IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF NIGHT SOIL AND OTHER WASTE PRODUCTS, AND FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF MANURE THEREFROM
Year: 1863

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to James Alexander Manning, of the Inner Temple,
London, Esquire, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT
OF NIGHT SOIL AND OTHER WASTE PRODUCTS, AND FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF
MANURE THEREFROM."
Sealed the 14th July 1863, and dated the 4th February 1863.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Alexander
Manning at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 4th February 1863.
I, JAMES ALEXANDER MANNING, of the Inner Temple, London, Esquire, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
TREATMENT OF NIGHT SOIL AND OTHER WASTE PRODUCTS, AND FOR THE MANUFACTURE
OF MANURE THEREPROM," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to certain improvements upon the process or pro-
cesses set forth in the Specification of Letters Patent granted to me on the
3rd May 1860, No. 1843, by which improvements a larger per-centage of
ammonia is secured from the night soil, and a more rapid conversion of the
same into manure of a permanent and unvarying character is effected.
In carrying out this Invention I apply periodically a sufficient amount of
sulphuric acid diluted with urine or superphosphate of lime or any other
acids, or together with all or any of the chemical substances named in the
Specification, by which the desired results may be obtained, to the cess-
pits, privies, middens, or latrines of cities, towns, and considerable villages,
for the purposes of deodorizing the night soil and retaining its ammonia by
counteracting the effect which the fermenting quality of urine in its decom-

page_text: position produces upon that element, and collect the night soil so treated, and
treat night soil in general when otherwise collected, and evaporate the liquid
portion of the mixed solid and fluid excreta of the population in towns and
places where no sewers exist to dryness in iron or other retorts of suitable
form and construction, so that a uniform quality of manure will be manu-
factured, composed of animal, vegetable, organic matter, phosphates, and
alkaline salts, with the mineral constituents indispensable to the organism and
development of plants, together with a considerable per-centage of ammonia.
By this modification of the process or processes specified in the before-
named Patent, all wastes (other than night soil, or such animal matters as
contain a considerable per-centage of ammonia) that is to say, the wastes of
vegetable markets, trades, household refuse, and vegetable wastes in general,
treated as is therein set forth, by destructive distillation, or reduced to ashes in
kilns or other suitable furnaces, and the ash products thus obtained are mixed
with the desecated night soil, in order to increase the per-centage of the
mineral constituents so essential to the progress of vegetation, while the
continuous deodorisation of the night soil at the houses of the inhabitants, and
the destruction of all putrifying matters which accumulate in cities and towns
to the great detriment of the public health, will tend greatly to the improve-
ment of their sanitary condition and the general interests of the community.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said James Alexander Manning, in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 4th August 1863.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
ALEXANDER MANNING, of the Inner Temple, London, Esquire, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fourth day of February, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, in the twenty-sixth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said James Alexander Manning, Her special license that I, the said James
Alexander Manning, my executors, administrators; and assigns, or such
others as I, the said James Alexander Manning, my executors, admi-
nistrators, or 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

page_text: Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF NIGHT SOIL AND
OTHER WASTE PRODUCTS, AND FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF MANURE THEREPROM," upon
the condition (amongst others) that I, the said James Alexander Manning,
my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my
hand and seal, or under the hand and seal of one of them, 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 James Alexander Manning, 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, that is to say:-
My said Invention relates to the manufacture of manure from night soil, or
the solid and fluid excreta of man, the constituents of which being the elements
of bread and flesh, in fact of all the fruits of the earth, as well as the cattle
raised thereon for man's consumption, are superior to other artificial manures
in their fertilizing properties, and effects upon the soil in general, whilst by my
process the per-centage of ammonia contained in the manure is but little inferior
to that of the best Peruvian guano.
The mode I adopt for thus rendering permanently useful to agriculture all
the human excreta collected in the privies or cess-pits of towns and other
localities where no sewers exist, or where, as in some towns, they have been
constructed merely for surface drainage; or again, where, as in Manchester,
Glasgow, and other places, a large proportion of the privies or cess-pits have
no communication or connection with the existing sewers, is as follows:-In
the first place, it is necessary for the proper action and application of my
process to towns and villages that all the privies or cess-pits shall be thoroughly
lined with cement, so that neither the rainfalls nor overflows of water nor
ordinary drainage may enter therein to dilute their contents, nor the fluid
excreta allowed to escape therefrom to poison the land springs used by the
inhabitants, and deprive the manure of its soluble salts. This preliminary
being accomplished, I require that a wall of division shall be erected in the
privies or ash-pits where coal ashes and household wastes are discharged into
them, so as to separate the dry wastes in question from the excrementitious
matters. These two necessary arrangements being made, I apply to the
bottom of the empty privy or cess-pit a quantity of sulphuric acid (proportionate
to the area of the privy or cess-pit, and the time required to fill it, but not
exceeding altogether in its various applications from time to time the proportion

