IMPROVEMENTS IN CONDUCTING ELECTRICITY FOR COMMUNICATING OR TRANSMITTING SIGNALS AND ALARMS IN THE EVENT OF BURGLARY, FIRE, RAILWAY ACCIDENTS, AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1865

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Samuel Watson and Albert
Horwood at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 6th April 1865.
We, JOHN SAMUEL WATSON and ALBERT HORWOOD, of 51, King William
St., London Bridge, in the County of Middlesex, Electricians, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN CONDUCTING
ELECTRICITY FOR COMMUNICATING OR TRANSMITTING SIGNALS AND ALARMS IN THE
EVENT OF BURGLARY, FIRE, RAILWAY ACCIDENTS, AND OTHER PURPOSES," to be as
follows:-
The nature of our said Invention consists in conducting electricity for
communicating or transmitting signals and alarms as between an iron safe,
house, ship, door, window, drawer, or room and the sleeping apartments or
the most convenient part of any house, ship, or building where valuables are
deposited for their protection. The same may be applied for conducting
electricity in communicating signals and alarms between railway passengers
and guards or engine drivers, and other purposes. For the purpose of giving
a signal or alarm in case of burglary, we place in an iron safe, ship, house,
door, window, or any other article or place, an insulated metal washer

page_text: in combination with two other metal tubes, one working within the other,
and a spiral spring for making and breaking the circuit of electricity by the
action of the door, window, drawer, or as the case may be, opening and
closing. The principle for giving a signal or alarm in case of fire or over-
heat consists of an air thermometer with three or more chambers arranged
vertically, the centre chamber being partly filled with quicksilver or any other
conductor of electricity; we then place two insulated wires into the top
chamber in circuit with the electric bell and battery, to be herein-after
-described.
The arrangements for conducting and communicating or transmitting
-signals and alarms by electricity from one given point to another consists of
"one, two, or more metal tubes placed one within the other, the interior of such
second metal tube being insulated; the insulation we prefer to be of either
-cotton or silk. We likewise in the interior of such second metal tube place
-one or more wire or wires also insulated, both ends of such wire or wires
being connected to both ends of the exterior metal tube, both or all acting
together and governing one conductor, and the other second or interior
insulated metal tube as the other conductor. One end of the exterior metal
tube is in connection with one wire in the air thermometer or metal contact in
the iron safe, house, ship, door, window, drawer, room, or railway carriage,
the other end of the exterior îmetal tube being in connection with one
terminal of the electric bell, and the other one end of the second or interior
insulated metal tube being connected to the insulated metal washer or other
wire in the air thermometer, or iron safe, house, ship, door, window, drawer,
room, or railway carriage. The other terminal of the electric bell is in
connection with the other pole of the battery, so that when the iron safe,
house, ship, door, window, drawer, room, or railway carriage, as the case may
be, is either connected by opening, or by the air in the room becoming heated
above what number of degrees the air thermometer or fire detector is regulated
to, thereby expanding the air in the air chamber of the detector, which forces
the quicksilver up the tube, and forms a contact between the two insulated
wires in the top chamber of the air thermometer or fire detector, or if the
conducting metal tube and wire, or tubes and wires, are cut in two pieces,
damaged, or destroyed in any way whatever between one given point and
another, an instantaneous signal or alarm shall be given by the circuit of
electricity being made complete. The same self-acting contact and conducting
metal tube and wire, or tubes and wires, which we use for the protection of
property from burglars and fire, we prefer using for forming connections

page_text: between carriages, guards, breaks, and engines on a line of railway for the
object of establishing a communication between the passengers and guards
or engine drivers, as the case may be, to give a signal or alarm in the
event of any accident, or any other occasion, on a train whilst at rest or in
motion.