IMPROVED MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING MANURE AND THE PRODUCTION OF AMMONIA
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Edward Gedge at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
28th February 1872.-A communication from abroad by Auguste
Salmon, of Nîmes, Gard, France, Merchant.
I, WILLIAM EDWARD GEDGE, of No. 11, Wellington Street, Strand,
in the County of Middlesex, Patent Agent, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED MACHINERY OR APPARATUS
FOR MANUFACTURING MANURE AND THE PRODUCTION OF AMMONIA," a com-
munication to me from abroad, by Auguste Salmon, of Nîmes, Gard,
France, Merchant, to be as follows:-
The manufacture of manure is one of the questions which most
preoccupy chemists and enlightened agriculturists; unfortunately it
must be said that the improvements in this branch of industry have
been very slight, and have hitherto had no direct effect upon the
prosperity of agriculture.
The means hitherto employed for this manufacture are very rude,
and as stated by M. Dumas, in his work of "La Chimie Appliquée
aux Arts" appear to have been chosen expressly for the "loss of the

page_text: gasses most useful to vegetation, to infect the environs, and even to
the most populous quarters of Paris." What M. Dumas says of Paris
may be said of all towns in which there is a manure factory.
In some places the liquid, that is to say the richest part, is separated
to be thrown into the river and thus poison watercourses. The richness
thus sacrificed is the sulphate of ammonia. This substance, which daily
increases in commercial value, is produced in quantities quite insufficient
to meet industrial requirements, and more particularly those of agri-
culture, which demands it by reason of the large proportion of azote
(21%) which it contains. Search has therefore been made on the one
hand for the raw materials containing the greatest quantity of this
substance, such as the ammoniacal waters of gas, animal matters, and
urines in putrefaction, and on the other hand for the best means of
manufacture, which as above stated are still very imperfect.
The production of manures and of ammonia therefore presents no
novelty, and it is not this production which constitutes this Invention,
but the apparatus used, which is believed to be superior to the
apparatuses already known. In fact, what are the processes now used?
or rather, what apparatuses are employed? Cast-iron boilers are
employed into which the matter is introduced by an opening which
is closed as soon as the boiler is charged; heat is applied after having
previously introduced the reactives, and the ammonia is disengaged and
collected by various processes; when the ammonia has been obtained,
the boilers must be emptied, their sides scraped to remove the bodies
which have become fixed to them during the distillation, and the
apparatus be then re-charged for a fresh operation.
The essential feature of this Invention is the use of closed boilers with
a helix or screw passing through each boiler, this screw being so
arranged that at each revolution, and without touching the mechanism,
a portion of the matter to be treated is introduced into the boiler and a
an equal portion ejected.
The matter to be treated is raised by a chain or other pump into a
tank communicating with the first of a series of boilers by means of a
pipe dipping to the bottom of the boiler in order that the liquid
introduced may arrive in the boiler beneath the surface of ebullition.
This part of the boiler (say about 16 inches) is not submitted to the
influence of the heat of the fire-place. The quantity of matter which is

page_text: to enter in a given time is regulated by a sluice or valve, the rod of
which is graduated and placed against the side of the tank, against
which is fitted the pipe serving for the introduction of the matters.
Assuming each boiler to enclose fifteen screw threads or blades, the
matter introduced will have travelled the length of the boiler only after
fifteen revolutions of the screw shaft. Arrived at the end of the first
boiler, the matter passes to a second boiler by means of a pipe uniting
the two boilers. The shafts of the screws being actuated by toothed
gearing, the one governing the other, the screw of the second boiler
turns in an inverse direction to that of the first, and consequently the
matter journeys in an opposite direction to that which it did in the first;
the third brings the matter back in the same direction as the first and so
on successively up to the sixth, where is the outlet pipe terminating in
a cone which at each turn of the screw permits the exit of the portion
of liquid contained in one furrow or division of the screw. During the
whole of the time the matter has remained in the boilers, the ammonia
has been given off by tubes placed on the middle of each boiler into
leaden tanks containing sulphuric acid diluted with water. The
ammonia is fixed by the acid, and when the liquor is saturated, crystals
of sulphate of ammonia are obtained by filtering and concentration.
The matter which issues by the outlet pipe is mixed by the aid of a
kneader with various substances, such as woollen waste, ashes and horn
raspings or cuttings, and falls into an agglomerating machine which
delivers it in cakes casily piled during the season when there is little
sale for manure.
The character of sewage outfalls or store places of manure will thus
be completely changed, there will be no more reservoirs, no spreading
out to dry, but with a sufficient number of boilers it is easy to transform
the matters as they arrive, on the one hand into sulphate of ammonia,
and on the other into cakes of manure placed by this operation beyond
possibility of fermentation; further, by the various elements used for
the manufacture of the cakes, each kind of cultivation may receive the
kind of manure most suitable for it, and thus may be attained the end
long proposed by science, namely, "to give to each soil the elements
which have been taken from it by the harvest produced," to restore to
the earth that which it has given is the real and complete regeneration of
agriculture. Such are the results obtained by this process, that is to say
by these boilers with screws.

page_text: The use of coke ovens is preferable for heating the boilers, as their
steady heat renders this method of continuous manufacture still more
perfect, but any kind of fire-place may be used.
To conclude, the object of these boilers with helix or screw is,-
Firstly. To preserve to human and other excrements, blood, and the
flesh of animals and analogous matters, all their fertilizing principles
during their transformation into manure.
Secondly. To separate each of these principles, free from contact with
the atmosphere, to be enabled to reunite them again according to the
various requirements of agriculture.
Thirdly. To utilize both liquid and solid parts, and to obtain from
them, always in closed vessels, all the salts which they contain, and
more particularly ammonia.