NEW MEANS FOR PREPARING TAR-WATER WITH THE AID OF A TAR COATED CHIP, AND FOR ITS DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Benjamin Brissaud at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd May 1879.
JOSEPH BENJAMIN BRISSAUD, M.D., 83bis, Rue Lafayette, Paris, acting in the
name of the Society Lieutard & Co. "NEW MEANS FOR PREPARING TAR-WATER
WITH THE AID OF A TAR COATED CHIP, AND FOR ITS DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS."
The object of my Invention is the constant and cheap preparation of the
drinking or toilet water known as "tar-water " as well as of other analogous
solutions.
This water has hitherto been prepared by the aid of more or less concentrated
extracts, and chiefly and simply by the aid of vases or vessels and glasses which
were coated with a layer of tar; but the disadvantage of this mode of preparation
will be at once apparent; the water is too much charged, and too acrid at first, and
later weakens to such an extent as to no longer have any flavour; further, the vase
or vessel is always dusty, or dirty, and opaque, and its cleaning very difficult.
I propose to substitute for the above a process, the principal means of applying
which consists of a shaving or chip of any kind of wood, but preferably from a
resinous wood such as the maratime pine.
This shaving may vary in breadth, thickness, and length, but it will occupy but
little space as it may be rolled up spirally, or be otherwise wound upon itself.
I thus have in a very small compass a very large surface, which I then utilise by
coating it with tar, the tar being incorporated with the shaving; I can then easily
introduce this latter into a bottle or a decanter by reason of its shape which, when
it is rolled up spirally, is that of a cork.
By slightly agitating the water, a wholesome and agreable drink is obtained,
held in a transparent vessel in which dirt or dust cannot accumulate. To have a
drink more or less charged or sapid, it will only be necessary to shake the vessel
more or less, or simply to use more than one shaving, the aroma from the shaving
generally spreads naturally and in a very few minutes throughout the body of
water by simple displacement, endosmose, without the necessity of any agitation.
When the tarry shaving is considered to be exhausted it may with the greatest
facility be withdrawn from the vessel in which it was held and another one be
introduced therein.
The principal advantage of such a method is that it offers an object with a large
surface of displacement or endosmose in a very slight bulk and easy of removal

page_text: from the vase or vessel in which the preparation is made and from which the con-
sumption takes place, which vessel is always the same, and always clean and
transparent. This permits me to offer in boxes to consumers of tar water, tarred
rolls or shavings which will permit them to produce large quanties of this water.
I would here observe that although the spiral form of shaving is that to which I
give preference, because of its near approach to the shape of a cork, other modes
might be used; for example, the use of ribands or strips, even of any other material
than wood, and folded instead of rolled up, felts, sponges, linen, or other pliable,
fibrous or filamentous materials offering large contact surfaces in a small bulk,
which with the mobility of the reservoir or tar shaving is the essential object of
my Invention.
It will be evident that wood, particularly that from the species which produce
tar, is that which lends itself best to receive the coating and the incorporation of
the tar, its preservation being thereby completely ensured for an indefinite period.
But I might substitute in lieu thereof, but with less advantage, a thin strip or plate
of glass or metal, or even of a suitable vegetable substance; I might also use a
metallic or other woven fabric or a plate perforated with a large number of small
holes.
I might even use a very thin wire coated with tar, and rolled in a ball like a
reel or spool or otherwise, and instead of the spirally wound shaving or cop shape,
I might use that of bundles or faggots formed by the union of little twigs, small
sticks or matches coated with tar and held by a ligature, as well as of tubes of
stubble or other analogous tubes; I might also use thin wooden washers superposed,
round or square, and held together by a central stem or rod or by a ligature.