IMPROVEMENTS IN THE APPLICATION, TREATMENT, CLEANSING, AND DYEING OF FIBROUS SUBSTANCES AND PRODUCTS.
Year: 1855

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to 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, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
APPLICATION, TREATMENT, CLEANSING, AND DYEING OF FIBROUS SUBSTANCES
AND PRODUCTS. "A communication.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Johnson at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
18th January 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 APPLICATION, TREATMENT, CLEANSING, AND DYEING OF FIBROUS
SUBSTANCES AND PRODUCTS," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the application and use of all kinds of plants or
vegetable productions containing ligneous fibre, such as shrubs, reeds, rushes,
grasses, stalks of various kinds, canes, ferns, mosses, pine leaves, bananas,
palms, sugar cane, the maize plant, fibrous wood, and barks, basses, surats,
wood shavings, sawdust, breweries refuse, spent tan, or dye woods, and other
matters in the manufacture of pulpy matter for the manufacture of paper, and
for other purposes.

page_text: In scouring or cleansing these raw materials, they are boiled with alkaline
hydrates and caustic lime water. To bleach them, they are subjected to the
action resulting from the chemical decomposition of hypochlorites and other
salts, as well as to the effects of sudden and gradual thermal changes.
In treating old or waste paper for the. production of fresh pulp, the paper is
decomposed by acidulated water; all hard and refractory materials are crushed
between rollers or rasped, and in converting rags into pulp-they are torn up
instead of being cut or directly severed, using, by preference, for such tearing
action the "devilling machine," as employed in the treatment of textile
materials.
From some of the plants or vegetable matters employed, such as heather
and broom, boiling produces a substance resembling catechu,, useful for dyeing
and other purposes. From mixed woollen and silken rags the animal fibre is
extracted by alkali, for the-purpose of economising the vegetable fibre for
paper pulp. In dyeing, an acid and its salts, obtained by the action of hot
nitric acid on silk and other substances, as aloes, gum, resins, pease, and beans,
is used such acids and, salts are, also, used in combination with madder, indigo,
tannic, chromic, or prussic acids and their salts. Ammonia is also employed
for dyeing in combination with oleaginous matters.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance-of the-conditions-of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said William Johnson in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
9th July 1855.*
TO 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 Eighteenth day of January, 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,
my, executors; administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
William Jolinson, my executors, administrators, or assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no 'others, from time to time and at all times there-
after, during the term therein expressed should and lawfully might make,

page_text: use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE APPLICATION, TREATMENT, CLEANSING, AND DYEING OF FIBROUS
SUBSTANCES AND PRODUCTS," (being a communication from a foreigner 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.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Williani Johnson, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement in writing, that is to say:-
The said Invention relates to the treatment, cleansing, and decolorising of
all kinds of vegetable fibres, fibrous substances, and products containing
ligneous fibres; such, for example, as shrubs, reeds, rushes, straws, hay and
grasses, stalks and leaves of various plants, canes, ferns, mosses, plantains,
palms, fibrous woods and roots, barks, basses, wood shavings, wood raspings,
wood turnings, sawdust, spent dye woods, and spent tan; also yarns, clothes,
felts, rags, lint, mats, pulps, and other vegetable fabrics and products, so as to
render such treated materials of superior commercial value, and more or less
capable of improved application to commercial purposes. Such vegetable
matters are primarily boiled in a solution containing a mixture of caustic lime
water and caustic soda or potash of suitable strength. After this treatment the
matters operated upon are washed and subjected to the action of heat, either
by means of steam or boiling water. A cold solution of chloride of lime or
other bleaching liquor is then applied to the treated matters, the bleaching
solution being of sufficient strength to produce the desired degree of whiteness.
Chlorine gas or the fumes of sulphur may also be passed through the solution
to aid the effect whilst the solution is hot. In some instances, and more
especially in the retting treatment of flax, straw, and other matters, it is
advantageous to acidulate the heated water with sulphuric or muriatic acid; a
small proportion of caustic lime, soda, or potash, or magnesia, or other salt,
may also be added with advantage prior to the application of the chlorine com-
pounds. Several plants and other substances containing woody fibre
may be
advantageously applied in the manufacture of white paper pulp. Of these
vegetable productions the herein-after noted articles may be especially used:-
The inner bass of the lime tree and other filiacea, the willow, birch, elder, the

