IMPROVEMENTS IN THE UTILIZATION OF NIGHT SOIL, ASHES, AND CEMENTS, OR LIMY MATTER FOR THE PRODUCTION OF MANURE AND OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES
Year: 1871

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Henry Hughan, of Salford, in the
County of Lancaster, Manure Manufacturer, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE UTILIZATION OF NIGHT SOIL, ASHES, AND CEMENTS,
OR LIMY MATTER FOR THE PRODUCTION OF MANURE AND OTHER USEFUL
PURPOSES."
Sealed the 2nd February 1872, and dated the 13th November 1871.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said William Henry Hughan
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition
and Declaration, on the 13th November 1871, pursuant to the 9th
Section of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
HENRY HUGHAN, of Salford, in the County of Lancaster, Manure
Manufacturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS I am in possession of an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
THE UTILIZATION OF NIGHT SOIL, ASHES, AND CEMENTS, OR LIMY MATTER FOR
THE PRODUCTION OF MANURE AND OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES," and have peti-
tioned Her Majesty to grant unto me, my executors, administrators, and

page_text: 12th. Production of manure by combining the substances hereafter
described.
13th. Obtaining fuel by separating the cinders and small coals from
the fine ash, and in such process picking out rags, bones, iron, and
other valuables, manufacturing such cinders and small coals into an
artificial fuel, the ashes being also carbonised for production of charcoal.
Before proceeding to the detailed description of my mode of manu-
facture I shall premise what I mean by the terms "night soil," "ashes,"
"manurial elements," "fardyard manures," and "cements." By "night
soil" I mean all animal matter in the various forms of collection, as fæces'
and urine, whether from middens, ash-pits, cesspools, privies, tanks, earth
closets, waterclosets, tubs, boxes, metal and earthenware utensils, sewers,
precipitated and filtrated sewage, and the like. By "ashes" I mean the
ordinary refuse from household and manufacturing fires, chimneys; flues;
furnaces, ovens, and the like, in any form of collection, separately or
combined with foreign matter. By "farmyard manure" I mean cattle
and horse dung, the liquid, solid, mixed excrements from stables, byres,
cattle sheds, piggeries, fowl roosts, manure tanks, and the like. By
"manurial elements I mean organic, inorganic, and mineral con-
stituents and manuring matters of recognized and established value
in the agricultural market. By "cements "I mean Portland cement;
marls, Roman cement, and similar substances, sulphated lime, mortars,
limes, and clay.
"
It will be evident that the various forms of night soil collection in use
necessitate specific modifications and adjustments of my manufacturing
improvements, the enumeration of which would occupy too much expla-
nation, and which will be avoided by the application of the claimed
improvements to what is considered the best form of collection. The
ashes are collected separately, dry, and under cover. If dry they can be
at once run through riddles or sieves, but if too damp for riddling they
are first dried upon brick flues.
I lay no claim to any mechanical improvements in machinery, fires,
flues, or riddles, acid condensing chambers or tanks, though I do claim
their use as arranged for carrying out my Invention; but I prefer the
flues laid 'similar to those in brick sheds for drying the bricks previous to
calcination in kilns. I prefer the riddles square, horizontally arranged
in a frame in two sets, and attached to a shaft by á crank giving a cog

page_text: or vibratory motion. The first riddle is fed by hand or an endless
bucket chain. The fine ash and smaller cinders and coals pass through
this first riddle, falling upon the second riddle, whose meshes are of
smaller dimensions, allowing the fine ash only to pass through into the
pit. A spout is attached to the mouth of the first riddle, which carries
the large coal, cinders, and rubbish into a separate pit, and while passing
down this spout the rags, bones, iron, and other valuables are pulled out
and arranged into compartments, and also the bricks, crockery, larger
stones. This reception pit is formed by the fire flue and kiln holes, and
the contents from the spout are used as fuel for the fires. The small
coal and the cinders, which fall in a separate place from the second
riddle, are also used for fuel in the flues or engine, or, if preferred, are
pressed into artificial fuel blocks alone or with slack and pitch in the
usual manner of artificial fuel manufacture; or they are powdered and
mixed with sulphates in the ordinary reverberatory furnaces for general
sulphidising purposes. Their grand ultimate use, however, after fuel
and sulphidising demands are satisfied, is in mixture with the fine ash,
soda waste, and magnesian limestone for transformation into the deodo-
rizing, disinfecting, and absorbing powder. The ashes as received are
sometimes carbonised in the furnaces into charcoal, and the whole
products ground into powder used in substitution of the one about to be
described; or (the products being riddled) the larger portions are used
as fuel and the finer portions as the powder.
The incorporation takes place in a mortar mill, for which I prefer
to use in the following proportions:-56 pounds cinders and coals;
56 pounds fine ash, or instead of both these 1 hundredweight fine ash
alone; 28 pounds soda ash waste; 28 pounds magnesian limestone;
28 clay; 28 salt ground with night soil sufficient to form a thick plastic
paste. I prefer to use the magnesian limestone, clay, and salt in the
sulpated form. When there is no requirement for fuel or sulphidising
purposes the ashes are neither riddled nor dried but at once introduced
into the mortar mill for incorporation with the other constituents in the
following proportion (previous to which the rags, bones, iron, and other
valuables, as well as broken bricks, crockery, stones, and such rubbish
as the mill cannot grind are roughly picked out) :-One hundredweight
ashes; 28 pounds soda ash waste; 28 pounds each of magnesian lime-
stone, clay, and salt in the sulphated form. Each millful is wheeled in
rows into the brick drying flue. When dried into sufficient consistency

