IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
Year: 1861

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Frederick Trachsel, Chemical Engineer, and Thomas
Clayton, Machinist, both of the City of Manchester, in the County of"
Lancaster, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Frederick Trachsel and
Thomas Clayton at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with
their Petition, on the 15th March 1861.
We, FREDERICK TRACHSEL, Chemical Engineer, and THOMAS CLAYTON,
Machinist, both of the City of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF GAS, AND IN THE APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN;' to be as
follows:-
We use or impregnate with volatile fluids air, hydrogen gas, carbonate oxide,
and other inflammable gases for the production of light. To produce a gas
suitable for heating hollow rollers, singeing textile fabrics, or other similar
purposes, we use a retort charged with scrap iron or charcoal for the decom-
position of steam, which is regulated by a self-acting apparatus on the principle
of a float acting on a valve. This non-luminous gas can also be produced by
the action of acids, water, and any corrodible metals.
For the production of gas by acids we use an apparatus consisting of two
vessels made of earthenware or other suitable material, the inner one having

page_text: a perforated pan or shelf fixed at a suitable distance to contain the metal used
in the process. The electricity. evolved during the generation of the gas may
be applied to any purpose for which electricity is required.
The advantages of this Invention consist of brightening the non-luminous
gases and making them portable, so as to be applicable to the lighting of
vessels, railway carriages, private habitations, and other similar cases, and also
to the heating of hollow rollers used for calendering textile fabrics and similar
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Frederick Trachsel and Thomas Clayton in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 13th September 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, FREDERICK
TRACHSEL, Chemical Engineer, and THOMAS CLAYTON, Machinist, both of the
City of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fifteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord,
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, in the twenty-fourth year of
Her reign did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us,
the said Frederick Trachsel and Thomas Clayton, Her special licence that we,
the said Frederick Trachsel and Thomas Clayton, our executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, or such others as we, the said Frederick Trachsel and
Thomas Clayton, our 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
THE MANUFACTURE OF GAS, AND IN THE APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN," upon
the condition (amongst others) that we, the said Frederick Trachsel and
Thomas Clayton, our executors or administrators, by an instrument in
writing under our, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should par-
ticularly 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 we, the said Frederick Trachsel and Thomas
Clayton, do hereby declare the nature of our said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascer-

page_text: tained in and by the following statement, reference being had to the accom-
panying Sheet of Drawings, and to the figures and letters marked thereon (that,
is to say):-
This Invention consists in certain improvements in the mode of obtaining
light, and in the apparatus for rendering atmospheric air, hydrogen gas,
carbonic oxide, and other gases of various kinds luminous, and in charging
and impregnating them with matters of a volatile nature, so that the modified
air or gases may be conveyed in pipes like other gases, and may be burned
at its issue from properly constructed burners. The supply of air may be
obtained by the use of bellows, gasometers, reservoirs, fans, wind, air pumps,
water power, water blast, or any other adequate blowing contrivance. The
materials which we use are any or all of those volatile solids or fluids, such
as camphor, ether, alcohol, turpentine, camphine, and other essential oils,
wood spirits, coal naptha, benzole, oils of wood, oils of tar, paraffine oils,
petroleum, caoutchine, or matters of a similar nature. These matters may be
used either singly or in combination with cach other, and will be better
adapted for the purpose of impregnating air and gases with the requisite
amount of carbonaceous or hydro-carbonaceous particles, if they are further
rectified by distillation at any heat below 212° of the thermometer.
To produce a gas suitable for heating hollow rollers, singeing textile fabrics,
or other similar purposes, we use a retort charged with scrap iron or charcoal
for the decomposition of steam, which is regulated by a self-acting apparatus
on the principle of a float acting on a valve. This non-luminous gas can also
be produced by the action of acids, water, and any corrodible metals.
In carrying out this Invention, when it is desired to employ hydrogen gas,
or a mixture of hydrogen and carbonic oxide, which may be produced by the
action of water or steam upon hot iron or charcoal, as is well known, we
use a regulator for the admission of the steam, which is self-governing, and
which enables us to dispense with the use of a gasometer for storing the gas,
when so required. This regulator consists of a float within a water chamber,
acting upon the lever of the regulating steam cock or valve. This water
chamber is opened at the top, and communicates by the bottom with another
chamber closed at the top, wherein the gas accumulates, and by the pressure
the gas exerts upon the water it causes the latter to lower its level, rising in
the next chamber, and actuating the float. The steam cock is thereby shut
more or less, and regulates the supply of steam by the quantity of gas passing
in the gas reservoir or chamber just mentioned.
The apparatus for procuring hydrogen gas, or a mixture of hydrogen and
oxide of carbon, by the decomposition of steam is shewn in Fig. 1. A is the

