IMPROVEMENTS IN PRESERVING CORN OR OTHER GRAIN, BEANS, OR SEEDS
Year: 1866

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Barker, of Petra House, East Sheen, in the ..
County of Surrey, Merchant, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
PRESERVING CORN OR OTHER GRAIN, BEANS, OR SEEDS."-A communication
from abroad by Nicolas Valentin Haussmann, residing at 28, Rue St.
George's, Paris, in the Empire of France.
Sealed the 7th May 1867, and dated the 21st November 1866.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Barker at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 21st November
1866.
I, JOHN BARKER, of Petra House, East Sheen, in the County of Surrey,
Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN PRESERVING CORN OR OTHER GRAIN, BEANS, OR SEEDS," to be as
follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in preserving corn or other
grain, beans, or seeds. For this purpose the, corn, grain, beans, or seeds are
placed in a store vessel large enough to contain many quarters; this vessel
may be of cylindrical or other convenient form; it is made in sheet metal, and
perfectly air-tight; there is a false bottom at a short distance from the lower
end of this store vessel on which the material rests, and the vessel is filled to

page_text: within a few inches of the top; when a cover of finely perforated metal or
wire gauze is laid over it. The top of the storing vessel communicates by a
pipe with an apparatus for removing the oxygen from atmospheric air, and
the bottom of the storing vessel communicates by another pipe with an
apparatus for withdrawing the air; then as by this latter apparatus the moist
oxygenated air is drawn out of the storing vessel its place is supplied by other
air which has been deprived of its oxyen and moisture by passing through the
deoxydising apparatus already mentioned. This apparatus consists of a
receiver filled with iron sponge, and heated with a furnace on the outside;
atmospheric air is admitted at one end of the receiver, and from the other it
passes off in a dry and deoxydised state to the store vessel in which the grain
is contained. When the iron sponge is oxydised it is removed and replaced
by fresh material; there are suitable openings in the receiver to admit of this
being readily done.
The apparatus by which the air is drawn out of the store vessel consists of
two buckets or vessels containing water or liquid; they are so arranged that
they can be raised and lowered alternately by means of a hand crank and
gearing, and the water or liquid runs constantly to and fro from the higher
vessel into the lower. By means of stop-cocks suitably arranged the upper
part of the higher vessel is put into communication with the bottom of the
store vessel, so that the air is drawn therefrom to supply the void left by the
escape of the water from the vessel. When one water vessel becomes empty
the workman raises the other or full vessel, and the connections are reversed,
and so the operation proceeds. When the store vessel contains no more
oxygen in a gaseous form the process is complete, and by suitable stop-cocks
it is closed at the top and bottom. This treatment is repeated two or three
times at intervals of a few days with the object of drying the grain, beans,
or seeds as thoroughly as may be, and it may then if desired be safely. left for
years without further treatment. The deoxidizing apparatus and the apparatus
for drawing the air through the store vessel being both capable of being
detached may be used to work a large number of store vessels. It will be
observed that by this treatment not only is fermentation and growth prevented
in consequence of the absence of oxygen and moisture, but also the grain,
beans, or seeds are effectually guarded from the attacks of any insects they
may contain, as these are rapidly destroyed by the nitrogeneous atmosphere
with which they are
surrounded.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said John Barker in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 21st
May 1867.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
BARKER, of Petra House, East Sheen, in the County of Surrey, Merchant,
send greeting.
.
"
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-first day of November, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, in the thirtieth year of
Her. reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant
unto I, the said John Barker, Her special licence that I, the said
John Barker, my executors,. administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said. John Barker, my 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 PRESERVING CORN AND OTHER GRAIN, BEANS, OR SEEDS,”.
a communication to me from abroad by Nicolas Valentin Hausmann, a person
resident at 23, Rue St. George's, Paris, in the Empire of France, upon the
condition (amongst others) that I, the said John Barker, my executors or
administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of
their hands and seals, should particularly 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 I, the said John Barker, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following state-
ment thereof, that is to say :-
The object of this process is to produce at a small cost and for an indefinite time
the best possible preservation.of corn and other cereals, beans, grains, and seeds;
it preserves them, first, from injury caused by vermin and. parasitic insects;
second, from the.excess of. moisture which is a powerful cause of deterioration,
whether caused by. rain in the fields or by wet in the carriage by sea or land;
third, from all fermentation produced in the mass of the grain or material when.it
is exposed to the atmospheric air by the incessant action which the oxvren

