A MODE OF WEIGHING BODIES RAISED BY CRANES OR OTHER ELEVATING MACHINES
Year: 1841

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
GOODACRE, of Ullesthorpe, in the County of Leicester, Gentleman, send
'greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain; bearing date at West-
minster, the Twenty-second day of March, in the fourth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Robert Goodacre, Her especial license that I, the said Robert Goodacre,
"my exors, admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Robert Good-
acre, my exors, admors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time during the term of years therein expressed, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and
the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A MODE OF WEIGHING
BODIES RAISED BY CRANES OR OTHER ELEVATING MACHINES;" in which said Letters
Patent is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Robert Goodacre, 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 enrolled in Her said 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
Robert Goodacre, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention, pre-
mising, in the first place, that as the same cannot be used by itself, and will be
used chiefly with cranes, and as cranes are variously constructed and often
times very complicated, my Invention will require to be adapted in conformity
with such variety of construction; and for the purpose of rendering a descrip
tion of my said Invention more easily to be understood, I will now suppose it
to be applied to a crane of the very simplest form; and for the purpose of
description, it will suffice to say that the body to be weighed having been
drawn up to a required height by the raising chain, the weight of it is then
transferred on to a grappling iron which is made to fasten to the raising chain,
the body being lowered by the said chain when so fastened, and the weight
consequently received on the grappling iron, and which grappling iron hangs
by loops and centres at the end of a lever, the said lever works at its fulcrum
with centres in cups or bearings fixed to some convenient part of the end of
the arm or gib, and runs or lies in such direction as to reach at a right angle
or any other angle the pillar of the crane (supposing it to have a pillar), but
in case it has no pillar it reaches an imaginary perpendicular line raised from
the foot or foundation on which the crane turns, or from any other spot being
under the arm of the crane; the said lever is acted upon or pulled down at
such place of union or tangency by an upright connecting rod, uniting at its
lower end with another shorter lever, having centres with their edges pointing
upwards to work under steel cups or bearings fixed above them to some
convenient part of the crane near the ground; the rod unites with this shorter
lever between its fulcrum and a moveable ball or weight hung so as to
balance or keep the said shorter lever in a horizontal position, in which posi-
tion alone, and at that part where the ball so balances, the scale or mark or
figure shews the weight of the body required to be weiged. The said con-
necting rod works at its angles or points of connection with the upper and
lower levers by loops and centres. But in regard to a body of less than a
given weight, the upper lever and connecting rod would by their own gravity
more than counterbalance such body, so that the body would not have power
to move them or pull them up, and thereby produce a movement of the lower
lever. To ascertain therefore the weight of light bodies, a steel cup is fixed
under the lower lever, and on the opposite side of the connecting rod to that
where the cup is fixed above the said lever, the connecting rod being at some
part between the two, the said lever having a centre to work in the said cup
at its fulerum, and such lever is made sufficiently weighty on one side of its
fulcrum to balance or bear up the weight of the said rod and upper lever,

page_text: which bear on the other side of its fulcrum, so that when thus balanced, a
small weight, hung to the end of the upper lever on that side of its fulcrum
nearest to the pillar of the crane, throws it off its balance, and produces a
movement of the lower lever, which is furnished with a ball and scale to shew
the weight of light bodies.
Now, whereas I claim as my Invention the mode aforesaid, and such my
mode of weighing being, as applied to cranes and such other elevating machines,
to best of my knowledge and belief, entirely knew and never before used
within that part of Her said Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland called England, Her said Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick-
upon-Tweed, I do hereby declare this to be my Specification of the same, and
that I do verily believe this my Specification doth comply in all respects fully
and without reserve or disguise with the proviso in the said berein-before in
part recited Letters Patent contained; wherefore I hereby claim to maintain
exclusive right and privilege to my said Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Robert Goodacre, have hereunto scţ
my hand and seal, this Twenty-first day of September, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-one.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-first day of September,
in the year of our Lord 1841, the aforesaid Robert Goodacre came before our
said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above
written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the
tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Twenty-first day of September, in the year of our Lord Oue
thousand eight hundred and forty-one.