IMPROVEMENTS IN PRESERVING WOOD AND OTHER VEGE- TABLE MATTERS FROM DECAY
Year: 1838

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, Sir WILLIAM
BURNETT, Knight, Commander of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, of
Somerset House, in the County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster,
the Twenty-sixth day of July, in the second year of Her reign, did give and
grant unto me, the said Sir William Burnett, my exors, admors, and assigns,
Her special licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said
Sir William Burnett, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, and such others as I,
the said Sir William Burnett, my exors, admors, and assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times hereafter
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 Her said Majesty's Colonies and Plantations
abroad, my Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN PRESERVING WOOD AND OTHER VEGE-
TABLE MATTERS FROM DECAY;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a
proviso, that I, the said Sir William Burnett, shall cause a particular descrip-
tion of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to be inrolled
in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months
next immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent,
reference being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Sir William Burnett, do hereby declare the nature of my 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) :-
My Invention consists in destroying the tendency of certain vegetable sub-
stances to decay by submitting them to the action of chloride of zinc. In
preparing wood, canvas, cordage, sailcloth, hemp, flax, and other vegetable
matter or articles made thereof, I provide a tank or other vessel of wood, or
other suitable material; I then fill it about two-thirds full of chloride of zinc
dissolved in cold water, in the proportion of one pound of chloride of zinc to
five gallons of water; this I allow to remain for ten or twelve hours, when the
solution is ready; I then place the material which is to be prepared in the
solution, keeping it completely covered by the liquid. If wood or timber is to
be prepared, I allow it to remain in the solution from ten to twenty-one days,
according to its size and thickness (that is to say), if the timber be of the
thickness of from eight to thirteen inches and upwards, I leave it immersed
in the solution for twenty-one days; if from four to eight inches thick, for
fourteen days; and if less than four inches thick, for ten days. When
the wood or timber has been so immersed, I take it out and place it in
'a situation sheltered from the weather until it becomes perfectly dry. In
preparing canvas and cloth, I keep them in the solution for forty-eight
hours, and then dry them under cover; and in this manner other vegetable
materials of thin texture may be prepared. In the preparation of rope
or cordage above the thickness of two inches, I steep the hemp or yarns
of which the same is to be formed in the solution for forty-eight hours; and
cordage or rope of two inches or less I steep in the solution for seventy-two
hours. In all cases, if tar is to be employed, the yarns forming the cordage
should be placed in the solution for forty-eight hours, and allowed to dry
before undergoing the tarring process. In ship-building and in building or
repairing houses, besides preparing the timber to be used therein, as above
described, I find it desirable to use a paint made by grinding impure oxyd of
zinc (lapis calaminaris) with oil or other suitable vehicle. This paint I recom-
mend to be applied at the time the materials are brought into contact to the
faying parts of all scarfs, and on the joists and faying parts, wherever else two
pieces of timber are brought into contact, and also on the under sides of the
flats of all magazine platforms, and all other platforms below the orlops of
ships of the line and lower decks of frigates, and below the upper decks of
sloops and smaller vessels. In houses I recommend the paint made as before

page_text: stated for the inside of skirting and wainscotting of ground floors, and upon
every part of the timber materials below the external surface of ground
floors.
And I claim as my improvements in preserving wood and other vegetable
5 matters from decay, the use of the solution above described, in the manner
herein set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said Sir William Burnett, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twenty-sixth day of January, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine.