IMPROVEMENTS IN ROADWAYS, PAVEMENTS, AND ARCHITECTURAL AND SUCH LIKE OBJECTS, AND IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTICLES TO BE USED FOR THESE AND OTHER PURPOSES."
Year: 1877

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thomas Sanders Bale, of Newcastle-under-Lyne, in the
County of Stafford, for the Invention of IMPROVEMENTS IN ROADWAYS,
PAVEMENTS, AND ARCHITECTURAL AND SUCH LIKE OBJECTS, AND IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF ARTICLES TO BE USED FOR THESE AND OTHER PURPOSES."
A
"
LATT
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Thomas Sanders Bale at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 9th June 1877.
THOMAS SANDERS BALE, of Newcastle-under-Lyne, in the County of Stafford.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN ROADWAYS, PAVEMENTS, AND ARCHITECTURAL AND SUCH LIKE
OBJECTS, AND IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTICLES TO BE USED FOR THESE AND
OTHER PURPOSES."
This Invention has for its object improvements in roadways; pavements, and
architectural and such like objects, and in the manufacture of articles to be used for
these and other purposes.
The improvements relate, first, to the present asphalte roadways, and consist in
corrugating and otherwise roughening their surfaces to prevent slipping. This I
effect by means of indented rollers drawn over the surface when soft, or coating it
partially with very hard loose granular material.
I also form roadways, pavements, and such like with blocks of clay and its com
pounds, pressed and fired very hard, and similarly roughened or combined with india-
rubber, cork, or other elastic substance, being a non-conductor of sound, embedded
in, upon, or between the blocks to lessen noise.
I also make ornamental garden walks, pavements, and architectural decorations
or such like with a sort of bold pêbble mosaic formed with variously shaped pieces
of pottery or glass used with the refuse of pottery and brick works, slate, iron, and
copper slag stone, and such like, or mixed with cheap native materials, as sand,
ashes, pebbles, flints, shells, marble, so combined as to produce variegated and parti-
colored patterns, the above pottery being made in round balls like marbles, egg.
shape, or any other forms when needed by machinery, either by dies or by grooved

page_text: rollers, or by rolling between surfaces with a rotary motion, such articles being
applicable for other purposes.
I also form pavements for skating rinks and other floors with plaster and other
plastic materials to set hard without the aid of fire, such compounds being also
applicable to other purposes.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by
the said Thomas Sanders Bale in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 7th
December 1877.
THOMAS SANDERS BALE, of Newcastle-under-Lyne, in the County of Stafford.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN ROADWAYS, PAVEMENTS, AND ARCHITECTURAL AND SUCH LIKE
OBJECTS, AND IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTICLES TO BE USED FOR THESE AND
OTHER PURPOSES."
The Invention is,―
Firstly. To lessen the danger of asphalt roadways to horses, by rolling in it
broken granite, or boulders, or very hard fired clay, or other very hard material.
Secondly. To make roadways and tramways with blocks (say, about six inches
square) of clay and its compounds pressed and fired extremely hard, and used
alternately with asphalt, cement, and wood, cork, india-rubber, or similar elastic
materials, the said india-rubber to be used either liquid or in strips, or pulverised,
· laid in, or on, or between the blocks to deaden sound, and when used for streets,
roads, and other pavement to be corrugated or roughened.
Thirdly. To make, floral, geometric, and other patterns for garden walks, carriage
drives, promenades, terraces, and such like, and colored stucco-mosaic bricks, and
roof tiles for architectural and other uses with the debris and refuse from potteries,
brick and glass works, marble, stone, and slate ditto, ashes, metal scoria, and slag, and
such like, alone or mixed or combined with cheap natural materials, as hard coal,
clay, sand, spar, gypsum, flints, pebbles, gravel, quartz, shells, and cement, and such
like, called for convenience "Artificial or Inlaid Cromo-Gravel," the uses of which
will be better understood under three heads, viz. :—
1st. Pebble mosaic of sea shore pebbles, shells, spar, stones, boulders, and
gravel, with balls and other shapes of clay, glass, cement, or asphalt laid in the
latter, and forming a bold rustic mosaic chiefly intended for borders to walks and
the centre of carriage drives.
2nd. Chromo gravel made with the above debris crushed to a suitable irregular
size, and loosely mixed, and so used, or with one or more of the other materials,
producing a granitic poly-chromo effect. For flower beds and mere ornament it
may be scattered on, but for patterns or walks subject to wear it is better to be set
in good cement or asphalt (the latter preferred). Two modes are then used:-A
foundation is made in the usual way with ashes and coarse asphalt, upon which a
finer coating is laid an inch or more thick, which serves the double purpose of a
black color and a ground to throw up the other colors. Upon this is put a frame
or mould of thin metal or wood for the pattern, and after being filled with enough
of the required color, as white, red, and so on, it is lifted off, and the color is inlaid
by being rolled level into the soft cement or asphalt, and left to set, and so on-till