page_text: baked, when they are carried into kilns wherein they are charred or
carbonised.
The kilns are built after the ordinary coke kiln formation. They are
erected over and fired from the flue fire. A covered vent conducts the
vapours into the flues, along which they proceed into a series of con-
densing chambers or towers, and are condensed into an aciduous liquor
having a large proportion of nitric acid. The unabsorbed vapours having
traversed these passages are valueless and harmless, and pass into the.
air through the chimney, to which the towers are attached. Pipes are:
attached to the base of the towers, from which the aciduous liquor is
drawn as required for decomposing the phosphates or mixing with the
products of combustion and night soil. The bricks are heated to a white
heat intensity, and are then withdrawn from the kilns. When cold they
are mixed with sulphate of soda, black ash, crude: Epsom salts, and the
like (if such have not been already incorporated previous to calcination),.
all in the anhydrous form, and pulverized in a Carr's disintegrator into.
a uniform powder. This is the deodorizing, disinfecting, and absorbing.
powder, which is placed in compartments attached to the tubs or other.
closets, and distributed by regulators after each use in sufficient
quantities to render the contents pasty. Upon contact deodorization,.
cementation, crystallization, disinfection, and absorbtion take place, and
phospates, nitre, and nitrates of soda and lime develope in graduated.
order. If allowed to remain sufficient time the mass becomes as dry as
flour, but in practice it is found better to remove the contents weekly to.
the manufactory, where it is deposited in tanks. In these tanks it may
remain until dry, or it may be at once put into the acid mixing machine,
and treated with the aciduous liquor to decompose the phosphates and
nitrate of calcium in such proportions that the phosphates become super-
phosphates, and nitre crystallizes out of the nitrate of calcium, and.
saltpetre, nitrate of soda, and nitrate of lime are developed. From the
mixing machine the fluid mixture is run into tanks in which cemen-
tation takes place until it becomes of a hard, porous consistency, when
the substance is carried to the disintegrator, and pulverised into a powder
of uniform condition and quality. The combination has now reached
the full character of a manure, and is ready for general manurial use in-
agriculture, and possesses every manurial element essential to plant and
root cultivation.

page_text: Where a richer manure is desired a junction with ordinary super-
phosphate manufacture is effected in the following method:-Ground
phosphate of lime is first introduced into the acid mixing machine, and
treated with the aciduous liquor, or the ordinary acids sufficient for
decomposition, immediately upon which the night soil mixture is united,
thoroughly incorporated, and run into tanks. This manure can be
regulated to reach the highest degree of richness, and surpasses in
perfection the best sorts of government Peruvian guano.
-
Where convenience for all the improvements is not obtainable they
can be employed partially and individually. Thus, night soil in any
form can be combined with superphosphate manufacture, and ultimated
into night soil superphosphates, thereby securing the following advan-
tages The night soil confers that pasty condition upon phosphates
essential to the reception and dilution of acid, and which has hitherto
been derived from water. The phosphates are increased one-fourth in
quantity from the alkaline phosphates and phosphoric acid of the night
soil; thus, if 75 units of phosphate of lime are introduced 100 are with-
drawn. The phosphates receive a new supply of nitrogen from the
soil, equal in some analyses to four per cent. The phosphates gain
6 per cent. of alkaline salts containing 2 per cent. each of magnesia and
potash, as well as a large proportion of nitrate of soda and lime from the
night soil. The phosphates receive the addition of 16 per cent. organic
matter intermixed with the urea and uric acid of the urine, possessing
the latent quality of evolving ammonia to the last atom, inducing and
also having the property of nitrification in addition to the potential
ammonia and nitrates returned in the analysis.
While phosphatic manufacture receives those great advantages from
night soil the union is mutual, and night soil receives from phosphates
the following properties:- Cementation, solidification, deodorization,
portability by rail or sea in the service of agriculture. Thus night soil
is brought within the pale of sanitary laws contributing to health and
spreading wealth.
The generation of phosphate of lime and nitre from night soil are
important features of this Invention. I cannot assume chemical
exactitude in describing the nature of this development, but it is
understood that from the mixture of night soil with the powder or
cements phosphate of lime is formed by a union between ammonia and
the single or double silicates of soda, lime, allumina, and magnesia,

