IMPROVE- MENTS IN VENTILATING HOUSES, BUILDINGS; SHIPS AND STRUCTURES GENERALLY, AND IN APPARATUS FOR ASCERTAINING THE STATE OF THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE SAID HOUSES, BUILDINGS, SHIPS, AND STRUCTURES
Year: 1860

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George Reid at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 9th October
1860.
I, GEORGE REID, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Ventilating
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN VENTILATING HOUSES, BUILDINGS; SHIPS AND STRUCTURES GENERALLY, AND
IN APPARATUS FOR ASCERTAINING THE STATE OF THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE SAID
HOUSES, BUILDINGS, SHIPS, AND STRUCTURES," to be as follows:-
My Invention relates to various devices for ensuring better ventilation and
maintaining a supply of fresh air in houses, buildings, ships, and structures
generally, and to the construction of an apparatus which I have designated the
"carbon test," for ascertaining the state of the atmosphere in any place with a
view to the better ventilating and supplying of fresh air.
The feature in my Invention which distinguishes it from those at present in
use consists in using two or more shafts placed at a distance from each other,
the one (or more) to serve as inlet, the other (or more) as outlet. The shafts
or air inlet and outlet openings may be straight or diverged as the building or
structure will admit. The inlet shaft for fresh air may be dispensed with in
some cases, and the supply drawn from the passages or lobbies, or the supply
may be brought through perforated tiles, bricks, or cases, built or fastened in
the wall; in every case, however, I prefer taking the supply from a sufficient
height in the atmosphere to secure purity. On all the inlet and outlet passages,

page_text: whether opening outwards or upwards, I'place a guard or fender of an orna-
mental character, suited to the style. of the building, so arranged that it will
admit free ingress and egress of pure and vitiated or heated air, as desired.
These guards or fenders will prevent down draughts in chimnies, if applied to
the "tops," and when I ventilate into the chimney I use, in addition to the
guard or fender, a double-acting valve, either to be worked by hand or made
self-acting, opening to the chimney and to the apartment. When a supply of
fresh air is desired in an apartment on the ground or lower floors of a building
I use a horizontal supply shaft, made of wire gauze or other perforated
material, and this construction of inlet, when the perforations are not too
large, I find carries the supply a considerable distance, and distributes it
equally in the apartments.
In my arrangements for ships I use tubes or shafts of different lengths
alternately from the various decks, open at the lower ends, and com-
municating with one or more passages or flues, terminating in a suitable
receiver or rarefier formed round or near to the funnel or-chimney, into which
latter, or through one of my guards or fenders, I exhaust the foul air. The
same arrangement could be used for maintaining an uniform temperature in
the cabins by fixing a fan in the passage or flue, which, when put in motion,
would force the air through the tubes.
The "carbon test" is formed of glass or other transparent substance; on one
side near to the bottom is affixed a tube, which rises upwards from the bottom
in the form of an S; on the other side and near to the top is a similar down-
ward shaped tube, these tubes being the only communications with.the interior;
the form is peculiarly suitable for testing a small quantity of air from a
bladder or other holder, the inlet in all cases being under the level of the
testing liquid.