NEW METHOD OR METHODS OF PREPARING A SUBSTITUTE OR SUBSTITUTES FOR GUM, SENEGAL, AND OTHER GUMS EXTENSIVELY EMPLOYED IN CERTAIN BRANCHES OF MANUFACTURE, WHICH I APPREHEND WILL BE OF GREAT. PUBLIC UTILITY
Year: 1801

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, the Right
Honorable ARCHIBALD Earl of DUNDONALD, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, bearing date the Thirty-first day of July, in the forty-first year of
His reign, did give and grant unto me, the said Archibald Earl of Dundonald,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, His special licence, full power,
sole priviledge and authority, that I, the said Archibald Earl of Dundonald,
during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's Colonies abroad, my "NEW METHOD OR
METHODS OF PREPARING A SUBSTITUTE OR SUBSTITUTES FOR GUM, SENEGAL, AND
OTHER GUMS EXTENSIVELY EMPLOYED IN CERTAIN BRANCHES OF MANUFACTURE,
WHICH I APPREHEND WILL BE OF GREAT. PUBLIC UTILITY;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Archibald Earl of
Dundonald, under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the
nature of said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
my
to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar
month next and immediately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent,
as in and by the same, relation being--thereunto had, may more fully and at
large appear.
"
.
+
NOW KNOW YE, that my Invention of procuring a substitute or substi-"
tutes for gum senegal, or other gums, is contained in a Specification subscribod

page_text: by me at Edinburgh, on the Third day of February last, of which the following
is a copy-
'
.1
These
"My Invention consists in procuring a subsitute or substitutes for gum
senegal, or other gums, from the class of plants called in botany lichens, from
the plants of hemp and flax, previous to being steeped in water, or after being
steeped; likewise from the bark or rind of the willow or lime tree. The pro-
cess for obtaining the gum may be varied according to circumstances, and is
done by washing the materials in water, digestion, and boilings, and with or
without the aid of fixed or volatile alkaline salts or their solutions, as
will be more fully shewn in the Specification of the Patents, when
those Patents which it is intended immediately to apply for are obtained.
In witness whereof, this description of my process, written by Thomas
Russel, Clerk to William Hamilton, Writer to the Signet, is subscribed by me
at Edinburgh, the Third day of February, One thousand eight hundred and one
years, before those witness, the said William Hamilton and the said Thomas
Russel." On the Fifth of February affidavit was made by me before one of
the magistrates of the City of Edinburgh (to which the seal of the city was
affixed), that the preparing a substitute or substitutes from lichen, &c. &c. was
of my discovery or finding out, and of the same date, namely, the Fifth of
February, I subscribed a petition to His Majesty for Patents for the United
Kingdom of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and Colonies abroad.
measures and precautions were taken by me at that time, as I had just grounds
to suspect that an individual calico printer in Scotland, (to whom in confidence
and on terms I had revealed my process, and to whom I had sent the prepared
gum substitute to have it tried at his printing field), meant to take advantage
of the communications made to him, by opposing my obtaining Patents, or
by making public my process, unless I assigned or conveyed my Invention to
him on terms, not only highly disadvantageous to myself and family (of which
there is the compleatest evidence in his proposals, or draft of the assignment
now in my possession, but which, if agreed to by me, might have had the effect
to have locked up the use of the gum substitute from all the other calico printers
and consumers of gum in Great Britain n'and Ireland, and have given a monopoly
or exclusive use of the article to one Scottish calico printer, his own works,
being under no sort of restriction as to extent or place, and exempted from any
pecuniary consideration payable to me, the Inventor and Patentee. That these
suspicions of mine had just grounds will appear from the following extract
from a letter received by me on the Eighteenth of February from the calico
printer, having reference to a letter I had written him on the Sixteenth of
February, stating that I intended to apply for Letters Patent for my discovery.

page_text: "As to your taking out Patents I feel very light upon that score, having long
ago, taken the necessary precautions to put that beyond your power; at the same
time I am equally aware we can obtain none. Provided we act like people of
sense, every thing may easily be settled; both parties may reap considerable
benefit from the discovery. If otherwise, we know that no power on earth can
prevent our proceeding to manufacture the article for our own consumption.'
A caveat was lodged on the Fifth of February, two days posterior to the dato
of my Specification (in the last office or stage through which Patents pass,
namely, the Great Seal), by a Mr. Mundell, solicitor, London. This caveat
considerably delayed my obtaining the English Patent. The said Mr. Mundell
was not to be found; was said to be out of town. A petition was presented to
the Lord Chancellor that the Great Seal might be put to the Patent. A
hearing was appointed; no appearance on the part of Mr. Mundell. An
affidavit was produced to the Lord Chancellor, of which the following is a copy:-
"The Honorable John Cochrane, of Harley Street, in the County of Middlesex,
maketh oath and saith, that previous to the year One thousand seven hundred
and eighty-six, the Right Honorable Archibald Earl of Dundonald, this
deponent's brother, communicated to this deponent a discovery he, the said Earl
had made, for extracting gum from the moss which grows upon trees; and this
deponent further saith, that upon his return to Canada, in the years One
thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven and One thousand seven hundred and
eighty-eight, he, this deponent, did make several experimental trials of extract-
ing the gum from such moss, according to the process communicated to this
deponent by the said Earl, and this deponent succeeded in such experiments.
John Cochrane." Sworn at the house of the deponent in Harley Street, afore-
said, this twenty-fifth day of July, One thousand eight hundred and one, before
me, W. W. Pepys."
The preceeding statement of facts is given, first, to prove my undoubted
right to the discovery, and secondly, that a Specification of the process
had been subscribed by me on the Third of February last, at a time
when the process had only been in confidence, and on terms revealed to one
individual calico printer, and who, in the month of April last employed some
hundreds of persons to collect the lichen for his works at all those places in the
County of Lanerk, in Scotland, where he had been informed by me that the
lichen was to be found in abundance; thus making public my Invention.
Viewing it to be indespensably necessary to the validity of all Patents, and a
matter of justice to the public fully to disclose my process or processes, I now
proceed to state them at more full length.
It does not appear, from such trials as I have hereto made, that thero
is any very great difference in the produce of gum from the lichen

