IMPROVE- MENTING IN ADDARATHE FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES
Year: 1869

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Bruce Dick, of Glasgow, in the County
of Lanark, North Britain, Merchant, for the Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTING IN ADDARATHE FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES"
Sealed the 6th August 1869, and dated the 23rd April 1869.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Bruce Dick
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 23rd April 1869.
I, WILLIAM BRUCE DICK, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark,
North Britain, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES," to
be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the extinguishing of fires by means of a
mixture of carbonic acid gas and water, as described in the Speci-
fication of Letters Patent granted to Alphonse Vignon, and dated
23rd July, 1862 (No. 2096); and it consists in providing distinct vessels
or distinct compartments of a vessel in which the acid and the dissolved
carbonate are stored separately, and in introducing the said acid and

page_text: carbonate into a mixing chamber or space in connection with the dis-
charge nozzle at the time when the fire extinguishing action is required.
The acid and carbonate are forced into the mixing space by means of
pumps, which may be powerful enough to project the mixture to con-
siderable heights or distances.
The apparatus may be made of any size and is more convenient for
large sizes than that described in the Specification herein-before referred
to, as the agents are not stored under pressure, and do not therefore
require storing vessels of the inconvenient and costly construction that
would be necessary to withstand the pressure.
With the improved apparatus also the maximum force of discharge is
maintained until the last of the agents is used, whilst the evolution of
the gas and the consumption of material may be stopped at any moment
by discontinuing the working of the pumps.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said William Bruce Dick in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 21st October 1869.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
BRUCE DICK, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain,
Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-third day of April, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, in the
thirty-second year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, give and grant unto me, the said William Bruce Dick,
Her special licence that I, the said William Bruce Dick, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
William Bruce Dick, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time
and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle
of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR EXTINGUISHING

page_text: FIRES,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said William
Bruce Dick, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, or their, or one of tlieir hands and seals, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be
filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said William Bruce Dick, do
hereby declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement in writing, reference being had to
the accompanying Drawings, that is to say:-
My said Invention relates to the extinguishing of fires by means of a
mixture of carbonic acid gas and water, as described in the Specification
of Letters Patent granted to Alphonse Vignon, and dated 23d July
1862, (No. 2096), and subsequently assigned to me by the said Alphonse
Vignon. And my present Invention consists principally in arranging
apparatus in such a way that pumps as used in ordinary fire engines may
be employed for bringing together the chemical ingredients for generating
the carbonic acid gas, and at the same time for projecting the mixed
gas and water to great heights or distances by means of the ordinary fire-
engine lose.
And in order that my said Invention, and the manner of performing
the same, may be properly understood, I have hereunto appended a
Sheet of explanatory Drawings to be herein-after referred to and
representing by way of example a modification of my improved
apparatus.
Figures 1 and 2 are vertical sections as at right angles to each other,
and Figure 3 is a horizontal section. The apparatus comprises a wheeled
carriage 1, the body of which is in the form of a tank made with sheet
iron fixed upon angle-iron frames, and which is divided into three com-
partments 2, 3, 4. Pumps 5, 6, are fitted in the compartments 2, 3, and
are arranged to be actuated by a beam 7 on a rocking shaft 8, which is
provided with the usual levers for the application of manual power. The
pumps may however be worked by a portable steam engine as in
existing steam fire engines. The communications with the pumps are
so arranged that they may draw from the tank compartments 2, 3, by

page_text: the openings 10, 11, in which case the liquids used are filled into those
compartments, that is to say, the solution of carbonate of soda or other
suitable carbonate is filled into one compartment 2, and the solution of
tartaric acid or other suitable dissolved or diluted acid is filled into the
other compartment 3; or the openings 10, 11, may be closed and the
liquids may be drawn from other tanks or vessels by means of hose
coupled to the ends of pipes 12, 13, projecting out through the back of
the carriage for the purpose. Air vessels 14, 15, for equalising the flow
of the liquids are applied to the suction pipes. The delivery pipes 16, 17,
from the pumps 5, 6, lead into a strong vessel 18 in the front com-
partment 4, and in connection with this vessel there is a single delivery
pipe 19, upon the projecting end of which the hose is to be coupled for
leading the gas and water to the fire. The vessel 18 receives the two
liquids delivered by the pumps, and these liquids act upon each other in
the vessel or generator, as it may be termed, and generate or set free the
carbonic acid of the carbonate employed. This carbonic acid passes off
along with the liquid, and is by the hose directed upon the fire, against
which it is thus in a most effectual manner made to exercise its well-
known extinguishing power.
The arrangement of the various parts of the apparatus may be
variously modified, and will depend more or less on the power intended
to be developed. Thus the chemical liquids employed may form only a
part of the liquid thrown by the engine, water from any ordinary source
being also pumped into the generator or delivery pipe either by separate
pumps or by the same pumps, separate suction pipes being used in the
latter case with valves or cocks to regulate the quantities of chemical
liquids drawn in along with the simple water; or, on the other hand,
the two chemical liquids may be forced into the generator by separate
and distinct pumping engines arranged upon the same or separate
carriages.
Having thus particularly described my said Invention, and the manner
in which the same is to be performed, I have to state that I do not
restrict myself to the precise details herein described or delineated; but
that what I believe to be novel and original, and claim as the Invention
secured to me by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is,
the arranging of pumping apparatus for extinguishing fires so as to
separately pump or inject into a vessel or space leading to the delivery
pipe or hose any two suitable chemical liquids, which on being mixed

page_text: generate or set free carbonic acid, substantially as herein-before
described.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Bruce Dick, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twentieth day of October,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-
nine.
W. B. DICK. (L.S.)