IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE, TREATMENT, AND APPLICATION OF OILY, RESINOUS, AND GUMMY SUBSTANCES AND SOAPS
Year: 1855

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Johnson, of 47, Lincolu's Inn Fields, in the
County of Middlesex, and of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North
Britain, Civil Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MANUFACTURE, TREATMENT, AND APPLICATION OF OILY, RESINOUS, AND GUMMY
SUBSTANCES AND SOAPS."-A Communication.
Sealed the 25th September 1855, and dated the 17th May 1855.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Johnson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 17th
May 1855.
I, WILLIAM JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of
Middlesex, and of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, Civil
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE. TREATMENT. AND APPLICATION OF OILY, RESINOUS.
AND GUMMY SUBSTANCES AND SOAPS," a communication from abroad. to be as
follows:-
This Invention relates more especially to the mixing of various substances
with gutta percha and india-rubber or caoutchouc. These substances are
starch, casein, gluten, treacle, sugar, glucose, or substances containing these
matters, such as flour of peas, beans, oats, wheat, barley, rye, buckwheat,
rice, maize, linseed, and all kinds of grain and seeds; also roots, such as
potatoes, beetroot, mandioca, and arrowroot. These matters are mixed with
gutta percha or caoutchouc either alone or in combination with tannin, catechu,
glue, tar, pitch, resin, oils, fats, tallow, wax, turpentine, or naptha. The
addition of such substances to gutta percha or india-rubber results in the

page_text: obtainment of a great variety of new substances of great commercial value.
These new substances can not only be employed for the uses for which gutta
percha and caoutchouc are already applied, but for many others, such as the
manufacture of thin factitious leather or skins. In treating and purifying
oils and fats according to this Invention a solution of sulphuric acid is
employed. This aciduous solution is first added to the oils or fats, and then
hydrodate of lime is applied to the mixture to neutralise the acid, and form
sulphate of lime; sulphate of lime added to butter keeps the latter article
fresh and good without the aid of salt. In the manufacture of soaps, sea weed
is dissolved in caustic lye, and the solution so obtained is mixed with common
soap, to harden the latter, and generally to improve it.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said William Johnson in the Great Scal Patent Office on the
9th November 185.
10 ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of Middlesex, and of
Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, Civil Engineer, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Seventeenth day of May, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, in the eighteenth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said William Johnson, Her special license that I, the said William Johnson
myexecutors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said William
Johnson, my executors, administrators, or 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 awfully 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 THE MANG-
FACTURE, TREATMENT. AND APPLICATION OF OILY, RESINOUS AND GUMMY SUBSTANCES
AND SOAPS," (being a communication from abroad,) upon the condition
(amongst others) that I, the said William Johnson, by an instrument in
writing under my hand and seal, 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 William Johnson, do dereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following.
statement in writing, that is to say :-
The said Invention relates, in the first instance, to the manufacture or pro-
duction of substances or compounds bearing a close resemblance to gutta
percha and caoutchouc or india-rubber, and generally similar to these well-
known gums in their leading characteristics, whilst they are well suited for
admixture with these gums for various useful purposes. For this purpose
the oily liquids or matters obtained by the distillation ofcolophane, or common
rosin, are used, which liquids are ordinarily known as rosin oils or rosin spirits.
These liquids are used either in their natural condition, as originally produced,
or prepared according to the treatment herein-after described, and they are used
either alone, mixed with, or as substitutes for, turpentine, colophane, resins,
shell-lac, oils, fats, tallow, wax, pitch, or tar, and with these matters is mixed
either albumeu, fibrine, caseine, starch, gum, dextrine, gluten, treacle, sugar,
glucose, liquorice, and honey; or substances containing these matters, such as
flour of pease, beans, oats, wheat, barley, rye, buckwheat, rice, or maize,
linseed, rapeseed, and all kinds of grains and seeds; also roots or tubers, such
as potatoes, beetroot, trips, mandioca, arrowroot, and other vegetables. To
these matters are sometimes added tannin, gall nuts, catechu, sumac, alum,
and glue.
Having enumerated the various matters employed in carrying out the
Invention, I shall now proceed to describe the way in which a compound
is made as an imitation of skin or leather. To a quantity of rosin oil is
added twenty-five per cent. of olive oil or linseed oil, and twenty-five per
cent. of turpentine, with about five per cent. of catechu, and sufficient starch
to give the mass the necessary consistence. The mass so produced is then
mixed with hot gutta percha, and the result is a substance suitable for use as
skin or leather. When compounds of this kind are used as a cement for skin,
leather, or cloth, a useful waterproof fabric is produced. Pease flour mixed
with resins, glue, and catechu, and with a portion of gutta percha added
thereto, produce compounds or substances suitable for use instead of wood
and iron in ship-building, and for floating batteries, and other situations.
Shields of iron or steel wire covered with these hard gutta percha compounds
are suitable for use in war as defensive coverings against even Minié balls.
For these and other purposes gutta percha and india-rubber may be dissolved
in rosin oils. For the purification of rosin oils or other oils and fats, sulphate
of lime, either alone or in combination with common salt or alum, is used.