page_text: of forty pounds of sulphuric acid to two thousand two hundred and forty
pounds, or one ton of mixed solid and fluid excreta) such acid to be of the
ordinary commercial strength, or diluted with three or four times its volume of
urine. This acid is added for the purpose of converting all the ammoniacal
salts contained in the solid and fluid excreta thereafter discharged into the
privy or cess-pit from time to time into sulphate of ammonia, and effectually
preventing the evaporation which has hitherto occurred owing to the
fermenting power or action of the urine in its decomposition, which converts
the different salts into carbonate of ammonia, the most volatile of all the salts
of ammonia, and by which upwards of 50 per cent. of ammonia is evolved
and passes away into the atmosphere to the polution thereof, a great loss to
agriculture, and the detriment of the public health. But in the treatment of
the human excreta in the manner described, I only apply a sufficient or pro-
portionate quantity of sulphuric acid to effect the object before described as
regards fixing the ammonia contained in the first half ton or less of the mixed
focal matter and urine discharged into the privy or cess-pit, as may be most
advisable in practice, and when that amount of excreta is collected in the privy
or cess-pit I add a similar dose of acid for the treatment of a further collection,
and continue the practice from month to month, or less, until the privy or
cess-pit is ad or ready to be emptied.
In this process I do not confine myself exclusively to the use of sulphuric
acid alone, as I sometimes employ carbonized or dry sea weed, and especially
the species known as the "Fucus nodosus," and dissolve the same in sulphuric
acid, as also waste kelp, and reduce it to a pulverulent state, nearly resembling
superphoshate of lime (which I also employ at times instead of the foregoing
preparations) and sprinkle the same at the bottoms of the privies or cess-pits,
and subsequently, at the proper times when about half a ton of the excreta is
collected therein upon the surface of the excreta, by which I increase the per-
centage of the mineral constituents of the manure indispensable to the organism
and development of plants, at the same time adding considerably to the
deodorising properties of the acid by the application of the vegetable charcoal
combined therewith. I also reserve the right of employing charcoal made
from tanners' spent bark or other wood or coal ashes, prepared in the same or
a similar manner with sulphuric acid in combination with or in lieu of the
before-named substances.
. When the cess-pits or privies are emptied, the matter removed is carted to
the works and discharged into a tank or tanks of sufficient dimensions to
hold one or more days' product of any town to which my process may be
applied, and it is there agitated by steam or horse-power so as to amalgamate

page_text: the whole and reduce it to a liquid or semi-fluid state, when it is passed from
the lower extremity of the tank through covered shoots or troughs at a proper
inclination, and charges a series or set of retorts by its own specific gravity on
its passage.
These retorts I prefer to make of cast iron; they are heated by coal from
three furnaces, one situate at each side of, and the third in the centre under
the front of the retort, the lower half of which opens for the discharge of the
product when the operation is completed. In their form the retorts are a
very flat oval, in order to obtain the largest possible surface for the evaporation
of the fluid portion of the excreta, the whole mass being kept in a continuous
state of agitation as soon as it reaches the boiling point until the operation is
completed by an agitator, which works backwards and forwards from the centre
to each side to prevent the adhesion of the solid matter to the bottom of the
retort; the retorts are only charged with the mixed fluid and solid excreta to
half their capacity, in order to facilitate the rising of the vapour at or over
their widest surface. To ensure a more rapid evaporation, I introduce by a
fan or otherwise, a strong current of heated air over the surface of the boiling
mass to drive off the vapour, chemical experience having demonstrated that
this operation is productive of great economy of time, fuel, and labour, as well
as reducing the number of retorts, which would otherwise be required in
working a large town. When the fluid is evaporated and the solid matter is
brought nearly to a state of dryness, by the preceding process, the lower half
of the front of the retorts is unscrewed, the solid product is discharged into
iron waggons and conveyed on a tram road to the drying and sifting houses,
where it is prepared for the market.
The process herein described is also applicable to the treatment of the wet
deposit of sewage obtained by precipitation, as set forth in the first part of the
Specification of my Patent "for Improvements in the Treatment, Application,
and Use of Sewerage Matters and general Wastes of Towns and Factories,"
dated the Thirty-first day of May One thousand eight hundred and sixty, and
Numbered 1843.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Alexander Manning, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-fifth day of July, One thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three.
JAMES ALEX. MANNING. (L.s)