CERTAIN NEW MODES OR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MAKING OR PREPARING OF SALT
Year: 1809

page_text: E. AND
CRAG
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EDWARD
CRAGG, of Hartford, in the County of Chester, Carpenter, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty King George the Third, by His Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Eighth day of June now last past,
hath given and granted unto me, the said Edward Cragg, together with
William Cragg, of Old Ford, in the County of Middlesex, Builders' Agent,
our executors, administrators, and assigns, full power, sole privilege and
authority to make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, during the term of fourteen years therein
expressed, our Invention of "CERTAIN NEW MODES OR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MAKING OR PREPARING OF SALT;" in which Letters Patent there is contained a
proviso, obliging us, the said Edward Cragg and William Cragg, or one of us,
by an instrument in writing under our hands and seals, or under the hand and
seal of one of us, to cause a particular description of the nature of our said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two calendar months next
after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same
(relation being thereunto had) may more fully appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Edward Cragg, in compliance with the
said proviso, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described

page_text: and ascertained in the following Specification thereof, and the Drawings
hereto annexed, that is to say :-
The principle of the said Invention consists of certain new arrangements
and combinations, and in the application of certain means not heretofore used,
in the manufacture of salt, by which the necessary heat for that purpose is
more beneficially distributed to all parts of a large pan or boiler, thereby
producing better salt with much less fuel than heretofore usually consumed in
that manufacture, viz, the pan or boiler .to be of such size and dimensions
as may be convenient, according to the supposed extent of the manufactory or
undertaking. The following may, however, be given as an example, say,
about one hundred and thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and fifteen inches
deep. A square or oblong of thirty feet or other proportion at the end over
the fires to be made of iron or other metal, the remaining part built or formed
of cement, clay, bricks, tiles, flags, slates, boards, plank, lime, or a composition
of some of them, as may be most proper for holding brine and salt, and
receiving heat from the flues underneath, which any person used to the con-
struction of salt works will have no difficulty in selecting. I think the best
mode of constructing this part of the pan would be to make it of brick or
brick pantiles, properly joined by cement, or wholly of clay properly prepared,
though I have mentioned other materials, of which it may possibly be pre-
pared or constructed to answer the end. desired. Over the square or oblong,
which has before been described as to be made of iron or other metal, or over
any part of the said pan or boiler at the end where the fires are to be, a pre-
paratory feeding pan of iron or other metal is to be placed or built, extending
exactly to the front over the fires and to each side of that part of the pan or
boiler, which is to be made of iron or other metal, resting upon and closely
joined thereto on all sides, except the back side or end farthest from the fires,
which is to be wholly or partly left open to the other part of the pan or boilery
not covered by the feeder, and under which uninclosed back side or end the
steam is to have vent. This feeder is to be a little above the surface of the
brine or salt water in the pan or boiler underneath, so as to receive. all, the heat
that will be collected at that end of the pan or boiler where the fires are,
thereby preventing any loss of beat and consequently saving fuel.. If it
should be required, either occasionally or constantly, through any circumstance
of distanco of the feeder from the brine or salt water underneath, to confine
or lessen the escape or evaporation of the heat, a plate of iron or other metal,
wood, or other proper material, may be provided to slide or drop down from
the back side of this feeder where the opening is to be, or it may be closed

page_text: more or less at the sides. From the backs of the fire-places close flues are to
bo inade, with divisions, which may be of bricks or other materials, between
the different flues, and continued to the further extremity under the whole of
the pan or boiler, with a chimney or chimnies at the further end thereof, in
which they should all meet, with such divisions as may be convenient for the
discharge of the smoke; the kind of flues used, or as may be most proper
for heating hothouses, or such other flues now in use, or most capable of con-
veying heat to a distance from the fire from whence it is derived. By the
continuance of the application of the heat by means of these flues to the end
of the pan or boiler farthest from that at which the fires are to be placed, a
second means of saving fuel is thereby gained, A further effect proposed
also from those flues is the more equal and general diffusion of the heat to
the whole extent of the pan or boiler, that may be constructed of whatever
size may be found convenient, and this heat may be still further increased
and rendered more effectual in the application of it by a damper attached to
each flue. The preparatory feeding pan, before mentioned, to be placed over
that part of the pan or boiler next the fires, should have a pipe or pipes of
wood or metal a little below the sides or edge of the said feeder, and over the
hottest part of the pan or boiler near the fires, through which pipe or pipes
the brine or salt water should be discharged, as through the waste water pipe
of a cistern; when heated as much as this feeder is capable of, and as the pan
or boiler below may require supply, the feeder being supplied with brine or
salt water when necessary at the sides most distant from the said pipe or pipes,
the overflow through them will consist of the hottest and therefore best pre-
pared brine, which being thus already considerably heated, instead of supplying
the work with cold brine from the pits, much more salt may be made with, the
same quantity of fuel than heretofore and of much better quality. By the
preparatory heating of the brine in the feeder, and the continual conveyanco
of it from thence into the pan or boiler underneath, and the extension of the
heat throughout by means of the flues, the whole will be brought and kept to
a more proper degree of heat for forming gradually the separation of particles,
and producing fine large crystals of salt of superior quality.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edward Cragg, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fifteenth day of July, in the forty-ninth year of
the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third, and in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and nine.
EDWARD (L.S.) CRAGG.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Fifteenth day of July,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Edward Cragg came before our
Lord the King in His Chancery and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid,
and all and every thing therein contained, in form above written. And also
the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute
in that case made and provided..