page_text: leaves of coniferæ, also heather and other ericaceae, rushes and other juncace,
clover, lucerne, stalks of pease, broom, whin, and other leguminous plants
(except the stalks of common leaves), sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes and other
compositeæ (except thistles), nettles and other urticeæ, turnips, mustard, and
other cruciferæ, cucumbers, and other cucurbitaceæ, mosses, licopodium equi-
setum, ferns, reeds, canes, bamboos, water lilies, water weeds, anacharis, alsinas-
trum, and other water plants, rye grass, pampas grass, mya, and other grasses,
raspberry, blackberry, and other rosacea, malva, sida, and other malvaceae,
(except altheæ, gossypium, and corchorus), buckwheat, leaves of palms, sugar
cane, tillandsia, and other bromeliaceæ, maize and sorghum plant, madder, and
other rubiaccæ, anonaceæ, melastomaceæ, velloziæ, panax, solaneæ, cuphea,
rhamneæ, lychnophora, terebinthenaceæ, bombax, myrtacea, bignonacea, lilia-
cea, artocarpeæ, the mulbery, pandanns, cecrops dracena, polygaleæ, malpi-
ghiaceæ, convulvulacea, leaves of musacea, broussonetia, boehmeria, amomum,
manispernum, erytroxylon, gutlaferæ, ricinus, and other euphorbiaceae, ascle-
piadeæ, apocineæ, rutaceæ, phormium, iris, solaneæ, the stalk of the tobacco
plant, cactus, papyrus, aloes, agave, labiata, asparagus, juniper, rice straw,
mandioca plant, gramineæ. For certain pulps the refuse from breweries, bran,
spent tan, and spent dye woods, and sea weeds, may be employed. When
animal and vegetable substances are mixed together, they may be separated
by boiling them, with or without steam pressure, in caustic alkali and caustic
lime, which dissolves the animal matter, and the solution so obtained may be
used as manure, and in the manufacture of several chemical products, such as
chondrine, albumen, prussiates, picrates, and other chemicals. The vegetable
fibre obtained by this process from the so-called "hard woollen rags" may be
used for paper pulp. The use of steam pressure very greatly accelerates the
boiling process. By boiling heather, broom, whin, sea weeds, and many other
plants, according to the herein-before described process, solutions are obtained
which may be employed for cleansing, dyeing, the manufacture of manure and
soaps, and for other purposes. To separate the animal or resinous matter from
the solutions obtained by this process of boiling, there is added an acid or a
salt, by which it is precipitated or separated. In the conversion of rags inte
paper pulp, they are treated, according to the present Invention, in a machine
on the wool "devilling" principle, as employed in the treatment of textile ma
terials, instead of cutting them; and in converting hard or refractory material
into paper pulp, they are crushed between rollers or rasped and reduced prio
to boiling. In dyeing fibrous substances, pieric acid or picrates, in combina
tion with tannic, chromic, prussic, or acetic acids, and their salts, as well
with indigo and madder, are used; picric acid is also used in combination wit

page_text: chlorine and metallic bases, such as mercury, iron, cobalt, manganese, copper,
and lead. By picric acid is understood the acid obtained by the action of hot
nitric acid on many different substances, such as resin, horn, silk, wool, hair,
membranes, sea weeds, aloes, liquorice, pease, beans, ferns, creosote, carbolic
acid, and sponge. When oleaginous matters are employed in dyeing, they are
applied in combination with caustic ammonia.
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 confine 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 devi-
ating 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 applica-
tion, treatment, cleansing, and dyeing of fibrous substances and products as
herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Johnson, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Third day of July, One thousand eight hundred
and fifty-five.
WILLIAM JOHNSON. (L.S.)