page_text: collected from different trees or shrubs, all of them answer equally well
for yielding a gum fit for calico printing. The lichen is most; abundant on
the trees which grow in a poor stiff clay soil, particularly if situated at some
considerable height above sea level. It should be pulled in dry weather,
otherwise it is apt to break in the pulling; besides, in this case, requiring
to be dried before it can with safety be laid up in the storehouse, where,
if put in dry, it may be kept for years. Should a sufficient quantity of .it
not be found in this country, it may be had in almost unlimited abundance in
Sweden, Norway, and in the northern parts of América, where it grows to the
length of from a foot to eighteen inches, depressing the branches of the tree by
its weight. There is, however, every reason to believe that a sufficient quantity
is to be had in this country. According to information from Dr. Brown, lecturer
on botany, it takes, three or four years in coming to maturity or its full size, so
that a crop from, the same tree may be had every fourth year. The lichen does
not consist entirely of, a gummy matter; there is the outer skin or cuticle,
below that a green resinous matter.. The remainder of the plant consists of partly
gum, partly somewhat analogous to animal substances, and a small proportion of
fibrous matter,, which cannot be dissolved by boiling, or, the action of alkaline
salts. The first process in preparing gum from the lichen is to free it of the
outer skin of the plant and the resinous matter.. This is done by scalding the
lichen two or three times with boiling water, allowing it to remain so long in
the water as by.absorbing it to swell; in' doing this, the skin cracks and comes
off along with the greatest part of the resinous matter; or it may be freed
from, them by gently boiling the lichen for about fifteen or twenty minutes, then
washing it in cold water, laying it afterwards on a stone. or brick floor, where
it should lie for ten or twelve hours, perhaps more. The reason for this is, that
the exposure for that time to air greatly facilitates the subsequent extraction of
the gum. The scalded lichen is then to be put into a copper boiler,with a due
proportion of water, say, three Scotch pints or two winę gallons to every pound
of lichen, and boiled during ten or twelve hours, adding, about a quarter of an
ounce of soda or pearl ashes for every pound of lichen; or instead of these salts,
about two ounces of volatile alkali. The boiling should be continued until the
liquor acquires a considerable degree of gummy consistence. It is then, to be
taken,out of the boiler, allowed to drain or drip through a wire or hair cloth or
searse, the residuum to be put into a hair cloth bag or bags, and to be
squeezed in a press, similar to that which. is used by the melters or rinders of
tallow. The first boiling does not extract the whole of the-gum. The lichen
should be boiled a second or even a third time, repeating the process as above
described, diminishing at each process the quantity of water and the quantity
of alkali, which a little experience will soon point.out. When three boilings are

page_text: employed, the gummy extract of the last boiling should be kept for the first
boiling of a fresh batch of lichen; the extract proceeding from the first
and second boilings should be mixed together, and evaporated to the consistence
necessary for block or press printing. The evaporating vessels should be of
tin or thin lead, placed over a range of stoves, and moderately heated by fire or
the steam of water. It has been neglected to state, that before evaporating the
gummy extract to the consistence necessary it should be kept ten or twelve
hours, so as to allow the sediment or dregs to subside. The clean liquor may
either be drawn off by a syphon, or the dregs may be drawn off by a cock at
the bottom of the wooden vessel, the bottom of which should be made sloping,
higher at the back than the fore part, in order that the dregs may run more
completely off. The proportion of guinmy matter remaining in the dregs may
be got off by mixing them with a due proportion of boiling water, allowing the
liquor to clear, and proceeding as above directed, employing this weak solution
for boiling the next batch of lichen. When volatile alkali is used the boiler
should be of iron, as volatile alkali acts on copper. Hemp, flax, and the bark
of the willow and lime trees, or sea weed, are to be heated in a similar manner
to extract the gum or mucilage contained in them; likewise it is intended that
this Patent shall include every tree, plant, or vegetable of whatever kind from
whence a mucilage or gum is to be obtained by the action of volatile or fixed
alkaline salts, or their solutions, when used in the processes of maceration,
digestion, or boiling of these vegetable matters, being a method of obtaining a
mucilage or gum never before practised and adopted by any other person.
In witness whereof, I, the said Archibald Earl of Dundonald, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, the Thirty-first day of August, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and one.