AN APPARATUS, ON A NEW CONSTRUCTION AND CERTAIN NEW-INVENTED PROCESSES, FOR THE PURPOSE OF MAKING FOSSIL ALKALI, BY WHICH THE MANY OBSTACLES AND INCONVENIENCES ATTENDING THE METHODS HITHERTO USED ARE REMEDIED, AND WHEREBY THAT VERY USEFUL AND IMPORTANT ARTICLE IS OBTAINED OF A QUALITY EQUAL TO THAT EXTRACTED FROM THE BEST BARILLA, WHICH WILL BE OF THE GREATEST CONSEQUENCE AND ADVAN- TAGE TO SEVERAL OF THE MANUFACTORIES CARRIED ON IN THIS KINGDOM
Year: 1789

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ANTHONY
BOURBOULON DE BONEUIL, of Liverpool, in the County Palatine of Lancaster,
Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the
Eleventh day of March, in the twenty-ninth year of His reign, did give and
grant unto me, the said Anthony Bourboulon de Boneuil, His especial licence
that I, the said Anthony Bourboulon de Boneuil, during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within
England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in all His
Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "AN APPARATUS,
ON A NEW CONSTRUCTION AND CERTAIN NEW-INVENTED PROCESSES, FOR THE PURPOSE
OF MAKING FOSSIL ALKALI, BY WHICH THE MANY OBSTACLES AND INCONVENIENCES
ATTENDING THE METHODS HITHERTO USED ARE REMEDIED, AND WHEREBY THAT VERY
USEFUL AND IMPORTANT ARTICLE IS OBTAINED OF A QUALITY EQUAL TO THAT EXTRACTED
FROM THE BEST BARILLA, WHICH WILL BE OF THE GREATEST CONSEQUENCE AND ADVAN-
TAGE TO SEVERAL OF THE MANUFACTORIES CARRIED ON IN THIS KINGDOM;" in which
said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Anthony
Bourboulon de Boneuil, under my hand and seal, to cause a particular descrip-
tion of the nature of my said Invention to be inrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within three calendar months after the date of the said
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto had)
may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Anthony Bourboulon de Boneuil, do hereby declare that my said Invention
of an apparatus on a new construction, and certain new-invented processes,
for the purpose of making fossil alkali, is described in the Plan and
description thereof hereunto annexed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Anthony Bourboulon de Boneuil, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of March,
One thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.
ANTHONY BOURBOULON DE BONEUIL. (L.S.)
Previous to specifying my apparatus and processes I must observe, that to
extract fossil alkali from marine salt, two things are wanted:-1st, the mate-
rials containing the necessary principles; 2dly, a proper apparatus for working
them successively. As for materials, I use such as have been already used;
I mean charcole and iron mixed and melted with Glauber salt, into which
marine salt is at first to be converted, and of course I claim no grant on that
head. But I work those materials in a manner and with an apparatus new,
hitherto unpractised, and, what is more material, quite necessary, to succeed
in such an extraction of fossil alkali with such or other materials. This im-
proved apparatus and process is the Invention, in the enjoyment of which I
claim to be secured under the Patent. It consists of what follows:-
Instead of keeping the mixture of the materials lying in an open reverberatory
furnace, exposed to the violence of the fire and the course of the air, I keep
them in pots or crucibles B, made of iron, standing upon a mere flat furnace A,
such as is commonly used for distillation, where their necks are raised a little
above the surface of the furnace, and their mouths closely shut with the lids C,
as appears by the Plan. The empty places between each crucible are shut on
the surface of the furnace with breaks, to prevent the fire from catching the
materials, as the sides C are intended to prevent them from the contact of the
exterior air. From these two improvements it happens that the sulpher,
formed at first by the mixture of the vitriolic acid lying in the Glauber salt,
with iron on every side,
with the principle lying in the charcoal, meeting
leaves the alkali, and turns to iron, by which it is thus so strongly kept that
martial pyrite is instantly produced, and the fossil alkali remains free, and
stands by itself amidst the pyrite. By former methods, the material being
worked in open reverberatory furnaces, and being so exposed both to the
violence of the fire and the course of air, it happens that the fire, acting im-
mediately and on every side upon the materials, burns the sulpher as soon as
it is engendered, and consequently before it has turned to iron. The vitriolic

page_text: Mouth of the Crucible when in the Furnace
Tids or Covers to the Crucibles.
Spoon to extract the Materials
Vessell, to receive the Materials extracted
Hook to take off the lovers, and take
out the Crucibles.

page_text: acid that becomes again free returns to the alkali, and reproduces Glauber
salt. To extract the fossil alkali from the martial pyrite by my method, the
matter is poured from the iron-crucibles into the iron pans E, and afterwards
spread on the ground, where it is left till the martial earth into which it turns
becomes effervescent. Then the earth is elixiviated several times, and, the
water having thus imbibed the alkali, is boiled, evaporated, and poured into
proper pans, wherein the alkali goes out, and cristalises alike the best barilla,
which never can be obtained without iron crucibles used in such furnace, and
with such particular process, as above specified.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-seventh day of March,
in the year above mentioned, the said Anthony Bourboulon de Bonneuil came
before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Speci-
fication aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in
form last above mentioned. And also the Specification aforesaid was duly
stampt according to the tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided.
Inrolled the Twenty-seventh day of March, in the year above mentioned.