AN IMPROVED METHOD OF MAKING KELP BARILLA, OR OTHER VEGETABLE OR MINERAL ALKALI, BY FERMENTATION AND OTHER MEANS, IN ADDITION TO COM- BUSTION
Year: 1806

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, SAMUEL
PHELPS, of Cupers Bridge, Lambeth, in the County of Surrey, Esquire, send
greeting.
WHEREAS, His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Seventeenth day of
June, in the forty-sixth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Samuel Phelps, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, His especial licence that I, the
said Samuel Phelps, my 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, my Invention
of "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF MAKING KELP BARILLA, OR OTHER VEGETABLE OR
MINERAL ALKALI, BY FERMENTATION AND OTHER MEANS, IN ADDITION TO COM-
BUSTION ; in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging
me, the said Samuel Phelps, by an instrument in writing under my hand and
seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months after the date
of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation being there-
unto had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Samuel Phelps, do hereby declare that my said Invention, and the manner in
which the same is to be performed, is described in manner following (that is
to say) :-
I cut or collect kali salicorina, sea wrack, or other plants or weeds which
afford the mineral alkali, or furmitary, wormwood, heath, or other plants or

page_text: weeds which afford the vegetable alkali, and after slightly drying the same by
exposure to the air, or by any other cheap or convenient means, I mix the said
plants or weeds with straw, light dung, hay, or any dried plants or weeds, in
order to give a greater tenacity or firmness to the mass, and I do form the same
into stacks, like hay and thatch, or cover it, in order that the whole may be
defended from rain, and may undergo the spontaneous chemical change called
fermentation, putrifaction, or rotting, or by whatever words or terms the said
change may be designated and known, and when the said spontaneous change
hath taken place, I do burn the mass in an open pit, or kiln, or furnace, in the
usual manner, with the addition of wood, or any other fuel which shall not be of
such a nature as to render the ashes impure and unfit to afford a good, alkali;
and towards the end of the combustion I raise the fire so as to fuse the saline
residue. Or, otherwise, when the stacks have remained till very completely
rotten, I do separate a part of the alkali, by first exposing the mass to the air-to
dry and become carbonated, and then separating the saline matter by lixiviation
and evaporation, and lastly by incineration in the pit, kiln, or furnace, and the
subsequent treatment as usually practised, and herein-before described as
practised along with my said Invention, And further, in order that my said
improved method may be more fully and completely understood, I do declaro
that I have ascertained, by long observation and experiments, that the .pro-
duct of alkali in wet seasons is much less in quantity than that which is
obtained from plants of the same nature and quality without exposure to the
action of rains, and that the cause of the said effect is, that the alkali doth
naturally exude from the plants during exposure to the air, and is carried of
from time to time by the showers that fall, so that the plant or weed becomes
exhausted previous to the combustion to which it is afterwards subjected. And
I do further declare, that the fermentative, or putrefactive process which takes
place in the said plants or weeds, when stacked and defended from the weather,
according to my said method, doth prevent the said waste and exhausting
of the alkali, and that the whole treatment herein directed to be adopted and
used, with regard to the said plants or weeds, doth favor the general action of
the chemical affinities, so as to afford a greater quantity of alkali-from like
quantities of the said plants or weeds than is afforded by the ordinary methods
of extracting, producing, or making the said alkali.
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Phelps, bave hereunto set my
hand and scal, the Twelfth day of December, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and six.
SAMUEL PHELPS.. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twelfth day of December, in
the
year of our Lord 1806, the aforesaid Samuel Phelps came before our said
Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Speceification aforesaid,
and all and everything therein contained and specified, in form above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the
Statute made for that nurmo
nnmned
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twelfth day of December, in
the year of our Lord 1806, the aforesaid Samuel Phelps came before our said
Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Speceification aforesaid,
and all and everything therein contained and specified, in form above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the
Statute made for that purpose
Inrolled the Twelfth day of December, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and six.