AN IMPROVED SYSTEM OF CYLINDRICAL BURNER WITH CLOSED WICK, TO BE USED IN LAMPS FOR BURNING MINERAL OILS
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Auguste Ferron at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 1st June 1876.
CHARLES AUGUSTE FERRON, Architect, of Boulevard de Strasbourg, 23, at Paris.
"AN IMPROVED SYSTEM OF CYLINDRICAL BURNER WITH CLOSED WICK, TO BE USED
IN LAMPS FOR BURNING MINERAL OILS."
In most of the lamps now in use for burning mineral oils flat wicks are employed,
which are sometimes made to fold round a central core, so as to take a cylindrical
form at the upper part of the burner, but as the two edges generally fail to meet,
the wick cylinder is imperfect, and the flame is unequal. Moreover, the small star
wheels used to raise the wick having to act on a loose part of it often fail to bite,
and the wick is consequently raised unequally or not raised.at all.
My Invention has for its object to avoid these evils by means of a cylindrical
burner of peculiar construction suited for a tubular wick, partly split along one side,
which wick always presents itself as a complete cylinder at the point of combustion.
In this burner I arrange also two star wheels in combination with springs in such
manner that they are always certain to bite the wick on both sides, so that it can
be equally raised or lowered as may be desired. The burner consists of two con-
centric tubes, between which the wick is contained, and which serve to guide it.
The outer tube is widened out conically at its lower part, which is fixed to the
flange of the lamp, and its upper part is cylindrical, and is made to screw and
unscrew for giving facility in placing the wick. The inner tube is secured to the
outer tube by a hollow bracket of the shape of an inverted V, which extends across
part of the annular space between the two tubes. Within the inner tube is a casing
containing two star wheels, which gear together and bear against the inner side of
the wick, and outside the wick facing each of those wheels is a spring secured to
the outer tube, which spring presses the wick against the wheel, and thereby renders
the bite of the wheel certain. The wick is for part of its length tubular, but
beyond that it is split open along one side, so that it can be inserted between the
tubes, the split permitting it to pass downwards on each side of the inverted V
bracket until the termination of the split reaches the top of the bracket. When the
wick is in this position, presenting at its upper part a complete cylinder enclosing
the inner tube, and at its lower part a flat wick immersed in the oil, the outer tube
is screwed on to its place so as to enclose the upper cylindrical part of the wick,
and the lamp is ready for use. As the wick is consumed it is raised by turning
•

page_text: the star wheels, and the flat portion rising out of the oil is guided by and between
the inner and outer tubes so as always to take the tubular forin above the bracket,
and to issue from the burner as a complete cylinder without any interval between
the edges that are brought to meet. The burner is surrounded by a gallery carrying
the glass and globe and air cone in the usual way.