page_text: giving birth to an entirely new series of earthy phosphates as in
coprolitic formation. It may result from chemical and mechanical
expansion of the alkaline phosphates and phosphoric acid of the night
soil and powder%; but be that as it may the result is certain and
appreciable in giving 18 per cent. of phosphate of lime, while hitherto
no analysis of night soil, per se, has produced more than five or six per
cent. of phosphates.
The production of nitre is more easily explained. The lime and potash
of the soda waste and ashes after calcination together have a powerful
affinity for the liquid animal matter of the night soil, and form nitrates
with its organic matter so rapidly as almost to dispense with the usual
formation of nitric acid from oxidation. By this process I obtain a new
manufacture of saltpetre, and by incorporating salt cake in the powder
obtain nitrate of soda for the service of agriculture.
it
may
be
Another important feature is the application of this Invention to
farmyard manure by which the generation of phosphate of lime and
nitre is also developed. The farmyard manure is collected into tanks,
each day's supply being mixed with the powder or cements mixed with
magnesia and sulphates in regulated quantity sufficient to give the
consistency of mortar. By this process it is enriched in value to the
extent of £3 to £4 per ton. In these tanks it may remain for the
season, the longer period the better. For all farm purposes
used as it leaves the tanks, but its solubility for plant assimilation can
be increased by the addition of dilute acids. I call the manures manu-
factured from these processes huano manure. The powdered night soil
can be sold and used as collected in the tubs, or in any of the various
stages of the processes, or in its last completed and perfected form. From
the powder (and the cements in connection with sulphates) I also derive
in mixture with night soil or farmyard manure the important feature of
crystallization. The soda waste, salt cake; and soda ash in the powder
contains a quantity of sulphate of soda which crystallizes into Glanbers
salts, also black ash which crystallizes into soda crystals and nitrate of
soda and sulphated magnesia which crystallizes into Epsom salts. Thus
manurial ability is powerfully enhanced, and important sanitary arrange-
ments are secured from and by this method of crystallizing night-soil
which all gives portable condition to the manure. Where increased
crystallization is desirable I mix with the powder (in the process of
crushing) sulphates of soda (or salt cake) and magnesia manufactured

page_text: from common salt and magnesia limestone, and the aciduous liquor or
sulphuric acid in the usual salt cake process. A proportion (also for
mixing with the powder) of these sulphates I manufacture into sulphido
and black magnesian ash in the usual black ash process. In this process
I use ten parts of the above-mentioned salt cake, ten parts of sulphated
magnesian limestone, and ten parts of the cinders and small coals as
riddled from the ashes, and a proportion of clay, heating this combination
in the usual reverberatory furnace. After decomposition it is raked out,
cooled and pulverized with the powder. A powder is also produced
embracing various processes in one operation as follows:-56 parts ashes,
56 parts coal and cinders, or 100 parts unriddled ashes, 28 parts
sulphated magnesian limestone, 28 parts sulphate of soda, 28 parts
soda waste, 28 clay, the combination heated as heretofore explained.
I always substitute night soil for water in the various mixtures.
Another important manure is made from the following combination:
100 parts ashes (or 56 ashes 56 small coals and cinders), 14 magnesian
limestone, 14 common salt, 14 clay, 14 soda ash waste or cements and
like limy or calcareous substances, and 100 parts night soil or farmyard
manure. These proportions are preferred, but may be changed, and the
constituents altered, omitted, or increased as long as a mixture of sub-
stantially the same combination is preserved. The combination is dried
or at once calcined in reverberatory furnaces or the like, the vapours
being condensed in the acid condenser, and finally mixed with the
products of combustion, and with or without phosphates which settles
in the tank into a cemented substance, and when crushed is ready
for use. I prefer the use of the magnesian limestone clay and salt
in the sulphated form, and to arrange for such transformation in the
manufacture of the powder process.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my
said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed or
carried out in practice, I hereby declare that I claim, the Invention of
"Improvements in the Utilization of Night Soil, Ashes, and Cements or
Limy Matter for the Production of Manure and other Useful Purposes,"
as the same is herein-before set forth and described, in which Invention
the following are important and peculiar points,—
1st. The production from ashes of a combined deodorizing, cementing,
crystallizing, disinfecting, and absorbing powder for treating night soil,
or from carbonisation of the ashes alone.

page_text: 14th. The production of nitric acid and nitrate of soda from and by
the calcination of night soil or farmyard manure with salt cake and
soda ash.
It must however be understood that I do not claim the use of any of
the constituent elements herein-before described, except when used in
the manner and for the purposes herein set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Henry Hughan, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this First day of November, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-
one.
Witness,
THOMAS SMITH,
Corporation Manure Depot,
Wilburn Street,
Salford.
W. H. HUGHAN. (L.S.)