CERTAIN IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF BRIDGES, VIADUCTS, ROOFS, AND OTHER PARTS OF BUILDINGS
Year: 1839

page_text: NASH
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
NASH, of Budge Row, in the City of London, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-first day of February, One thousand eight hundred
and thirty-nine, and in the second year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs
and successors, give and grant unto me, the said William Nash, Her especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said William Nash,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said William
Nash, my executors, administrators, or assigns, should at any time agree with,
and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within England, Wales, the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and all Her
Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF BRIDGES, VIADUCTS, ROOFS, AND OTHER PARTS OF
BUILDINGS," being a communication from a foreigner residing abroad; in which
said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said William Nash,
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, particularly to describe
and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, and to cause the same to be inrolled in Her Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same,
reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Nash, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described in and
by the following description thereof, reference being had to the Drawings
hereunto annexed, and to the letters and figures marked thereon (that is
to say):-
These improvements in, the construction of bridges, viaducts, roofs, and
other parts of buildings consist in a peculiar form, arrangement, and mode of
connecting bars of iron or beams of wood placed diagonally at acute angles,
and braced together by other bars or beams placed in horizontal positions and
parallel to each other, which combination or structure affords a degree of
stability from its firm tension that is not found in any of the ordinary con-
structions of bridges or roofs composed of similar weights of material, either on
the suspension or tension principles. In the accompanying Drawing, Fig. 1
represents a single bar A, shewn in perspective, a combination of several
of which, elevated in diagonal positions at acute angles, and connected by
horizontal parallel bars B, B, and C, as shown at Fig. 2, constitutes the
side framework of one of my improved bridges or other similar structures.
Figure 3 represents one of the pairs of the top or bottom horizontal parallel
bars B detached, as they would appear on the top side. The forms and sub-
stances of the bars being fully shewn by the three first Figures of the
Drawing, I will proceed to describe the mode of constructing the joints.
It will be perceived that the ends. a, a, of the elevated bars A, are peculiarly
formed, so that when the bars are placed in diagonal positions at acute angles,
their ends may fit accurately in the notches or recesses of the top and bottom
horizontal bars B, B; the latter of which are brought together and connected
by socketed joints, as shewn at b, b, in the detached Figure 4, and the whole is
made fast by bolts c. The middle horizontal bar C is connected to the
elevated bars A, A, by differently formed notches and recesses, as shewn at
d, d, and e, e, Fig. 1. Fig. 5 is an elevation, and Fig. 6 a plan of one of the
end standards D, to which the horizontal bars B, B, and C, and the two
extrome elevated bars A are affixed, in order to finish the side frame of the
structure. These end standards bear perpendicularly upon the piers or
masonry which are placed for supporting the whole framework of the bridge
or other erection, therefore no abutments, or buttresses, or tension ties beyond
the ends are necessary to resist longitudinal force, as the whole pressure or
weight of the erection is, by the bracing of the bars, concentrated in the ends
bearing perpendicularly upon the piers. Fig. 7 is an elevation of a bridge
constructed on this improved principle, and Fig. 8 is a plan, shewing the under

page_text: part of the roadway of the same. The two side frames, when formed by the
combination of bars, as above described, are erected upon the piers E, E, as
shewn in Fig. 7, and are then braced together by diagonal transverse bars
f.ff. placed horizontally and at acute angles, the ends of which bear upon
the middle horizontal bars C, and with their longitudinal bracing bars g, g,
support the roadway or flooring of the bridge. In this construction of bridges
no perceptible lateral vibration is perceived, as the perfect tension of the whole
admits of no other movement but that arising from the mere flexion of the
material of which it is made.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Nash, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Twenty-first day of August, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine
(L.B.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-first day of August
in the third year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, the said
William Nash came before our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and
acknowledged the instrument aforesaid, and all and every thing therein
contained and specified, in form above written. And also the instrument
aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made in the
fifty-fifth year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Third.
Tall be funt