IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR MEASURING SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alfred Vincent Newton at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
4th March 1868.- A communication from abroad by Robert
Creuzbaur, of the City and State of New York, United States of
America.
I, ALFRED VINCENT NEWTON, of the Office for Patents, 66, Chancery
Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Mechanical Draughtsman, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS
FOR MEASURING SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to provide a practical, accurate, and
economical means by which the specific gravity and the temperature of
spirituous liquors as well as the quantity thereof can be simultaneously
ascertained and automatically recorded. This is done by attaching the
apparatus to be presently described to a liquid meter measuring quantity
of whatsoever kind, the registering movement of which is extended
so as to give a corresponding movement to the recording apparatus of
this spirit meter. The specific gravity is ascertained on the well-known
mode of immersing a floating body and judging the quality or the
proof of the liquor by the greater or less displacement by such body.

page_text: The novelty consists in automatically and continuously recording the
gravity of the liquor as it passes through the meter, so that the quality
of any quantity thereof can be ascertained as well as the average of
the whole or any part thereof. The temperature is ascertained by using
a modified thermometer. The novelty therein consists in so arranging
the thermometer and attachments thereto that its indications are
continuously and automatically recorded. By combining these two
means or instruments into one the whole operation becomes very simple,
and the gravity and temperature of any part of the liquor are recorded
side by side for inspection. To this end within a closed cylindrical
vessel having an emptying spout near its base is fitted a concentric
cylinder some two inches or more shorter than the enclosing vessel.
The chamber formed by this cylinder is brought into communication
with the meter employed for measuring the quantity of the liquid. Within
the chamber is placed an annular float which carries at top six cylin-
drical necks set at equal distances apart. In pure water the necks of
the float would stand almost entirely out of the fluid, but in pure alcohol
the reverse would be the case. Within the central space of the float,
and secured thereto, is a vessel filled with mercury; this mercury vessel
has a long neck extending up through the top of the outer closed vessel
above mentioned, and it is free to rise and fall with the float which is
'fitted with guide pieces to retain it in a central position. The liquor
supplied to the instrument is free to flow upwards both around and
through the centre of the float; its variations of temperature will
therefore act upon the mercury contained in the mercury vessel and
cause it either to expand or contract in bulk as in a thermometer.
Resting on the mercury is a piston having a long rod attached to it;
this rod passes up through the top of a frame attached to the top of
the outer cylindrical vessel and carries a marker. To the neck of the
mercury vessel or thermometer is also fastened a marker. These
.markers by means of springs are kept in contact with a roller made
fast to a vertical shaft having its bearings in the before-mentioned frame.
Graduated paper is led from a supply roller to this roller, and the paper
is drawn off by means of a third roller. A friction roller serves to keep
the paper from slipping on the roller that presents the paper to the
markers. Motion is given to the rollers through a ratchet wheel keyed
to the shaft of the roller that present the paper to the markers.
Into to teeth of this wheel takes a pawl worked by a rock lever that
receives motion from the meter which measures the quantity of the

page_text: liquid. As the liquor passes through the meter the float (with
which is connected the mercury tube or thermometer) rises and falls
according to the variation in its specific gravity, and the marker carried
by the thermometer will automatically indicate this variation by a con-
tinuous line on the traversing paper. Then again as the temperature of
the liquor varies the piston in the mercury tube will rise or fall, and
a marker carried by the piston rod will make a like indication of the
temperature on the paper. The vertical difference between the two
lines drawn by the two markers will be the exponent of the temperature.
For use without a registering apparatus the neck of the mercury tube,
as usual in hydrometers, and the piston stem, should also be graduated
below the marker, the top of the neck being the index.