A NEW AND IMPROVED PROCESS OR METHOD OF OBTAINING AND PRODUCING MINERAL AND VEGETABLE ALKALIES CONTAINED IN ROCK SALT, BRINE SALT, SALT HADE FROM SEA WATER, SALT REFINED FROM ROCK SALT, GLAUBER'S SALT, AND VITRIOLATED TARTAR, BY SEPERATING THEM FROM THE MARINE AND VITRIOLIC ACIDS, WHICH INVENTION WILL BE OF CONSIDERABLE PUBLIC UTILITY
Year: 1783

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
GERARD, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Surgeon, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Seventh day of May, in the twenty-third year of His reign,
did give and grant unto me, the said James Gerard, my executors, adiñors,
and assigns, His special licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that
I, the said James Gerard, my exors, adññors, or assigns, 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 "A NEW AND IMPROVED PROCESS OR METHOD OF OBTAINING AND
PRODUCING MINERAL AND VEGETABLE ALKALIES CONTAINED IN ROCK SALT, BRINE
SALT, SALT HADE FROM SEA WATER, SALT REFINED FROM ROCK SALT, GLAUBER'S
SALT, AND VITRIOLATED TARTAR, BY SEPERATING THEM FROM THE MARINE AND
VITRIOLIC ACIDS, WHICH INVENTION WILL BE OF CONSIDERABLE PUBLIC UTILITY;"
in which said Letters Patent there is contained a provisoe that if I, the said
James Gerard, should not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my
said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be
inrolled in His Majestie's High Court of Chancery within four calendar months
next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, the same should
be void, relation being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with and agreeable to the true
intent and meaning of the said provisoe in the said Letters Patent contained, I,
the said James Gerard, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention
is an art of extracting, producing, or obtaining the mineral alkali from rock
salt, brine salt, salt made from the sea water, salt refined from rock salt, or
Glauber's salt, and the vegetable alkali from vitriolated tartar, more or
less free from neutral salts, sulphur, or other heterogeneous matters, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, is as follows, that is to
say:
I take rock salt, brine salt, salt made from sea water, salt refined from rock
salt, or any one or all of these, and decompose them by the addition of one
half their weight of vitriolic acid, or an equivalent proportion of any substance
or liquor containing vitriolic acid, which will at the same time convert those
salts into Glauber's salt. To the Glauber's salt thus produced, or to vitriolated
tartar, I add one sixth part, or a greater or less proportion of wood charcoal,
fossil coal charr'd, or other inflammable substance, and grind them together
into a fine powder, and afterwards throw the mixture into a covered pot,
caulker, reverberatory, or other furnace, and apply such a degree of heat as is
sufficient to melt it, by which means an homogeneous mass will be produced,
very well known to chemists by the name of hepar sulphuris, or liver of
sulphur; and then I take any quantity of such hepar sulphuris, and after
reducing it into a powder, I mix it intimately with one fourth part of its
weight, or greater or less proportion of any animal or vegetable oils or fats,
pitch, tar, rosin, turpentine, turf, breeze, or other inflammable substances, or
som one or more of them; I then put the mixture upon an iron plate, under
which there is a fire, or I put it into a furnace of the shape of a common
oven with a flat bottom, which has a fire underneath it, contrived in such
a manner that I can regulate the heat to any degree I please by what is called
a damper. The oven may have one or more openings in the top or side to
transmit the vapour, smoak, or flame, or it may be open to the air. When the
matter is in this situation, having a moderate fire underneath the oven or iron
plate, I set fire to the mixture by a few lighted chips or any other means, and
permit it to burn or flame until a coaly or charry substance or ashes remain,
which, if the operation has been managed with address in the manner above
recited, will yield, after the ignition, upon lixiviation, subsidence, and evapora-
tion, a more or less pure alkaline salt, either vegetable or mineral, according
to the salt employed, whether rock salt, Glauber's salt, or vitriolated tartar.
The same alkaline salts may also be obtained by making a solution of the hepar
sulphuris, or a lye of it, with lime, and boiling it down with some one or more

page_text: of the above-named inflammable substances into a solid or consistent body, and
afterwards setting it on fire in the manner and under the circumstances above
described, or by various other means. I therefore hereby further declare, that
with whatever inflammable substance the hepar sulphuris is united and burnt
or inflamed, so as to leave a coaly or charry matter or ashes behind, these will,
upon the like treatment, be found to afford the like alkaline salt; consequently,
whoever shall by such means separate or destroy the sulphur of the aforesaid
hepar sulphuris, leaving the alkali behind, does in all such instances pursue,
adopt, and put in practice the same or like steps, processes, and operations which
I have described in this my Specification, and will, of course, be an infringer
on the Patent granted me by His Majesty.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Gerard, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this First day of September, in the year of our Lord
One thousand seven hundred and eighty-three.
Sealed and delivered, being first duly
stampt, in the presence of
W BLACK,
JAMES (L.s.) GERARD.
WILL. JONES,