page_text: exerts upon substances constantly in contact with it, and which assists the
natural humidity of the vegetable substance. This process attains this end by
storing the substances to be preserved in hermetically closed receivers where none
of the inconveniences above set forth are experienced. The atmosphere occu-
pying their interstices is extracted to be replaced by perfectly dry. deoxygenized
air in which no animal is able to live nor any fermentation to proceed, and if
the moisture of a crop gathered in a wet season is such as to compromise.
its good preservation it is only necessary to continue the operation of changing
the air in the interstices to bring the crop to its proper state of dryness. Thus
grain will be no longer destroyed by vermin or injured by excessive moisture
or by fermentation, and these results are obtained and the grain is stored at a
very small cost.
When the receiver is intended to contain a considerable quantity of grain.
it should be constructed in sheet iron of 1, t, or of an inch thick, according.
to the dimensions given to it, the cylindrical form is the strongest and is. more.
favorable than any other for the prompt and complete circulation of the gas;
the diameter of these moveable receivers, or "silos," as. they are termed,
should be about the half of their height so long as it does not exceed 23 feet;
if this height is exceeded, if it is taken to.40 or 50 feet, no inconvenience will.
be experienced but the diameter should not exceed 13 feet. The change of
the surrounding air for deoxygenized air is effected by exhausting the air
from the space at the bottom of the silo, as herein-after described, and by the
introduction at its upper part into a space, which is there left of air which has
been deprived of its oxygen, which replaces the air which is drawn out; thus
currents of dry deoxygenized air are. caused to pass downwards .through the
silo in contact with every portion of the grain or material which it contains.
The arrangement is as follows:-The silo is set up vertically upon the ground,
and to protect it from oxidation the bottom is supported on an iron ring so
as to leave beneath it a small space which is filled in with hot. asphalte.
Inside the cylinder is placed a moveable false bottom composed of sheets of
iron perforated with holes the size of the finger arranged. at. a. distance of 3
or 4 inches apart; these sheets are arranged side by side on suitable supports
which carry this false .bottom.at a distance of 1 or 2 inches above the
principal.. bottom, so as to leave over all the surface of. this bottom a space
where the air can freely circulate.; upon this false. bottom. is spread a sheet of
wire gauze made of galvanized iron wire, and of. which the meshes are
sufficiently small not to allow any of the grain or material to be preserved to
pass through when it is poured in at the top of the silo and falls upon the wire
gauze. An oval man-hole eighteen inches by thirteen inches is made on the

page_text: ide of the silo and. at the lower part thereof, so as to be level with the upper
urface of the false bottom'; it is by this opening that the receiver is discharged,
nd for this purpose it is only necessary to take off the cover plate which
efore was bolted on air-tight, and then the grain or material will run out,
and as fast as it is carried away it will continue to do so until the silo is empty.
A stop-cock of one and a half inches in the opening is mounted upon the side
of the silo at its lower part, and underneath the false bottom so as to com-
municate with the space at the lower part of the silo, and the air is drawn
out through this stop-cock; for this purpose a flexible tube passes froni it
to a stop-cock upon an exhausting apparatus herein-after described, and
which together with the flexible pipe can be applied and removed as may be
required. The silo may be filled with the grain to be preserved from top to
bottom; except a space of five or six inches left empty at the upper part under-
neath the top, in the centre of which an oval man-hole eighteen inches by
thirteen inches is made, through which opening the crop to be preserved is
introduced, and it is then closed air-tight by a metal cover plate. A sheet of
wire gauze may be laid over the surface of the grain or material in the silo.
In the centre of this plate there is fixed a stop-cock of one and a half inches
in the opening, and this receives from time to time as required a flexible pipe
which is connected with it by a serew union, and which communicates with
the apparatus herein-after described for effecting the deoxygenation of the
air to .be introduced into the receiver. At the lower end of the stop-cock
which is within the silo is connected a hood of sheet copper having a diameter
of three and a quarter to 'four inches, and a height of, say, three inches;
it is formed at the top with a socket, and it fits on to the lower end of
the stop-cock with a bayonet joint, the bottom of this cylindrical hood is flat
and unperforated, but its sides all round are pierced with holes like the
rose of a water pot, each hole being one-twelfth or one-eighth of an inch 'over,
and the area of all the holes should exceed that of the opening in the stop-cock.
The use of this hood is to disperse uniformly over the whole upper surface
of the silo the deoxygenized air which is introduced, so that it may penetrate
regularly amongst the grain or material with which the silo is filled; it
is very effectual in regulating and distributing the incoming current never-
theless, however carefully the operation may be conducted, it is very probable
5 that the results obtained will not be good if the diameter of the silo exceeds
the limit of 13. feet, as above given, unless, indeed, recourse is had to very
energetic exhausting apparatus and to powerful deoxygenizing processes,
which involves an expeuse which is avoided in following the directions herein
given. The exhauster which is herein-after described is capable of being

