A NEW MODE OF PRESERVING CERTAIN VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES FROM DECAY
Year: 1836

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
HOWARD KYAN, formerly of Gillingham Street, Pimlico, but now of Ailsa
Park Cottage, Twickenham, in the County of Middlesex, Esquire, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King William the Fourth, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Eleventh day of February, in the sixth year of His reign, did for
Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said John
Howard Kyan, His especial licence, that I, the said John Howard Kyan,
my exors, admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said John Howard
Kyan, my exors, adññors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times during the term of years therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
all His said Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "A
NEW MODE OF PRESERVING CERTAIN VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES FROM DECAY;" in
which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso obliging me, the said John
Howard Kyan, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, par-
ticularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to be enrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Howard Kyan, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention to
consist in destroying the tendency of certain vegetable substances to decay, by
submitting that matter contained in them which most promotes it to the action
of deutochloride of mercury in solution; and in further compliance with the

page_text: said proviso, I, the said John Howard Kyan, do hereby describe the manner
in which the said Invention is to be performed or carried into effect, by the
following description thereof, that is to say:-
Having prepared or constructed a large tank or reservoir of wood, I fill it
about two thirds full of deutochloride of mercury, or as it is more commonly
called corrosive sublimate, dissolved in hot or cold water, or both, in the
proportion of one pound of corrosive sublimate to five gallons of water as a
maximum strength, and into this liquid I put the vegetable substances to be
acted upon, and keeping them completely covered by the liquid, steep them
for various periods, from seven to fourteen or twenty-one days, according to the
nature of the substances to be acted upon. The vegetable substances alluded
to in my said Patent are as follows, viz:-All kinds of wood or timber used
for ship or other building, as also for carpenters', wheelwrights', turners' and
cabinet work, and these will be required to be steeped in the liquid from seven
to fourteen or twenty-one days, according as the wood is more or less porous,
the most porous requiring the least time.
And whereas 1 claim as my Invention the preservation of the vegetable
substances herein-before mentioned or described from decay, by immersing and
saturating, or steeping, or soaking the same in or with a solution of corrosive
sublimate and water.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Howard Kyan, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Seventeenth day of March, in the sixth year of the
reign of our Sovereign Lord William the Fourth, by the Grace of God
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of
the Faith, and in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
the year of our Lord 1836, the aforesaid John Howard Kyan came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification afore-
said, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above
written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the
tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Seventeenth day of March, in the year of our Lord One
thousand cight hundred and thirty-six.