IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING CARRIGEEN OR IRISH MOSS, SEAWEED, AND LIKE PLANTS TO REDUCE THEM INTO A STATE OF POWDER OR MEAL, AND IN ARRANGEMENTS. AND APPARATUS TO BE USED FOR THE. PURPOSE
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Weild at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his "Petition, on the 22nd August:
.1866.
*
I, WILLIAM WEILD, of the City of Manchester, and County of Lancaster,'
Engineer and Tool Maker, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention'
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING CARRIGEEN OR IRISH MOSS, SEAWEED, AND LIKE
PLANTS TO REDUCE THEM INTO A STATE OF POWDER OR MEAL, AND IN ARRANGEMENTS.
AND APPARATUS TO BE USED FOR THE. PURPOSE," to be as follows:-
If carrigeen and other like plants are to be reduced to powder it is found to
be very difficult to do this in a satisfactory manner if the material is treated
while in its ordinary state.
The main and peculiar feature of my Invention in treating Irish moss, and
plants of like character, to reduce them to powder is in first desiccating them,
and then crushing or pulverising, and then grinding, and, lastly, if required,
steaming or damping the powder to bring it back to its natural state, at
ordinary atmospheric degrees of temperature and moisture.
The process of treatment according to my Invention is as follows:-First,
wasbing and separating foreign matter; second, drying in the atmosphere of
ordinary temperature; third, breaking up by a willow or machine similar to
that used for breaking up cop bottoms; fourth, desiccating by artificial heat
or other means; fifth, crushing or pulverising; sixth, sieving to separate
foreign matters and unbroken pieces; seventh, grinding in any suitable mill.
The first, second, and third operations may be dispensed with, as they are only.
intended to obtain a more clean and perfect result than may be necessary for

page_text: some purposes; and the sixth process may be omitted, but it is better for
safety and when a pure quality of meal is required; and the fifth and seventh
operations may be performed in one, though a better result is more con-
veniently obtained by keeping them distinct.
The arrangements and machinery or apparatus by which I prefer to carry
out my Invention consist of a trough for washing with a perforated bottom,
and apparatus for agitating somewhat similar to that used for washing wool;
the moisture may be discharged from the washed material by a centrifugal
wringing machine. The material may be desiccated by artificial beat in an
oven or box heated by steam to about the temperature of boiling water, such
oven being formed by a series of steam-tight chests, boxes, or pipes, one above
another with spaces between them, and with endless aprons moving slowly
and carrying the material evenly spread upon them through the spaces between
the steam chests, boxes, or pipes, discharging it into a hopper placed over
plain, corrugated, fluted, or grooved rollers, which may deliver it to other
rollers to be still further operated upon, and then to an inclined sieve having
a shaking motion, and, lastly, to a mill formed by a central fixed cone of steel
having teeth cut on its face and an external ring forming a hopper by its
upper edge with the ring part of steel, and having teeth opposite to the teeth
on the internal cone, this external ring being rotated to grind the material
which passes between the fixed and moving toothed surfaces.