page_text: For some purposes the sulphate of lime is formed in the oils by adding to them
a solution of sulphuric acid, or a sulphate such as Epsom salts with common
lime, oxychloride of calcium, or other lime salts. Rosin oils, fish oils, and other
oils are also improved by adding to them a mixture of oxychloride of magne.
sium, with caustic ammonia, soda, or potash. When rosin oils are too thin
for the required purpose they are improved by dissolving rosin in them. Rosin
oils and some other oils are also improved by adding to them a small portion
of picric, suberic, or claidic acid, or by forming these or similar acids in contact
with them, this being easily done by adding nitric, nitro-muriatic, or nitro-
sulphuric acid to the oils at a proper temperature. Rosin oils and some other
oils are also improved by adding to themi sulphides or sulphur; and they may
also be improved by carbonising in the heated oils, silk, wool, hair, horn,
animal fibrine, membranes, muscles, skins, refuse from fish, blood, albumen,
glue, seaweed, and sponges, or by the addition of carbolic acid. To decolorise
oils, resins, or fats, sulphurous acid mixed with sulphate of lime is used.
Refuse railway grease is also decomposed by melting it in hot water with a
small proportion of common salt, afterwards adding a solution of sulphuric or
muriatic acid to neutralise the alkali or lime, and separate the oleaginous
matter. By adding to melted rosin dry powdered carbonate of soda or potash,
there is obtained a compound which is soluble in water, and which may be
employed for sizeing paper pulp,as also for scouring, and for the manufacture
of soaps,and for other purposes; rosin treated in this manuer is hereby named
and termed patent soluble rosin." This patent soluble rosin is suitable for
use in combination with alum nitrates or sulphates for the improvement of
soaps and oapy compounds. When carbonates are mixed in a dry, powdered,
or anhydrous condition with resins, oils, or fats at a proper temperature, a
species of saponification takes place, glycerine and other fatty bases are sepa-
rated, and soapy compounds are formed, such soapy compounds being suitable
for the manufacture of soaps and fatty acids, and for other purposes. Car
bonate of ammonia added to olive oil forms a soap useful in Turkey-red dyeing.
In the manufacture of soaps and soapy compounds the slimy, glutinous, or
gummy matter contained in the stalks, leaves, fruits,and seeds of most plants is
employed. By combining or mixing this matter with alkalis or soaps there are
produced suitable soapy compounds answering instead of common soaps. The
followinglistenumerates a few of the plants and vegetable substances employed
for this purpose: Starch, gluten, grains, and seeds, roots, tubers containing
them, wheat, pease, beans, barley, oats, rye, buckwheat, naize, rice, linseed,
rapeseed, fruits of cucurbitaceae, yams, mandioca, beetroot, turnips, potatoes,
carrots, stalks and leaves of alga and other water and sea plants, beans and

page_text: other leguminosae, potatoes and other solanea, cacteæ, cabbage and other
crucifere, althee and other malvaceae, bromeliaceae, orchidacea, and urtice.
The soaps so produced are hereby named and termed " patent vegetable
soaps." Soaps and soapy compounds are also improved by the addition of a
small quantity of resinate, oleate, or stearate of alumina, magnesia, or zinc,
which may be formed by adding to the soap alum or sulphate of alumina,
magnesia, or zinc dissolved in starch or rice water. Resinates, oleates, and.
stearates may also be used in the manufacture of paints and lubricating
matters. Butter and other oily and albuminous substances may be preserved
by adding to them sulphate of lime, sulphur and sulphides, turpentine, rosin
oil, tar, pitch, naptha, carbolic acid. Dichloride of carbon may also be mixed
with alkali for the purpose of forming soapy compounds, which may be used
for the manufacture of colouring matters, and for other purposes. The refuse
gas works and from certain chemical works, when such refuse contains
sulphur,sulphuretted hydrogen,sulphides, carbides, or cyanides may be treated
with alkalis, and the soapy solution so obtained when decomposed by alum or
other salts or acids produces blue and other colouring matters, suitable for the
manufacture of mottled soaps and paints and for other purposes. Soap-maker's
spent lye may also be used for the manufacture of vegetable and alumina
soaps and lubricating matters, as well as for making soapy paints, for which
latter purpose they may be treated with sulphate of zinc.
from
Having now described and particularly ascertained the nature of the said
Invention,and the manner in which the same is or may be used or carried into
effect, I may observe, in conclusion, that I do not confiue or restrict myself
to the precise details or arrangements which I have had occasion to describe
or refer to,as many variations may be made therefrom without deviating from
the principles or main features of the Invention; but what I consider to
be novel and original, and therefore claim as the Invention secured to me
by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent, is, the manufacture, treat-
uent, and application of oily, resinons, and gummy substances and soaps, as
herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Johnson, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Seventh day of November, One thousand eight
hundred and fifty-five.
WM JOHNSON. (L.B.)