IMPROVE- MENTS IN OBTAINING AND APPLYING MOTIVE POWER BY MEANS OF PONDEROUS BODIES
Year: 1860

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Ambrose Coffey, of Providence Row, Finsbury,
in the County of Middlesex, Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN OBTAINING AND APPLYING MOTIVE POWER BY MEANS OF PONDEROUS
BODIES"
Sealed the 6th July 1860, and dated the 9th January 1860.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Ambrose Coffey
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 9th January, 1860.
I, JOHN AMBROSE COFFEY, of Providence Row, Finsbury, in the County of
Middlesex, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING AND APPLYING MOTIVE POWER BY MEANS OF
PONDEROUS BODIES," to be as follows:-
These improvements consist in applying the force of gravity in connection
with suitable mechanism to produce a prime mover, available for various useful
purposes.
This mechanism is constructed and arranged so as to use the weight of
water or other ponderous body possessing sufficient mobility, or "dead" or
permanent weights, suitably placed in the system of mechanism.
When water is adopted, I prefer to have an endless chain or band on which
open buckets or vessels for holding water are fixed, which endless chain or band
is able to be kept in motion by passing over suitable wheels and pulleys.
These buckets are for the two-fold purpose of producing motion by the

page_text: weight of water acting upon the bottom surface as they pass into and through
a upright or nearly upright pipe or cylinder, and also to bring back the water
again, and thus economize the water where that is an object. The water is
first conducted to the top of an upright or nearly upright pipe or cylinder, and
descends upon the buckets, pressing them down, and also fills the pipe or
cylinder between the buckets, so as to obtain the weight of a whole column.
The buckets having passed down and out through the lower end of the
upright cylinder or pipo by the action of the endless chain or band, are carried
into a tank or reservoir, whence they are carried up either through the open
air or through another upright pipe or cylinder, and when they pass the top
turning point of the endless chain or band, the buckets are discharged into
another tank or reservoir at top, which communicates with and helps to supply
the first-mentioned pipe or cylinder at the top. Near the bottom of this cylin-
der is a drawing-off pipe, which should be regulated in calibre so as to draw
off but a comparatively small quantity of the contents of the upright cylinder or
pipe in a given time. This pipe may be used to convey water to actuate a
water wheel or machine, which consists of a number of hollow arms placed
on a hollow axis, the ends of which hollow arms have buckets, into which the
water is received on the descending side of the wheel; the water being cut off
the ascending side of the wheel, whereby rotation may be insured. This water
wheel may be used independent of the other arrangements, if desired.
The buckets may be of various forms and constructions, and in some cases
instead of having buckets, pistons may be used, in which case the second
cylinder or upright pipe is needful.
In the place of water or other fluid, permanent weights may be attached to
levers or arms radiating from a centre or axis, which arms, as the whole
rotates, draw close to or project to a distance out from the wheel, so that as
they are carried up, the leverage shall be shortened, and as they are moving
down it shall be lengthened, which may be effected by the action of an eccen-
tric, a spring, or otherwise. Or the weights may be fixed to an endless chain,
in a similar manner to the arrangement first described with regard to water
power.
Motion may be communicated by shafts, or arrangements connected with
some of the working axes, so as to give motion to paddle wheels, propellers;
lift weights, or other purposes; or arrangements may be made to propel a
ship by the ejection of water, by having double buckets or vessels, one bucket
set. upon an
being larger than the other, something like this, for instance ☑
endless chain or band, it will not be necessary for the same to be made to

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said John Ambrose Coffey in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 9th July 1860.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, Jonn
AMBROSE COFFEY, of Providence Row, Finsbury, in the County of Middlesex;"
Engineer, send greeting.
-
WHEREAS Her most. Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Ninth day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty, in the twenty-third year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said John Ambrose Coffey, Her special licence that I, the said John
Ambrose Coffey, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said John Ambrose Coffey, my executors, administrators, and
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 Man, an Invention for "Im-
PROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING AND APPLYING MOTIVE POWER BY MEANS OF PONDEROUS
BODIES," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said John Ambrose
Coffey, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my
or their, or one of their hands and seals, 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 John Ambrose Coffey, 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 fol-
lowing statement :-
,
(II.) My Invention consists in utilizing the force of gravity or pressure
in connection with suitable mechanism, to produce a prime mover available

