THE ART OF MAKING A CERTAIN PIGMENT OR CERTAIN PIGMENTS BY A CERTAIN PROCESS OR CERTAIN PROCESSES NOT PREVIOUSLY USED FOR SUCH PUR- POSE OR PURPOSES
Year: 1834

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, СHARLES
ATTWOOD, of Whickham, near Gateshead, in the County of Durham, Manu-
facturer of Soda, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King William the Fourth,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Sixteenth day of January, in the fourth year of His reign, did,
for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said Charles
Attwood, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I,
the said Charles Attwood, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, or such others as J,
the said Charles Attwood, my exors, adññiors, or assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term
of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
my Invention of "THE ART OF MAKING A CERTAIN PIGMENT OR CERTAIN PIGMENTS
BY A CERTAIN PROCESS OR CERTAIN PROCESSES NOT PREVIOUSLY USED FOR SUCH PUR-
POSE OR PURPOSES;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that I,
the said Charles Attwood, shall 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 said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited
Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will
more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Charles Attwood, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and

page_text: the manner in which the same is to be practised or performed, are particulary
described and ascertained as follows, that is to say:-
I do declare the same to consist in the application of a certain process or
certain processes to and for the purpose and effect of extracting or manu-
facturing a certain pigment or pigments which is or are in point of fact a kind
or kinds of prussian blue, such process or processes being herein-after fully
described and explained; but the distinguishing character or quality of my
said Invention doth consist in this,--that such pigment or pigments are
by me obtained or made by a process or processes, which cominence with
or proceed upon the use of materials altogether different or differently
produced from those which have been hitherto employed by others in the
manufacture of prussian blue, inasmuch as the prussic acid, or such alkaline
prussiate or prussiates as constitute essentially [necessary and the chiefly
expensive constituent part or parts of prussian blue are or have been by them
produced or obtained by the heating or caleining of certain well known animal
substances with potash or with soda, whereas I do on the contrary procuro
or make such pigment or pigments as aforesaid entirely without the use of
any animal matters whatsoever, and by the use or means of certain alkaline
solutions, lixiviums, or leys, or spent or mother liquors or leys, as herein-after
mentioned, in which solutions I have found or discovered that such prussic
acid or such alkaline prussiate or prussiates exists or exist abundantly as a
contingent product or products, and is or are capable of being extracted or
precipitated in the usual state of combination with a two-fold base of iron and
of soda, as such pigment or pigments or such prussian blue.
And I do further declare that the aforesaid solutions and lixiviums or leys,
or spent or mother liquors or leys, in which I have so found such prussic acid,
or such prussiate or prussiates to exist, are the solutions, lixiviums, leys, or
runnings, or spent or mother liquors or leys, which are obtained by the solution
of that kind or description of artificial soda in its first rough stage which is
manufactured by means of the calcination of certain well-known customary
mixtures of sulphate of soda with carbonate of lime and carbonaceous matters
or substances, such sola being usually denon:inated by the manufacturers
thereof soda balls." But I do deem it needful to add that I have also found
that such prussic acid, or such prussiate or prussiates, doth or do consist
abundantly in the solutions of such soda balls alone, as may have been made
or manufactured by the use or employment of mineral coal in its raw or
bituminous state, as such carbonaceous matter or substance as aforesaid, and
not in the solutions of such soda balls as may have been made by the use of
charcoal or of coke, which sometimes are or may be used for that purpose.

