Ax IMPROVED SYSTEM OF WATER POWER
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Sproul at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 4th
September 1868.
I, JOSEPH SPROUL, of Salisbury Villa, Hadley, in the County of
Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "Ax
IMPROVED SYSTEM OF WATER POWER," to be as follows :-
My Invention is intended a great extent to supersede steam in
the working of machinery by the adoption of the old fashioned
water wheel, the water in all situations to be provided and applied
as follows:-I first crect my mill or mills in any required position
whether in town or country quito irrespective of running streams. In
regard to any one of my mills no matter what useful purpose it might
be for, I would make its machinery in every respect perfoct, water wheel.
included, and next provide water by sinking a tank of proper capacity
under the level of the bottom of the wheel, which tank would be filled
with water; I should next erect a reservoir, the bottom of which reservoir
would at least be on as high a level as the discharge of water into the
buckets of the water wheel for its working. Then a pump would be set
up in the water tank to draw up water from the tank into the reservoir, .

page_text: the said pump to be of a power to discharge sufficient water for the
working of the mill, and the pump to be kept continually at work by
the water wheel as part of its machinery. In plainer terms the water
wheel would work the machinery of the mill and the pump simul-
taneously the pump being thus constantly drawing up out of the tank into
the reservoir a sufficient flow of water to work the wheel and con-
sequently the whole of the machinery of the mill in regard to the water
in the tank, it cannot be exhausted or become less, for the water that
works the wheel is made to run back as it is discharged from the wheel
into the tank, thus by means of the pump the single tank full of water
is made to go round as it were in a circle working and reworking the
wheel ad infinitum requiring no additions whatsoever, except for the
trifle that may be lost by evaporation and waste, which in towns could
be easily kept up by common ball cocks and in the country by fresh
supplies during rain. The water in the tank however after several
wecks working would necessarily become too thick and dirty. At
*stated intervals this would have to be remedied by emptying the tank
and filling it afresh from clean water in the mains, or if in a country
place where there are no water works additional reserved tanks would
have to be made to meet these requirements. Reverting back to the
reservoir it need not be close to the wheel, but may be placed in any
'convenient position at the proper elevation; by the pressure of its
water thro' pipes it would descend into the buckets of the wheel, the
supply being regulated by a valve made to move up and down at
pleasure. The reservoir would also have to be constructed so as to
close and retain its water. When the mill would stop without a rescrve
of water being constantly in the rescrvoir, there would be no means
of setting the mill agoing when required
*Such is a brief description of my Invention for superseding steam by
water power, and that its success wholly rests on the proportional part of
the power of the water wheel that would be expended in drawing up
the water for its own working. If, for instance, it would take the
whole power of the water wheel to raise water sufficient to work itself,
the Invention would be perfectly useless as there would be no balanco
of power left to work the machinery of the mill, but on the contrary
if only a fractional power of the mill wheel be required to lift its
own water the remainder is a clear profit left for the working of the
mill. In most instances the water would not have to be raised more

page_text: than 30 feet, and it is plain that at such a height a very small pro-
portion of the power would be required to lift up the water, as a
dozen men with common hand pumps would meet the requirement.
As far as I can correctly judge on an average of cases not more than a
thirtieth part of the power of water wheels would be required to pump up
their own water, thus leaving twenty-nine thirtieth parts as clear gains
for the working of the mills, but it may be here observed that the
proportion of water wasted in pumping would be in all cases pro-
portionably greater in water wheels of small power as compared to water
wheels of greater power.
A modification to which my idea of working by water power might
be adopted is as follows:-I would erect a pumping engine on an
elevation, say, 200 ft. high, the engine to be powerful enough to draw
up from a tank as before at the elevation water sufficient to work
a water wheel of a required power. If at that height the engine
would be powerful enough to supply its own water, it could be worked
by the water it would draw up, if not it would have to be worked by
steam. Now on the slope of the hill 200 ft. high allowing 20 ft. of a
fall for each mill, 10 mills or factories in succession could be erected
down to the bottom of the hill, the water raised by the pump working
them all as it would descend down from one mill to another back into
the tank, thus keeping the latter in regard of water unexhaustible as
before and the supply endless.