IMPROVEMENTS IN SELF-IGNITING AND INEXTINGUISHABLE SIGNAL LIGHTS FOR MARINE AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Nathaniel John Holmes and Jacob
Hort Player at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 24th October
1876.
NATHANIEL JOHN HOLMES, of the Hall, Primrose Hill Road, in the County of
5 Middlesex, Telegraph Engineer, and JACOB HORT PLAYER, of Birmingham, in the
County of Warwick, Manufacturing Chemist. "IMPROVEMENTS IN SELF-IGNITING
AND INEXTINGUISHABLE SIGNAL LIGHTS FOR MARINE AND OTHER PURPOSES."
Our improvements have reference to an Invention for which Letters Patent were
granted to one of us, namely, the said Nathaniel John Holmes, on the Second day
of February 1870, No. 301, and the 17th day of April 1874, No. 1324.
In order that our Invention may be the better understood we remark that the
signal lights referred to consist essentially of a light vessel partly filled with
phosphide of calcium or other phosphide, which on being brought into contact with
water evolves the spontaneously inflammable gas cominonly called phosphuretted
hydrogen. The said vessel and its contents being so constructed as to be specifically
lighter than water it floats when thrown on water. The signal is hermetically
closed until it is about to be used, when openings are made at the top and bottom.
On the signal being thrown into water a bright inextinguishable flame is produced;
the water entering the lower part of the signal acts upon the phosphide of calcium
causing the evolution of phosphuretted hydrogen, which escapes from the upper
opening into the air and spontaneously ignites and burns with a brilliant light.
Our improvements consist in constructing and arranging or combining the parts
of the said signal lights in the manner herein-after described, whereby their
construction is simplified and their manufacture facilitated and certainty of action
more effectually secured.
We construct the said signal lights according to our Invention as follows:-The
body or case of the signal consists of a closed light metallic vessel having by
preference the figure of an inverted hollow truncated cone or cylinder. In the
upper part of the signal and occupying one-half more or less of the cubic space of
the signal according to the degree of buoyancy to be given to the signal, a light
air-tight vessel having the same general figure as the upper part of the case is
placed, so as to lie concentrically with the case and leave an annular space between
it and the case, and a clear space between its top and the top of the case. This
air-tight vessel in the upper part of the signal, which need not be secured in a fixed
[D..

page_text: position, gives the requisite buoyancy to the signal and preserves the required
position of the signal in the water. The signal case has a central hole both at top
and bottom, the bottom hole being the lower extremity of the internal tube herein-
after described. These holes are closed air-tight by thin pieces of lead or other soft
metal being soldered over them. In the base of the signal and concentric with its
axis a metallic tube is fixed closed at top and perforated with small holes one-third
of its length from the bottom upwards. This tube forms a communication between
the exterior of the signal and the lower part of the interior.
When the signal is about to be used the pieces of lead or other soft metal herein-
before described are either torn off or perforated, so that when the signal is thrown
into water there is free access at the bottom for the water which rises through the
tube described, and passes through its holes on to the phosphide of calcium with
which the lower part of the signal is charged and which surrounds the perforated
tube described. The gas evolved by the action of the water on the phosphide of
calcium rises in the annular space between the air-tight vessel in the upper part of
the case and the case, and escapes at the hole in the top of the signal, producing by
its spontaneous ignition a brilliant flame.