page_text: worked by one man, and it requires his attention only from time to time, so
that he is able to superintend the whole operation. This apparatus is composed
of two vessels containing water and holding forty-four gallons each; they
communicate the one with the other at their lower ends by means of a flexible
pipe; of these vessels one (call it Number 1) which is filled with water is
raised to the top of an iron framework by means of the mechanism; when
there it is put into communication at the top with the exhausting stop-cock of
the silo, and it receives from it the forty-four gallons of air necessary to supply
the void left by the flow of the water into the vessel Number 2, which was
previously empty and at the bottom of the frame; this second vessel, as soon
as it is full, is in its turn raised by turning the crank handle at the top of the
frame at the same time that the empty vessel Number 1 is let down to receive
the forty-four gallons of water which the vessel Number 2 gives up in exchange
for a similar quantity of air furnished by the silo, with which now the vessel
Number 2 is put in communication. The alternating movement takes place
about once every three minutes, so that at the least there is a vessel emptied
twenty times in each hour, and as each draws out forty-four gallons of air
eight hundred and eighty gallons of air are drawn out in the hour from the
silo by the power of one man, and this is not the only action, for this measurė
of air drawn out from the silo is replaced simultaneously by an equal quantity
of deoxygenized air produced by the passage through the deoxygenizing
apparatus of a larger quantity of atmospheric air, which there abandons its
.oxygen. If one estimates the force necessary to cause this quantity to traverse
the deoxygenizing apparatus at the same time that the nitrogen produced is
caused to penetrate a bed of grain at least twenty feet thick to replace the air
which is drawn out, and if the power necessarily lost in friction is also
considered it will be seen that here the force of one man is applied in such a
manner as to be equivalent to that which ten or twelve men would be able to
give out if employed to work an ordinary air pump. The deoxygenizing
apparatus effects the decomposition of the atmospheric air with great simplicity
by means of the employment of iron sponge, which was invented by the late
Mr. Chenot, and which material he employed in the manufacture of steel.
This process of Mr. Chenot's was patented both in England and France, but
the Patents have since lapsed; it consists in deoxygenizing minerals rich in
oxide of iron by means of wood charcoal in such manner as to render them
spongy, separating their particles one from the other; this product, which is called
spongy iron, is now well known, thirty to thirty-four pounds of it are sufficient
to deoxygenize the air and furnish the nitrogen necessary for the preservation
for an indefinite time of two thousand two hundred gallons of corn. The iron

page_text: sponge should be placed in a vertical retort of iron made in the manner
herein-after described, into which it is fed at the top by means of a drawer
with a moveable bottom sliding upon a plate on which the drawer is drawn
forward to be filled with the sponge. As soon as it is full the drawer is
slidden in, the moveable bottom is withdrawn, and the sponge falls down into
the retort. The drawer should be able to contain eleven pounds of sponge,
and this quantity should be sufficient to furnish the nitrogen necessary to
replace one thousand one hundred cubic feet of air or sixteen vessels of forty-
four gallons; this quantity, however, will vary according as the sponge is more
or less well prepared and skilfully employed; it is, however, wise after the
extraction of sixteen vessels of air by the exhausting apparatus to put in a
fresh charge of sponge. The oxydized sponge is drawn out by an opening at
the bottom; which is furnished with a valve, and the cold air entering the
apparatus is heated by passing over it. The retort is heated externally by the
furnace to a dull red heat, which is the temperature most favorable to the
decomposition of the atmospheric air; as soon as this temperature is attained
the exhauster is set to work, and the fire is damped so as to avoid the melting
of the sponge, which arrests the production of nitrogen; should this accident
occur the cover must be taken off the retort and the drawer pulled out, so as
to admit of the cake which forms in the interior of the retort being broken up
by means of an iron bar. The operation may be recommenced after a delay
of about five minutes, which these arrangements necessitate. The oxydized
sponge may be brought back into a state fit to use, but for this purpose a
special-furnace is required, in which it is deoxygenized in the same way as the
original mineral.
In the Drawings hereunto annexed Figure 1 is a side view, partly in section,
of the silo..
.a, a, is the man-hole at the top, with the stop-cock-6 upon it; c is the flexible
tube communicating with the deoxygenizing apparatus; dis. the perforated
false bottom; e is the lower man-bole, and f the stop-cock to receive the
Bexible pipe leading to the exhausting apparatus.
Figure 2 is a front view of the deoxygenizing apparatus; Figure 3 is a side
view of the same; and Figure 4, 'a plan partly in section.
'A, A, are. two retorts joined together; they are made of cast iron about of
n inch thick, and five feet eight inches in total height, and the interior form
or each in horizontal section is an oval flattened on both sides.. At the top
penings are made for the drawers B with sides and .ends, they rest upon
Iraw plates, which when drawn out allow the iron sponge the drawers are filled
with to fall into the retorts; above these drawers the moveable and hinged

