CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN PROPELLING SHIPS, BOATS, AND OTHER VESSELS OR FLOATING BODIES BY STEAM OR OTHER POWER
Year: 1829

page_text: DUTTON'S SPECIFICATION.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
DUTTON, junior, of Wootton-under-Edge, in the County of Gloucester, Clothier,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth
did, by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date
at Westminster, the Nineteenth day of May, in the tenth year of His reign, give
and grant unto me, the said James Dutton, His especial licence that I, the said
James Dutton, my executors, administrators, and assigns, and such others as
I, the said James Dutton, my executors, administrators, 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 England, Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
Invention for "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN PROPELLING SHIPS, BOATS, AND OTHER
VESSELS OR FLOATING BODIES BY STEAM OR OTHER POWER;" in which said Letters
Patent is contained a proviso that I, the said James Dutton, shall cause a
particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court
of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of
the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being
thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
James Dutton, do hereby describe the manner in which my said Invention is
to be performed, by the following description thereof, (reference being had to
the Drawing hereunto annexed and to the figures and letters marked thereon,)
that is to say:-
My Invention of Improvements in Propelling Ships, Boats, and other Vessels
or Floating Bodies by Steam or other Power, consists of the three following

page_text: First, in the employment of a series of hollow vessels to be projected into
the water at a considerable angle to the horizontal line or level surface of the
water, which hollow vessels are intended to act as propellors by striking against
the water, and thereby propelling the vessel in an opposite.
Secondly, in attaching each of these propellers to a piston rod, the pistons
respectively working in small cylinders by the clastic power of steam, or
other means which may cause them to be projected outward.
Thirdly, in the buoyancy of the propellers, which being hollow vessels filled
with air or other light material will, after being projected, rise again by their
levity or difference of spcific gravity between the confined volume of air or
other light material and the volume of water displaced by it.
The mode which appears to me niost eligible for putting these principles into
operation is exhibited in the Drawing hereunto annexed. Figure 1 represents
a.longitudinal.section of. part of a vessel to which five propellers on my improved
plan are adapted; I propose that they shall be situated in a recess under the
vessel, but I do not confine myself to that precise number of propellers, or
their situation shewn in the Drawing, as it probable that they might be
adapted in a double series, one on each side of the vessel, with equally good
effect. a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, and a 5, are the propellers formed of hollow rect-
angular vessels of wood or other suitable material, closed with air and water-
tight joints; but I do not intend to confine myself to the shape represented,
though in the present state of my experience I prefer that form. b, b, b, are
piston rods passing through stuffing boxes in the usual way, the lower ends of
which rods are affixed to the propelling plungers; these rods will be best seen
at Fig. 2, which is drawn upon a larger scale, and represents the parts more in
detail. c, c, c, are cylindrical tubes, one of which is shewn in section in Fig. 2;
and d is the piston affixed to the rod b, intended to work in the cylinder c, c, in a
.similar way to the piston of an ordinary steam engine; e, e, are transverse tubes
connected to a steam pipe f,f,f, which pipe and tubes conduct steam from a boiler
to the several working cylinders c, c, c. Each transverse tube is furnished with
its induction valve g, and eduction valve h, which are to be opened and closed
at stated times for the ingress and egress of the steam to and from the working
cylinder c. To the upper extremity of each piston rod a cross arm is attached
carrying two guide rods i, i, Fig. 1, and to these guide rods I propose to attach
the tappets by which the valves g and are to be opened and closed as the
piston reciprocates; but I do not claim this contrivance as part of my Inven-
tion, nor intend to confine myself to that particular way of opening and closing
the induction and eduction valves, as many other ways of effecting the same
will readily suggest themselves to any competent engineer. Let it now be
supposed that the induction valve g, Fig. 2, has been opened; steam will imme-

page_text: diately rush from the pipe f into the transverse tube e, and the valve h being
closed there will be no means of escape. The plungers being in a quiescent
state, and the piston d at the top of the cylinder, the elastic force of the steam
will act against the piston and cause it to slide down the cylinder, in which
movement the plunger a connected to the piston rod will be projected outward
as at a 3, Fig. 1, and by striking against the water will impel the vessel in the
opposite direction. The tappets now coming in contact with the levers of the
valves, the steam will be cut off and the eduction opened, allowing that steam
which occupied the cylinder to blow off or to pass into a condensor. The
buoyancy of the propelling plunger a will now cause it to rise in the water,
and being guided by antifriction rollers k, k, k, attached to its upper surface,
acting against inclined railways 1, 1, the plunger will return to its place of rest
without the exertion of an active power to raise it. It may be supposed that
the plunger a 1 has been projected and returned to rest in the way described,
at which time its tappets act on the valve for the purpose of projecting it again;
the plunger a 2 has also been projected, and is in the act of returning by its
buoyancy; the plunger a 8 has just been projected out by the force of the
steam on the piston, and the plunger a 4 and a 5 have not yet been put into
action. Thus it will be perceived that any number of these plungers placed at
any desirable angle to the horizon, say 22 degrees, may be set to work by
letting the steam on, or any one of them may be shut off if it should be found
necessary, by closing its steam valves, and by displacing the tappets which
work them.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Dutton, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Eighteenth day of November, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine.
JAMES (L.s.) DUTTON, jun³.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Eighteenth day of November,
in the tenth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Fourth, the
said James Dutton came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery,