CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN SCREWS
Year: 1852

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, JonN
FEATHER, of Keighley, in the County of York, Worsted Spinner and
Manufacturer, and JEREMIAH DRIVER, of the same place, Iron and Brass
Founder, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Ninth day of February,
in the fifteenth year of Her reign, did give and grant unto us, the said John
Feather and Jeremiah Driver, our exors, admors, and assigns, Her especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that we, the said John
Feather and Jeremiah Driver, our exors, admors, and assigns, and every of
us, by ourselves, or by our deputy or deputics, servants or agents, or such
others as we, the said John Feather and Jeremiah Driver, our exors, adiñors,
or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time
and at all times thereafter during the term of years therein expressed, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within that part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England, Her Dominion of
Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the Island of Jersey, Guern-
sey, Alderney, Sark, and Man, and also in all Her Colonies and Plantations
abroad, our Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN SCREWS;" in which said
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso requiring that we, the said John
Feather and Jeremiah Driver, shall particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, by an instrument in writing under our hands and scals, or under the

page_text: hand and seal of one of us, to be enrolled in Her said Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within two calendar months next and immediately after
the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as, reference being there-
nuto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
John Feather and Jeremiah Driver, do hereby declare the nature of our
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following Instrument in writing (that
is to say):-
Our Invention has reference to screws used in machinery for the purpose of
propelling any fibrous substance or substances through such machinery, in any
process which any such substance may be required to undergo; and it consists
in the manufacture of screws adapted for propelling any such substance at
various rates of speed during its passage through the machine. Our Invention
is applicable either to single threaded or to double or treble threaded screws.
And in order that it may be most fully understood, and readily carried into
effect, we will proceed to describe the manner in which the same is performed
by us.
We would however, in the first place, state that in propelling any such
substance through a machine, as in the process of combing wool, the ordinary
method has been to use a screw of uniform pitch, and in consequence of such
uniformity of pitch, the machine has not been able to do its work with one
pitch of screw and length of gill combs to keep both long and short wool in
their proper place, that is to say; (first), if the screw be a fine one, calculated
to keep the short wool in its proper place, it must of necessity be a short one,
because the front roller cannot draw the wool through the combs when the
screw is both long and fine, and very frequently the long end of the sliver
gets bagged together at the back of those combs, and slips over the top of
the combs, and thereby makes lumps in the end or sliver; and (secondly),
if the screw be a coarse one, calculated to keep the long wool in its proper
place, the space between the combs and the nip of the front roller varies so
much that the short wool slips through the front roller, and thereby makes
lumps in the end or sliver.
Now, we vary the pitch of the screw so as to be at any part or parts of the
screw coarser than at other part or parts, and by so making the pitch of the
screw to vary at different parts it can propel a substance at various rates
of speed, itself going at one and the same rate, and this enables the machine to
do its work with a much longer length of combs, and thereby keeps both long
and short wool in their proper place. These variations of pitch may be made