page_text: plate 6 allows of making all necessary arrangements in the interior of the
retorts; C, C, is an exterior moveable furnace of sheet iron pierced like a
strainer, and resting upon an edge c" fixed outside the retorts. A plain plate c
worked by means of the handles G, G", covers at will the perforated. side
when it is desirable to diminish or to extinguish the fire; D is the tube by
which the deoxygenized air passes from the retort; it.communicates with the
upper part of the retorts, and serves to convey into the silos or receivers that
are full of seed, by means of vulcanized india-rubber pipes the air that has
been deoxygenized; E is a cast-iron plate on which the retorts are fixed, four
wheels F serve to carry, the plate E, which thus becomes the wagon of the
apparatus..
Figure 5 is a front view, Figure 6 a back view, and Figure 7 a side view
of the exhausting apparatus. a, a, is the base of the machine; it is carried by
the four wheels b, b, and has fixed upon it the cast-iron frames c, c; d is an axis
mounted on, this frame, and capable of being turned by the crank handle d'; a
pinion on the axis gears with and drives, a spur wheel & on the axis e; on this
axis there is also a chain wheel, round which a pitch chain passes; it is carried
over pulleys 9, 9, at the top of the frame, and it is connected at its two ends
with the air-tight vessels h, h; a plan of one of these vessels is shewn separately
at Figure 8, thus the vessels h can be raised and lowered by turning the crank
handle, d, and the vessels as they rise and fall are steadied by suitable guides
in the frame; i is a suitable pipe connecting the two vessels h together at
their bottoms, and by which the water with which the vessels are charged is
able to pass from one to the other; h¹, h¹, are glass indicating tubes to shew
how much water the vessels contain; h³, h³, are stop-cocks, there is one
mounted on the top of each of the vessels h, and it has a pinion upon it which
gears with a rack fixed to the frame in such manner that when the vessel is
raised the pinion is turned so as to close the stop-cock, and when it is lowered
it is turned in the opposite direction, and so as to open the stop-cock; these
stop-cocks when open serve to admit of the escape of air from the vessels h;
k, k, are flexible pipes connecting the upper parts of the vessels h with the two
lateral branches of a three-way cock, of which a side view is shewn separately
on a larger scale at Figure 9, the vertical descending limb of the cock is
connected with a flexible pipe communicating with the bottom of the silo;
on the plug of this three-way cock a chain wheel is mounted, and an endless
pitch chain passes around it, and it also encircles a pinion on the axis of one of
the pulleys 9, 9, and this pulley is not plain like the others, but has teeth upon
it gearing with the pitch chain f; e is a disc on the axis e in which notches
are formed, and m is a locking lever jointed to the frame, and having a projection

page_text: upon it, which when either of the vessels h is at the top of the frame drops
into one of the notches in the disc, and so locks the apparatus.
This then being the construction of the apparatus, its mode of operation is
as follows:-One of the vessels h being full of water is raised to the top of
the frame, and communication is then open between the top of this vessel and
the lower part of the silo; the cock h³ on this vessel is closed, and the lower
part of the vessel is in communication by the flexible pipe i with the other
vessel h, which is at the bottom of the frame, and is empty, the water then
passes from the upper into the lower vessel, and air to supply its place comes
out of the silo into the upper vessel; when the first vessel h is empty it is
lowered down, and the other vessel which is then full is at the same time
raised; this act causes the cock h³ of the first vessel to be opened, and that of
the second to be closed, and it also causes the plug of the three-way cock,
Figure 9, to be turned a quarter round, thus shutting off the communication
between the silo and the first vessel h, and opening a communication between
it and the second or upper vessel; the exhaustion of the air is then continued
by the escape of the water from the second vessel h back again into the first,
and so the work goes on.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Barker, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Twentieth day of May, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven.
JOHN BARKER. (L.S.)