IM- PROVEMENTS IN TREATING SEWAGE AND IN MANUFACTURING MANURE THEREFROM
Year: 1853

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thornton John Herapath, of the City and
County of Bristol, Analytical Chemist, for the Invention of "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN TREATING SEWAGE AND IN MANUFACTURING MANURE
THEREFROM."
Sealed the 17th May 1858, and dated the 15th March 1858.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Thornton John
Herapath at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 15th March 1858.
I, THORNTON JOHN HERAPATII, of the City and County of Bristol,
Analytical Chemist, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING SEWAGE AND IN MANUFACTURING MANURE
THEREFROM" to be as follows:-
The Invention consists in making use of burnt magnesian-limestone,
or magnesia, or substances containing the same, together with a salt
of iron. The Invention may be performed by adding a small portion
of slacked magnesian limestone to the sewage; then a small portion of

page_text: sulphate of iron. The solid matters will bo deposited in from about
5 to 10 minutes, and the sediment will contain the whole of the phos-
phoric acid and ammonia of the sewage. The supernatant fluid is after-
wards drawn off, and may be employed for irrigation; tho remaining
substanco, after being drained, forms a highly valuable manure.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Thornton John Herapath, in the Great Seal
Patent Office, on the 15th September 1853.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
THORNTON JOHN HERAPATH, of the City and County of Bristol, Analy-
tical Chemist, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victorin, by Her.
Letters Patent, bearing date the Fifteenth day of March, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, in the sixteenth
year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and
grant unto me, the said Thornton John Herapath, Her special licence
that I, the said Thornton John Herapath, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, or such others as I, the said Thornton John Herapath,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
with, 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
"IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING SEWAGE, AND IN MANUFACTURING MANURE
THEREPROM," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said
Thornton John Herapath, by an instrument in writing under my hand
and scal, 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 Thornton John Herapath, do
hereby declare the nature of my 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:
The nature of the said improvements in the treating of sewage con-
sists in causing the phosphoric acid and ammonia of such matters to
be precipitated in a comparatively insoluble state by the addition of
magnesia, or a magnesian compound, at or about the same time as the
deodorization of the said sewage is effected by the addition of some
deodorizing chemical agent, which will not decompose ammonia or its
salts. I proceed as follows:-I receive. the said matters in a tank or
reservoir, and add to them chloride of magnesium, nitrate, or sulphate
of magnesia, or burnt and slacked magnesian limestone, commonly
called dolomite, or a mixture of carbonate of magnesia and carbonate
of lime, which will slack together. I add, either before, after, or about
the same time, such deodorizing agent as may be added without decom-
posing ammonia or its salts, but will combine with or absorb hydro-
sulphuric acid, such as metallic sulphates, or metallic chlorides, or
animal or vegetable carbon. Upon such additions I find the sewage
matters lose their offensive smell, and their fertilizing parts precipitate
to the bottom. I allow the supernatant clear fluid to flow off, and either
use it to irrigate land or to run to waste. The pulpy sedimentary
matters I now dry, either by the admixture of some material capable of
absorbing water, such as saw dust, malt combings, ground bones, or
coprolites, and so forth; or they are dried by artificial heat of moderate
degree, when these matters form a manure of great fertilizing power,
for use either by themselves or by admixture with other suitable
manures.
And having now described the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I do not claim
the employment of the ordinary deodorizing materials, such as I have
named, when used alone; nor do I claim the use of magnesia or its
salts as precipitants, when used alone; but I claim―
The combined employment of magnesia and its compounds, together

page_text: with deodorants, to sowage matters, so as to precipitate their useful
parts, deodorize them, render them readily portable, and manufacture
them into manure, in the manner herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thornton John Herapath, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of Sep-
tember, One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three.
THORNTON JOHN HERAPATH. (L.S.)