page_text: retort; B, the lid and clamp; C, the outlet pipe; D, the cooler; E, the gas-
holder, closed at the top; F, the water cistern, opened at the top; G, the
float; H, the lever attached to the float; I, the regulating steam cock;
J, boiler, with safety valve, with tubes for water and outlet for steam; K, stove
and fire-place; L, gas pipe service.
The impregnating apparatus, shewn in Fig. 2, consists of a vessel, box, or
a series of boxes made of iron, copper, brass, tinned plate, zinc, earthenware,
china, glass, or other suitable materials, and provided with a number of
divisions, partitions, cells, or chambers, into which we insert sponges, or coke,
or pumice stone, sand, cotton, wool, cork, or any other similar porous matters,
for the convenience of dividing, separating, or scattering the air over a large
area, or they may be dispensed with when the liquors used are volatile enough.
We use in addition, and previous to introducing the air or gases into the
impregnating part of the apparatus another similar case or vessel with
divisions or cells to contain dry lime, dry sponges, or dry chloride of calcium,
or dry magnesia, or dry barytes, or any other dry absorbant matters, in order
to dessicate or dry the air or gas that may be used as a vehicle for our light.
This case or box may also be dispensed with as the light can be produced
without it, but its use is advantageous in improving the brilliancy of the light.
The hydrogen or other gases may, after their production, be passed in our
impregnating apparatus, and be rendered luminous, using suitable burners
made to suit the fineness of the gas by varying the size of apertures in the
burners.
The burners we use in preference are made with rather large apertures,
and these may be round or square holes, or slits, or a combination of both, or
open tubes with deflector plates, or flattened tubes, some forms of which are
shewn in Figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6. Fig. 3 represents the burners, full size; shewing
deflector plates; Fig. 4, burners, with close deflectors, in three positions;
Fig. 5, a star or honeysuckle burner; Fig. 6, a butterfly burner.
The air-blowing machine which we use in connection with our Invention
is composed of a' train of wheelwork, with cranks or eccentrics actuating
bellows or fans, and set in motion by the retractile force of a number of
vulcanised rubber springs, either round, square, flat, solid, or tubular. When
the blowing machinery is wound up it is put in connection with the drying
and impregnating boxes or vessels, and light may be at once obtained, and
maintained as long as the supply of air lasts.
That part of our Invention wherein air is used as the main vehicle of our
light is applicable in all cases where light is required, and in many cases
where ordinary coal or oil gas could not conveniently be introduced. The

page_text: portability of the light, its purity and intensity, renders it especially adapted
for illuminating railway carriages, lighthouses, ships, mines, picture galleries,
dwelling houses, and manufactories, and every other purpose for which light
is required. When using it on railways, we employ, to supply the air
required, either a blowing machine actuated by springs, or an air trunk or
air wheel to collect air by the progressive motion of the carriage connected
with a reservoir of any convenient shape to store the air thus collected.
Having now described the nature and particulars of our said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, we desire it to be
understood that we do not claim the use of ccal gas in combination with
volatile fluids; but what we claim is,―
Firstly. The use of air or non-luminous gases in combination with or
impregnated by volatile solids and fluids, as described.
Secondly. The use of a regulator for the steam in the steam gas apparatus,
as shewn in Fig. 1.
And, thirdly. The construction of burners with deflector plates, as shewn in
Figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6.
In witness whereof, we, the said Frederick Trachsel and Thomas
Clayton, have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Eleventh day of
September, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
sixty-one.
FREDE CK TRACHSEL. (L.S.)
THOMAS CLAYTON.
Signed, sealed, and delivered by the within-
named Frederick Trachsel and Thomas
Clayton, in the presence of
E. J. HUGHES,
Patent Agent,
Manchester.
(L.S.)