AN IMPROVED METHOD OF THROWING SHELLS AND OTHER PROJECTILES
Year: 1824

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
JACOB PERKINS, of Fleet Street, in the City of London, Engineer,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the
Fourth, by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain,
bearing date at Westminster, the Fifteenth day of May, in the fifth
year
of His reign, did, for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant
unto me, the said Jacob Perkins, His especial licence that I, the said
Jacob Perkins, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, or such others as I, the
said Jacob Perkius, my exors, adiiors, and 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 the Town of Berwick
upon Tweed, my Invention of "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF THROWING SHELLS
AND OTHER PROJECTILES;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained
a proviso, obliging me, the said Jacob Perkins, by an instrument in
writing under my hand and seal, particularly 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 inrolled in His said Majesty's

page_text: High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in
and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at
large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the 5
said Jacob Perkins, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention
to consist in confining water under pressure in the shell or other pro-
jectile to be thrown, and causing the said shell or other projectile to be
projected by the escape of the said water in the form of steam at a very
high temperature; and in further compliance with the said proviso, I, 1
the said Jacob Perkins, do hereby describe the nanner in which my
said Invention is performed, by the following description of the same, as
applied to a rocket (that is to say):
. DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING.
Fig. 1, is a section of a rocket head and part of its guide rods, or 1
what in ordinary rockets is called the rocket stick. A, A, A, is the
rocket head; B, is a bore or cavity in the rocket head; S, S, is a
hollow screw, one end of which is tapped into the rocket head at C, C,
and the other projects beyond the end of the rocket head, and on it is
screwed the guide rods g, g. When the rocket is to be used the cavity
B, must be filled with water till it rises about 1-10th of an inch into
the bore, of the screw S, S; a plug of brass should then be driven into
this bore 1, so as to cause pressure upon the water. The rocket should
then be exposed to the heat of a furnace or other fire till the brass plug
softens or melts, by which time the water will be so heated that when
the melted or softened brass runs out, or is forced out of the bore 1, by
the expansion of the water, and the water is thus suffered to flash into
steam, it will do so at so high a temperature that it will rush with
sufficient violence out of the small bore us to propel the rocket with
the required force. Figure 2, represents the rocket placed in a furnace,
adapted for the purpose of heating and directing it. W, W, is a hollow
cylinder, open at both ends, and A, the rocket lying in the same; F, is
the furnace. By this arrangement it will be seen that the rocket does
not come in contact with the fire, but receives its caloric from the

page_text: as steam.
already heated cylinder in which it is placed. This cylinder must be
fixed at the angle of elevation at which the rocket is intended to be
thrown, as it is the cylinder which gives direction to it; this Figure is
1-8th of the real size. Figure 3, is a representation of the rocket head
and part of the guide rods, on a larger scale than that shewn in the
furnace at Fig. 2. I make the whole of my rocket of' wrought iron,
and the cylinder of the furnace of cast iron, and for the p purpose' herein-
before described, namely, that of projecting a rocket, I have use!
brass for the plug that is to be fused or melted, in order to give vent to
the water in the form of steam; but the less force the projectile requires
the more fusible should be the metal used, because the sooner the water
is suffered to escape in the form of steain, by the more ready melting
of the fusible plug, the less the temperature the said water would pre-
viously have required, and consequently the less the force it would have
Now whereas there are various kinds of projectiles to which
my said Invention is applicable, but as the principle would be the same
in all I have only thought it necessary to describe it as applied to one,
namely, a rocket. But any kind of projectile thrown or propelled by
means of heated water inclosed in a chamber or bore of the said pro-
jectile, and kept under pressure by means of a fusible or other plug
composed of such metal or other material, according to the propelling
force required, as will cause it to melt or soften or otherwise yield to
pressure exactly when the water has acquired the necessary tempera-
ture, and the melting or ejection of which plug allows the water to flash
into steam while at that temperature, being, to the best of my know-
ledge and belief, entirely new and never before used in these kingdoms,
I do hereby declare this to be my Specification of the same, and that I
do verily believe this my said Specification doth comply in all respects,
without reserve or disguise, with the proviso in the said herein-before
in part recited Letters Patent contained; wherefore I do hereby claim
to maintain exclusive right and privilege to my said Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Jacob Perkins, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Fifteenth day of November, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-four.
JACOB (L.B.) PERKINS.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Fifteenth day of Novem-
ber, in the year of our Lord 1824, the aforesaid Jacob Perkius came
before our said Lord the King, in His Chancery, and acknowledged
tho Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained
and specified, in form above written. And also the Specification afore-
said was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made for that
purpose.