CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS AND ADDITIONS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF LAMPS, AND OF COMPOSITIONS AND MATERIALS TO BE BURNED IN THE SAID LAMPS, AND WHICH MAY ALSO BE BURNED IN OTHER LAMPS
Year: 1822

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, ALEXANDER
GORDON, of the City of London, and DAVID GORDON, of the City and County of
Edinburgh, Esquires, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth, did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of that part of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland called England, bearing date at Westminster, the
Fourteenth day of January, One thousand eight hundred and twenty-two, in
the second year of His reign, give and grant unto us, the said Alexander
Gordon and David Gordon, our exors, adññors, and assigns, His especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that we, the said Alexander
Gordon and David Gordon, our exors, admors, and assigns, during the term
of years therein mentioned; should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed',
and also in all His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, our Invention
of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS AND ADDITIONS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF LAMPS, AND
OF COMPOSITIONS AND MATERIALS TO BE BURNED IN THE SAID LAMPS, AND WHICH
MAY ALSO BE BURNED IN OTHER LAMPS;" in which said Letters Patent there is
contained a proviso, that if we; the said Alexander Gordon and David Gordon,
or one of us, shall not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of our
said Invention, and' in what manner the same is to be performed, by an
instrument in writing under our hands and seals, or under the hand and seal of

page_text: one of us, and cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of
Chancery, within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent, and all liberties
and advantages whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly cease, determine, and
become void, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto had) will more
fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
Alexander Gordon and David Gordon, do hereby declare that the nature of
our said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed,
are particularly described and ascertained in and by the following description
thereof (that is to say) :-
Our said improvements and additions in the construction of our said lamps
is for the purpose of burning alcohol or spirits of wine, the liquor obtained
from wood, commonly called naphtha or spirit wood, the essentials oils or com-
positions of the above-mentioned spirits, with such of the essential oils as are
most easily soluble therein, and as is more particularly described hereafter,
and generally for the burning of all combustible fluids which are inflammable
at a low temperature, and which do not require a combustible wick to raise
the temperature to a point at which inflammation would take place, or to
continue their inflamation. Our improvements and additions in the con-
struction of lamps consist in employing wicks made of metal or glass instead
of cotton or thread, or any substance usually termed combustible, and for that
purpose we prefer platina, gold, silver, copper, or glass spun or drawn into fine
threads, or capillary tubes collected into a bundle and surrounded by a piece of
metal, wire gauze, or by a piece of fine metal wire bound round them in a
spiral direction; or the wicks may be formed of metal, wire, or tubes of spun
glass in any way and in any desirable shape so that the effect of capillary
attraction may be preserved sufficiently to raise or draw up the combustible
fluid to the situation where it is to be inflamed; the wicks thus constructed are
inserted through a pipe or tube in the manner of common lamps with cotton
wicks. We recommend that the top of the wick or wicks be covered by a ca
when the lamp is not in use to prevent the evaporation of the combustibl
fluid, and to prevent dust from settling onthe wick, as the substances intende
to be burned in the said lamps are extremely volatile and inflammable. W
recommend that the orifice from whence the lamp is to be filled with th
fluid may be situated at the greatest. convenient distance from the wick c
wicks. We also recommend that an air-hole may also be formed at th
greatest convenient distance from the wick or wicks; both of these orifices t

page_text: be closely stopped when the lamp is not in use. We usually have a cap which
screws down to a shoulder to close the orifice from whence the lamp is filled,
and pierce. an air-hole at the second or third thread of the male screw, by
which means the said air-hole can be uncovered by unscrewing the cap, two or
three turns,, and without taking off the cap altogether, except when the lamp
is to be supplied with inflammable fluid.
Our compositions and materials to be burned in the said lamps, and
which may also be burned in other lamps, are composed of alcohol or
spirits of wine with an admixture of certain essential oils, as, for instance,
oil of juniper, camphor, the essential oil of tar, and such other of the
essential oils as are most soluble in alcohol, the relative proportion of the
two fluids or materials being regulated according to the description of
lamps for burning the same, or to the use for which it might be intended;
nevertheless the relative proportion of the fluids or materials, above mentioned,
we should recommend to be five, six, or seven parts of alcohol to one of
essential oil, but these proportions may be varied according as circumstances
may require, such as the strength of the alcohol or the use that is intended
with the lamp. Alcohol by itself is nearly pure hydrogen, so that when
burning it gives only a pale blue light. The essential oils when burning give
much light, but unless they are carefully burned in lamps peculiarly con-
structed, they produce much smoke, and would be apt to leave a considerable
deposition of carbonaceous matter upon the wicks; whilst the composition
described above will be found to give considerable light without any sensible
smoke, and leaving little or no deposit upon the wicks.
Another, of our compositions to burn in lamps is made with the fluid
herein-before mentioned usually called naphtha or spirit of wood, which fluid
we combine with essential oils in about the same proportions as above mentioned
for the essential oils with alcohol.
We conceive that our improved lamps with. incombustible wicks will be
found economical, and have many advantages over spirit. lamps as hitherto
constructed, from the durability of the wick and the equability of the
flame; nearly the same advantages will be found in the lamps when burning
the essential oils, provided the lamps are constructed, besides having metalic or
glass wicks, according to any of the present known improved methods for con-
suming as much as possible the smoke; and our improved lamps, when supplied
with the compositions above described, may be kept burning for a great length
of time without any attention being paid to them, except to maintain the supply
of combustible composition, which we conceive will render the lamp peculiarly