page_text: the design is finished. The second plan is for more elaborate patterns, which are
inlaid upon cement or asphalt slabs of convenient size, and then fixed in place on
the walk or building. When cement is used the superfluous part is cleaned off at a
proper time to leave the colors clear. When shapes and colors are needed, unable
to be got from debris, I purpose to use clay, glass, or cements, sometimes colored
with metallic oxides and mineral colors, and gravel and stones dyed or stained like
bone or ivory for example; blue with painter's blue crystal and oil of vitriol, yellow
with picric acid and turmeric, green with same acid and indigo, and for covered
places and special tints for rich work, as coats of arms, silicate colors may be painted
on. The best and hardest stones may be first cut, as in lapidary work, and then be
dyed. Pottery, bricks, slates, plaster, and other building materials can be also
dyed, and the cement or asphalt moulded or stamped in patterns. Cheap clay tiles,
with mouldings, and colored with variegated mottled clays, and fired, will also do
for borders.
"!
3rd. Bend or ball mosaic usually of round, oval, and egg shapes, of pottery,
glass, and other plastic material for very fine rich external work and inside use.
The clay ones are made in an ordinary press with dies, and the fine fringe of clay
caused by the dies removed, if necessary, by shaking in a barrel, or made in grooved
cylinders like a pill machine, or between two horizontal surfaces, the lower one
having the intended shape sunk in here and there for the clay, whilst the top one
revolves on the clay with a rotary motion, and shapes it similar to making boys'
marbles by the two hands. The said surfaces are placed at a sufficient angle to
allow the balls or marbles to roll off freely. The clay beads or balls are then fired
or burnt, and when a very hard vitreous surface is required, and glazing is difficult,
I prefer salt glazing or blueing like Staffordshire tiles.
Fourthly. Another use of the refuse and materials is by grinding some of them
very fine, and then using as a powder or mixing with enough plaster of Paris or fine
cement to just set as to enable it to be handled as an artificial Bath brick without
the aid of fire.
Fiftbly. To form rink and other floors and useful purposes with plaster of Paris
mixed with lime, alum, and white copperas to a paste, and made smooth and allowed
to set.
Having described the Invention I wish to say that I am aware that corrugated
bricks are used for street pavements, that in country places a use has occasionally
been made of large pebbles stuck in the earth in rough patterns, that pebbles have
also been roughly set in mortar in walls, that plain asphalt with limestone chippings.
scattered upon it is used for walks, that in pottery districts flint chippings, and
occasionally broken tiles have been used loose inside railings and flower beds, but
not fixed in a bed nor in patterns, that cements of different self colors as grey
and white (but not cements artificially colored blue, red, &c.), have been used
inside, but not for walks nor as cement pebbles, but all the above differ totally
from mine. I do not confine myself to the precise details named, but what I
clain is,-
First. The roughening of asphalt for roadways with boulders or pieces of hard
fired clay.
Second. Clay blocks in combinations as described for roadways and tramways.
Third. The utilization of refuse debris with other materials, and the several modes
of treating, coloring, fixing, and applying the same, as described under the general
title of "Artificial Inlaid Chromo-Gravel."
Fourth. Cements artificially colored, and uses set forth.
Fifth. Dyeing or staining stones, gravel, pottery, glass, slate, and other such
building materials, and uses thereof.
Sixth. The making of a substitute for Bath brick or powder instead with com-
pounds, as described, without being fired after, as now done.
Seventh. The making and use of small clay beads and removal of the fringe after
pressing, and the shaping of such and boys' marbles and other such forms by

page_text: cylinder and rotary machines, as described, or mechanical equivalents, and salt,
glazing same.
Eighth. The construction of rink and other floors, as described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Sanders Bale, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fourth day of December, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven.
THOB SRALE (TO)
THOBS BALE
S.
(IS)