT AND OTHER SUBSTANCES, AND IN
APPARATUS FOR ACCOMPLISHING THE SAME," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Robinson Gale Perry, my executors or admi-
nistrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of
their hands and scals, 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 Robinson Gale Perry, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in
and by the following statement, reference being had to the accom-
panying Drawing, and to the letters of reference marked thereon:—
This Invention chiefly consists of a system of drying, and of a chamber
and other apparatus for effecting the same.
This chamber can be of any suitable shape, but I prefer a long rectan-
gular or arched tunnel open at one end, but capable of being partially or
wholly closed by sliding pannels or doors, or the two combined, and
baving at the other end (henceforth called the closed end) a tight fitting
door.
From the "closed end," preferably at the crown, I lead off a flue to
the chimney (or construct the chimney vertically above it in small
apparatus, as shown in the Drawing).
At or near the open end of the chamber or tunnel I usually place one
or more furnaces or flues from furnaces or ovens, so as to admit hot air
into the chamber, and at intervals all the way along to the chimney I
inset orifices or tubes through the walls and roof of the chamber, and
pointing obliquely toward the closed end. These tubes can be partially
or wholly closed if desirable.
In starting the apparatus the open end is temporarily closed, the hot
air and gases from the furnace let in and allowed to escape up the
chimney; this causes a draft up the latter, after which the "
open" end

page_text: can be opened wholly or partially, when the cold air is induced by the
draft of the chimney to enter both at the open end and at the tube
orifices all the way along.
Rails are laid the whole length of the tunnel, and the material to be
dried is stacked loosely on low trucks and passed slowly or intermittently
through the tunnel, commencing at the "closed end." Whenever a
truck is taken out at one end another is pushed in at the other, the
wagons pushing each other along. To aid this motion I usually make
the tunnel with a slight descending grade from the closed to the open
end, but this is not absolutely necessary.
The principle of working is as follows:-Peat and other substances
when very wet cannot be dried at a high heat without making them
brittle; they must therefore be dried at a low temperature, and this can
only be done rapidly by a strong current of air. As they get drier how-
ever they can stand a greater heat, until when nearly dry it actually
requires a considerable temperature to eliminate the last traces of
moisture. The loaded wagons on first entering at the closed end
encounter air nearly saturated with moisture, and at a comparatively
low temperature, and through the large admixture of cold air intro-
duced through the numerous tube orifices. This air however can take
moisture from the saturated peat, and as the latter moves on and gets
drier it is continually meeting with drier air. As each orifice is passed
too the ratio of hot gases from the furnace flues to the cold air increases
until as the "open" end is approached the air is composed entirely of
the furnace gases and what air is admitted through the partially closed
"onen" end.

page_text: 4th. Placing wind turbines on the tops of drying chamber chimneys
for increasing the draft, but this is not a necessary part of my
Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Robinson Gale Perry, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Seventh day of July, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-five.
Witness,
GEO. Ć. HARTFORD,
7, Frankfort Place,
Up. Rathmines,
Dublin.
ROBINSON G. PERRY. (L.S.)