IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING PEAT OR TURF FOR FIRE LIGHTS AND FUEL, AND FOR MACHINERY TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN
Year: 1865

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thomas Vincent Lee, of Macclesfield, in the County
of Chester, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING PEAT OR
TURF FOR FIRE LIGHTS AND FUEL, AND FOR MACHINERY TO BE EMPLOYED
THEREIN."
Sealed the 19th December 1865, and dated the 23rd September 1865.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Thomas Vincent Lee at the
Office of the Cominissioners of Patents, with his Petition and
Declaration, on the 23rd September 1865, pursuant to the 9th Section
of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
I, THOMAS VINCENT LEE, of Macclesfield, in the County of Chester, do.
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
PREPARING PEAT OR TURF FOR FIRE-LIGHTS AND FUEL, AND FOR MACHIN. RY TO BE
EMPLOYED THEREIN," to be as follows:-
My improvements have reference to a series of mechanical and chemical
arrangements for preparing the peat or turf of the required size and shape, and
for drying the peat or turf through the agency of hydro-caloric, and also for the
infusion of the petroleum or other oleagineous substance or substances into
the peat or turf to effect speedy ignition or combustion as fire-lights, and also
preparing the same as a fuel for generating steam in marine and other boilers.
Firstly, the peat when dug is either subjected to trituration to thoroughly
disintegrate its fibre and compressed into shapes in a moulding machine, or
it is conveyed as dug or raised direct to the kilns, which may be constructed
of cast iron, fire tile, or fire brick. The kilns are fitted with tramways,
[Price 8d.]

page_text: corresponding with tramways on the outside on which carriages laden with
the prepared blocks or peat are run in and remain until perfectly dry, which
in general occupies less than three hours. The kilns are surrounded on the
interior surface with perforated tubing for the equal diffusion of hydro-caloric
or superheated steam. The kilns may be of any size or shape. I prefer
that they be about sixty feet long by five feet broad, and three feet deep.
Secondly, the hydro-caloric I create in a manner somewhat similar to that
specified by me in my Patent, No. 2959, bearing date Twenty-first December,
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, and also set forth in my Speci-
fication of a Patent, dated May Twenty-ninth, One thousand eight hundred
and fifty-five, No. 1229, in both of which the coil I employ for the present
purpose is used with such alerations and improvements as are necessary for
proderly applying it to this particular use, and in connection with the ordinary
blast fan, when desirable.
I do not confine myself to any particular size or shape for the firelights,
nor the blocks for fuel, but a good machine for producing the latter very
rapidly, and of equal size and shape, is made as follows, viz.:-
This machine consists of an over-head crank action acted on by a rack and
pinion turned by a wheel by manual, steam, water, or horse power. In
connection with the crank is one or more stamps and cutters, and when the
crank has reached its lowest point of discent and given the required pressure
and shape to the peat or turf previously fed into the moulds, the motion is
reversed, and the blocks or shapes formed are carried above the table bed of
the machine, when they are removed by hand.
For the fire-lights, where little or no pressure is required, I apply somewhat
like the following arrangements:-I simply dig the peat in slices or sods of
above twelve inches square and two inches thick, which when dried in the
kilns average eight inches square by one and a half inches in thickness; these
squares are forwarded to the cutting machine, which is very similar to the
ordinary biscuit machine or cutter, and each slice or sod is cut into thirty-
six fire-lights, or I arrive at the same result where the character of the peat
requires it by grinding in a mill somewhat resembling the well-known rag
or bone mill, and passing the pulp thus ground into a cylinder fitted with
arms or blades similar to the usual pug mill for brick clay; thus pulp is
conveyed to the kilns in layers of suitable thickness, and when dry cut, as
before described, into the requisite shape.
The operation of charging or impregnating the peat with petroleum or other
oleaginous matter may be done either by immersion, sprinkling, or in any
way saturating the peat therewith, but I prefer that the peat should be

page_text: placed in an air-tight chamber and subjected to the vapour driven off from
the oleaginous matter employed when raised to the proper temperament.
Nitricor sulphuric acid is used in the manufacture of fire-lights in proper pro-
portion with the quantity of petroleum or other oleaginous matter employed,
which can only be determined in practice as the density of peat is so varied.
Having now described the nature of my Invention and improvements,
and the manner in which they are to be carried out, I would wish to be
understood as not confining myself strictly to the mechanical detail herein
set forth, as the same result could be arrived at by various other ways whilst
the principle would be the same.
What I claim as new and of my Invention is,-
First, mechanical arrangements for preparing peat or turf as fuel, or for fire.
lights in combination with petroleum or other suitable oleaginous substances
in combination with nitric or other suitable detergents instead of petroleum.
Secondly, the adaption of the triple series of coil to the blast fan for the
purpose of using heated air in connection with hydro-caloric or superheated
steam, or separately, as may be desirable, for the purposes herein specified.
In witness whereof, the said Thomas Vincent Lee, hath hereunto set
his hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of September, One thousand
eight hundred and sixty-five.
THOMAS VINCENT LEE. (L.S.)
Signed, sealed, and delivered
in the presence of
EDWD. HY. MAY,
Clerk to Messrs. Atchison & Hathaway,
12, Bedford Row, W.C.,
Solicitors.