page_text: for various purposes by means of the action, as hereafter set forth, of ponderous
bodies possessing mobility, such, for instance, as a body of water or of mercury;
the system of mechanism which I now deem suitable being an arrangement
of buckets or similar receptacles, pistons, and other mechanism hereafter
described, whereby the weight of the water shall be caused to act in con-
nection with these mechanical arrangements, so as to set and keep the
mechanism going, such weight of water being prevented from acting pre-
judicially to the economising of the motive force. For these purposes I
construct a tank or cistern, which I call the "main cistern," which is open
at the top, from each side of which I erect standards or framing, in which, at
a suitable height above the said main cistern, I provide bearings for the axle,
of: a bucket wheel placed vertically, similar to an overshot water wheel, and
which I term the "water wheel." The said standards or framing carrying
this water wheel should be high enough to support, by bearings formed therein
the top rigger or pulley wheel, placed upon its axle at some considerable height
above the aforesaid bucket wheel, the proper height being governed by the
height.or length of the water cylinder, hereafter described. Over which upper:
rigger or wheel, as also over the lower rigger or wheel or rollers, there is
passed an endless chain or band, which passes through and carries a number
of plungers or pistons, which are made so as to fit loosely in a water cylinder,
fixed vertically: (to one of the said standards or framing), and so. that these
pistons or plungers shall, when descending, pass through it from top to bottom,
the lower end of this water cylinder being placed in such conjunction with the
water wheel, as. that, by means of a spout or waterway at the bottom of the
said water cylinder, the water dripping out with the plungers as they come
through the orifice provided at the bottom of the said water cylinder for that
purpose shall fall into the topmost of the descending buckets of the water
wheel, the said orifice at the bottom of the said water cylinder being so pro-
portioned to the diameter of the pistons or plungers that it shall be water-
tight, or nearly so, and thus the only water dripping out with the exit of the
plungers will be the quantity of water drawn between one piston or plunger
and another. The aforesaid water wheel has teeth on one side of the whole
periphery, which serve to take into teeth in a vertical rigger or wheel, situate
in the main cistern aforesaid, which last-mentioned rigger or wheel gives
motion to an endless chain or band travelling under it, such chain or band
passing upwards and carrying buckets for raising water arranged so as to
have their mouths or open part upwards as they ascend, and downwards as
they descend, this endless chain or band being supported at top upon a rigger
ur wheel, secured by its axle in bearings in the aforesaid standards or framing,

page_text: an upper cistern being fixed to the said standards or framing immediately.
beneath this last-mentioned rigger or wheel. From the said upper cistern.
proceeds a water pipe,. which passes to the top of the said water cylinder.
(which top should, be funnel shaped). To put this engine or mechanism to
work, water. is supplied to the top of the water cylinder, which may be readily:
done by its funnel top, and also to such of the buckets of the water wheel as,
shall be.in the. position to receive the same, and likewise to the main cistern:
when the weight or pressure of, the column of water upon the pistons in the
water cylinder and in the buckets on the water wheel causes the endless chain.
of pistons to travel, carrying the water wheel round, which, by its toothed peri->
phery, acts upon the aforesaid lower rigger belonging to the endless chain.
of water-raising buckets, and thus not only is motion obtained by the gravity,.
weight, or pressure of the column of water acting upon the said pistons and
the buckets of the water wheel, but water is taken up out of the main cistern,
by the water-raising buckets aforesaid, and discharged into the upper cistern; >
whence it flows to and feeds the water cylinder at the top, thus keeping up the.
due supply of water necessary to the continuous movement of the mechanism.
Instead of the water cylinder and its conjunct system of endless band of
pistons being arranged as herein-before described, I could have these plungers.
or pistons made hollow, with a valve at one end of each piston or plunger,:
which is to be so. placed on. the endless band. that the valve shall be at tho:
lower end thereof when passing down the water cylinder, and at the top when.
passing up out of the said cylinder, the said endless chain or band being in this
case carried down into the main cistern. The effect of which arrangement will:
be that the valves of the said pistons will be open when passing through the:
main cistern and let water into the said pistons, which will hence be carried.
up to supply the upper cistern, which in this case will be placed immediately
beneath the rigger or wheel carrying the endless band of pistons; the said
pistons when passing through the water cylinder having the valves closed
by the upward pressure of the water, by which arrangements the necessity
of having the water-raising band and buckets, herein-before described, is
dispensed with.
Although I described the water cylinder as having pistons worked therein,
it is evident that I could use buckets instead of pistons, such buckets being so
arranged as to enter the water cylinder with their mouths downwards, and to
go up out of the cylinder with their mouths upwards, carrying water from the
main cistern to supply the upper cistern. I do not, however, recommend this
arrangement. By having the pistons or buckets to move on the endless chain
or band with pins on the chain and slots in the pistons, the same may be

page_text: caused to close up together when descending and to lengthen out when
ascending, and thus greater power may be rendered available. It is also to be
observed that the rigger or wheel at the bottom under which the endless band
of water-raising buckets passes, and which is driven by the teeth on the water
wheel, must be much smaller than the annulus of teeth, so as to have greater
speed than the water wheel, as without this arrangement it will be evident
there will be a loss of power. Where a stream or flow of water can be
procured, power may be obtained by means of a water wheel or machine,
which is a wheel with a number of hollow arms with funnel-shaped mouths at
the ends arranged, as is the case with the overshot water wheel, so that on the
descending side the water receptacles (the hollow arms and adjuncts) shall
remain full, and on the ascending side shall empty themselves; the water to
supply the wheel entering by the axle which is hollow, and communicating
with the hollow arms on the descending side only, by reason that there is an
orifice or waterway in the said hollow axle which opens to the descending
arms only, thus cutting off the water from those ascending.
I may remark that although I bave described the arrangements I deem
best, it is evident that various modifications might be adopted should the
circumstances require them. And I may further remark that I have considered
it unneccessary to illustrate the modus operandi of my Invention by Drawings
and detailed descriptions of parts, deeming the foregoing statement sufficient
for the practical man.
(III.) Having now described the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I claim the Invention, the
nature and character whereof is set forth in the outset (marked I.) and is
further exemplified in the part marked II. of this my Specification thereof.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Ambrose Coffey, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Ninth day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty.
Signed and sealed in my presence,
J. W. CAMPIN,
Patent Agent,
156, Strand.
JOHN A. COFFEY. (L.S.)