AN IMPROVEMENT Or IMPROVEMENTS IN THE SEA.. BEACONS AND THEIR MOORINGS
Year: 1817

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
DICKINSON, of Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of
Middlesex, Esquire, send greeting..
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the First day of Novem-
ber, in the fifty-eighth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Robert Dickinson, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, His special licence, full
power, solo privilege and authority, that I, the said Robert Dickinson, my
exors, admors, and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of
years therein mentioned, . make, use, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's
Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "AN IMPROVEMENT Or
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE SEA.. BEACONS AND THEIR MOORINGS;" in which said
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the 'said Robert Dick-
inson, should not particularly describe and ascertain the naturo of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instru-
ment in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said
Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted,
shall utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and by the same, relation
being thereunto. had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Robert Dickinson, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly

page_text: described and ascertained in and by the Drawings, hereunto annexed, and the
following description thereof, that is to say:-
I do declare my Invention to consist in the construction of a buoy of such
form and materials as, when placed in its appropriate station in the water,
shall maintain itself nearly stationary, and shall support, above the surface of
the water, an erect stem or mast, which may serve more effectually than the
apparatus now in common use the purposes of a marine beacon to convey
information to navigators, and warn them of danger. -Now; to effect these
purposes, I make my beacon buoys hollow metallic bodies of wrought or cast
iron, copper, or other metal, wrought and seamed; screwed, soldered, or
rivetted together, so as to be water-tight, and of such a form as shall present
little resistance to currents, tides, or floating bodics, but by the depth of their
immersion shall always have a tendency to maintain the perpendicular direc-
tion of the stem or mast above the water line. The form which I have found
fitted to these objects, and which may be better understood by inspecting the
accompanying Drawings, is a hollow cylindrical or prismatic stem, to the
lower extremity of which is attached a hollow fan-shaped wedge, rounded at
its lower corners and sides, and bounded by a flattened margin. The lower
or broad extremity of the beacon buoy is ballasted so as to bring the centre
of gravity considerably below the point of suspension, on the extent of which
will depend the elevation of my mast, and means of preserving the same erect,
and by which alone the instrument, when floating, is maintained in its per-
pendicular position. This weight is most conveniently adjusted in the form of
a flat metallic plate grooved on its upper edge, into which hollow is received
the lower or flattened extremity of the beacon buoy, where it is fixed by
screw bolts, rivets, or other modes of fastening as are known to workmen; or
by encreasing the beacon's depth, this weight or ballast may be placed inside,
and confined at the bottom. To one of the sides is fixed a ring or long
staple, on which
may slide a ring for the attachment of the buoy chain or
rope, or holes may be made in the flat margin. For the form of the upright
shaft or stem of the beacon I prefer a trilateral or quadrilateral prism as
being most convenient to write upon, on the faces of which may be marked
letters, figures, or other characters serving for reference to a book or books
to be printed in the several languages of the chief maritime states for tlie use
of mariners, explanatory of all the circumstances which the beacon is intended
to indicate, such as its situation, bearings, and distances, soundings; or danger,
When figures are employed, which I prefer, and they exceed unity, I place them
one under another, instead of horizontally. For example: 99, 999, nine
hundred and ninety-nine; or, as the case may be, when characters are not
9

page_text: thought proper or necessary to be employed, I take any other form of mast
that may be desired, cylindrical or pyramidical, with or without terminating
bodies of conc, globe," or cylinder apex, or any other form. See Drawing:
In situations of peculiar danger, and to make my beacons serviceable in the
dark as well as by day,. to some part of the stem may be affixed a bell to be
struck by a clapper, which may either hang on a spring or may be moved
by a vane, giving motion to rods, wheels, and pinions in such combination.as
will readily suggest itself to any mechanist; or motion may be derived for this
mechanism from tho current, or from the waves acting upon a float or wheel
connected by rods, and adapted to give motion to the striking body. The size
of the whole instrument, and the proportions of its several parts, will be regu-
lated by the magnitude and intended elevation of the upright shaft or mast
to be maintained above the surface of the water. Its capacity, on which its
buoying depends, must give the rule for the weight of the whole apparatus,
taking care that the materials of which the buoy itself is constructed shall
be sufficiently light, consistent with due strength and solidity, to leave a largo
enough portion of the aggregate weight to be added in the ballast, appended,
as before described, to the lower extremity of the buoy, as on this will mainly
depend the steadiness of the whole instrument. When afloat the beacon is
to be retained in its station by the usual means, or by a buoy chain supported
at intermediate spaces by hollow metallic balls, or other buoyant_bodies, as is
described in the Specification of my former Patent. For the chain, rods
united by links may be occasionally substituted. When my buoys or beacons
are fabricated of wrought iron, which for strength and economy is eligible to
protect them from the chymical action of the medium in which they are to be
placed, I cover them with one or more coatings of paint, varnish, or other
material fitted to resist the action of salt or fresh water, the atmosphere, &c.;
or the iron may be covered with a coating of tin, over which I spread or plate
another coat or coats of alloyed metal, (tin alone being always an imperfect
covering, such as is well known to plumbers and others, the same being admi-
nistered at a proper temperature, and left unwiped; and for this purpose
I prefer a composition of lead and tin, and particularly for bolts, nuts, and
screws.
Now be it understood, that I do not in this Patent mean to claim the
material of which my buoy or beacon is composed; nor the carriers which are
to support the chains, the same being already described in my former Patent;
nor the attaching of a bell, or figures, or letters, the same having been before
employed; but I do mean to claim the peculiarity of its wedge-like shape,
which displaces so little surface, and which, from its extreme depth and sharp-