AN MIZING SUIDS BOATS AND RAFTS Buoyant. IMPROVED MEANS OF MAKING SHIPS, BOATS, AND RAFTS BUOYANT
Year: 1873

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Elizabeth Dean, of No. 251, Hampstead Road,
in the County of Middlesex, Widow, for the Invention of "AN
MIZING SUIDS BOATS AND RAFTS Buoyant.
IMPROVED MEANS OF MAKING SHIPS, BOATS,
AND
RAFTS BUOYANT.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Elizabeth Dean at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with her Petition, on the
18th March 1873.
I, Elizabeth DEAN, of No. 251, Hampstead Road, in the County of
Middlesex, Widow, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "AN IMPROVED MEANS OF MAKING SHIPS, BOATS, AND RAFTS BUOYANT," to
be as follows:—
This Invention has for its object an improved means of making ships,
boats, and rafts buoyant.
I propose filling vessels to go round the edge of the ship, boat, or
raft with hydrogen gas, with or without an outer vessel filled with water.
The vessels that hold the hydrogen gas to be made of iron, steel, glass, or
india-rubber or other substance found the most suitable. I place these
vessels in or on the upper rim of the ship, boat, or raft I wish supported
5 on the heavier fluid, viz., water.

page_text: In some cases I employ a hollow deck or portion of deck filled with
hydrogen gas. At other times I have the vessels containing the hydrogen
gas on the outer side of the upper portion of the ship, boat, or raft, as
may be found most convenient.
In iron ships I have compartments in the upper rim of the ship of a
wedge-like shape, the broader part of the wedge to be at the top of the
rim of the ship, and the point of the wedge to be pointing downwards
to the water; these compartments to be filled with hydrogen.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Elizabeth Dean in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 17th September 1873.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ELIZABETH
DEAN, of No. 251, Hampstead Road, in the County of Middlesex, Widow,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Eighteenth day of March, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, in the
thirty-sixth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and suc-
cessors, give and grant unto me, the said Elizabeth Dean, Her special
license that I, the said Elizabeth Dean, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, or such others as I, the said Elizabeth Dean, my execu-
tors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree witlı,
and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the
term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN IMPROVED
MEANS OF MAKING SHIPS, BOATS, AND RAFTS BUOYANT," upon the condition
(amongst others) that I, the said Elizabeth Dean, my executors or
administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of
their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to
be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Elizabeth Dean, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is
to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement thereof, that is to say :-)
This Invention has for its object an improved means of making ships,
boats, and rafts buoyant.
I propose filling vessels to go round the edge of the ship, boat, or
raft with hydrogen gas, with or without an outer vessel filled with water.
The vessels that hold the hydrogen gas to be made of iron, steel, glass, or
india-rubber, or other substance found the most suitable. I place these
vessels in or on the upper rim of the ship, boat, or raft I wish supported
on the heavier fluid, viz., water.
In some cases I employ a hollow deck or portion of deck filled with
hydrogen gas. At other times I have the vessels containing the hydrogen
gas on the outer side of the upper portion of the ship, boat, or raft as
may be found most convenient.
In iron ships I have compartments in the upper rim of the ship of a
wedge-like shape, the broader part of the wedge to be at the top of the
rim of the ship, and the point of the wedge to be pointing downwards
to the water; these compartments to be filled with hydrogen.
My Invention is illustrated by the annexed Drawing shewing a plan
in section of a ship's boat; within it are secured light india-rubber
bags a, a, inflated with hydrogen gas, the lightest of all known bodies,
and these when the boat is leaking or water logged, serve to sustain it,
and render the boat safer and far more efficient in saving life at sea than
boats which are not thus rendered buoyant.
The same means are applicable to give buoyancy to ships and rafts to
sustain them when leaking, or water logged, or foundering.
In witness whereof, I, the said Elizabeth Dean, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Sixteenth day of September, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-three.