page_text: And I do further declare that such pigment or pigments, or such kind or
kinds of prussian blue may be obtained or manufactured from such solutions
as aforesaid, which constitute a new or hitherto unused kind or kinds of
prussic lixiviums or leys, by precipitating the same therefrom by means of the
addition in proper quantites of such kind or kinds of acids as are customarily
and properly made use of for such purpose by other manufactures of prussian
blue, preferring such of those acids as may be most cheaply and conveniently
obtained; but taking care to use such acid or acids in excess, that is to say,
in quantities sufficient to super-saturate or more than neutralize the alkali or
alkalies that such solutions may contain, and by the further use or addition of
any proper salt or salts of iron, as also used by such other manufacturers of
prussian blue in such quantity as may be sufficient to supply the fit proportion
of such metallic base as is needful for the duc formation or the constitution of
such pigment or pigments of prussian blue. And I do declare that such several
additions of such salt or salts of iron, and of such acid or acids as aforesaid,
together with any addition of alum or of any other substance or substances
which may be necessary or useful for the sake of giving greater body to such
pigment or pigments, or of altering the tint or tone of colour thereof, or for
any other purpose, may be made or applied according to such rules and
methods as have been found convenient and necessary in the precipitation of
prussian blue as previously manufactured. And I do further declare that the
pigment or pigments obtained by my process or processes from such new or
hitherto unused kind or kinds of prussic or prussiated lixiviums or leys as I
employ may bo separated therefrom on such precipitation as aforesaid, and
may be subsequently prepared and dried, or otherwise made fit for market or
for use, by all such means as are or may be found to answer in the case of
prussian blue, as ordinary made or manufactured; but I do further declare
that inasmuch as to proceed directly to the manufacture or precipitation of
such pigment or pigments from the solutions of such soda balls would be an
expensive course in respect of the decomposition and conversion into neutral
salts by such addition of acid as aforesaid of such large quantities of valuable
alkali as the solutions of such balls contain, and also in respect of the great
quantity of such acid that would in such case be required, I do recommend as
a much more eligible and profitable course not to make or to precipitate such
pigment or pigments from such solutions of such soda balls until after the
alkaline contents of such solutions shall have been previously extracted, or in
a great degree extracted, either by the crystallization, as far as conveniently
may be, of such soda as may be contained therein in one or more successive
crops, or by the combination of such soda, in so far as may be with tallow, oils,

page_text: or other saponifiable materials or substances in the process or processes of
making soap, or partly by both such means conjoined, or by any other suitable
mode of extracting such soda, such prussic acid, or such alkaline prussiate or
prussiates as aforesaid; still, as I have found remaining without material
diminution in the mother liquors or leys or spent leys from which such crop or
crops of soda crystals may have been taken, or in which such soap may have
been boiled or made, except alone in cases where the solutions of such soda balls
or their alkaline contents may have been purified from sulphur by any such pro-
cess or processes are liable to destroy, volatilize, or decompose such prussic acid
or such prussiate or prussiates as aforesaid, for I have found that such prussic
acid or such prussiate or prussiates do not exist, or not exist in quantities suffi-
cient to admit of being profitably manufactured into such pigment or pigments
in solutions, lixiviums, leys, or runnings from soda manufactured from such
soda balls, but which may have been purified from sulphur by the processes in
general use for that purpose (that is to say), by the boiling down to dryness
of such solutions, lixiviums, leys, or runnings of such soda balls, and the
subsequently carbonating of the caustic and the sulphuretted alkali thereby
obtained by any known process or processes in what are called "carbonating
furnaces, such prussic neid or such prussiate or prussiates being wholly or in
great degree volatilized or decomposed by or during the application of such
processes. And I have further found that such prussic acid or such prussiate
or prussiates do remain without a sensible or material diminution in such
solutions, lixiviums, leys, or runnings of such soda balls as may have been
purified from sulphur for such purpose or purposes of crystallization or of soap
making, or for any other purpose, by the application of carbonic acid gas to
such solutions, lixiviums, leys, or runnings, especially if such application be
made in close vessels or chambers, or without exposure to the air, as may be
done by many known and easy methods of operation for that purpose. And I
have also found that such prussic acid or such prussiate or prussiates do like-
wise remain without sensible or material diminution in such solutions,
lixiviums, leys, or runnings from such soda balls as may have been purified
from sulphur by the application or use of any convenient salt or salts of iron
or manganese, which mode of purification it is not necessary for me more
particularly to describe than to state that the same may be effected by careful
and small successive additions of the solutions of such metallic salts, until such
purification may have become complete by means of the precipitation in tho
state of a metallic sulphuret or sulphurets of such precipitable sulphur as may
exist in such solutions in the states of alkaline sulphurets or hydro-sulphurets,
according to such mode or modes of operation as I have formerly indicated.

page_text: published, and more at large described in the Specification of a Patent to
me granted, under date the Nineteenth day of October, One thousand eight
hundred and thirty-three, for "A certain Improvement or Improvements in
Manufacturing or Purifying Soda," and which said Specification has been duly
inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery. And I do further declare
that in cases where any proper salt or salts of iron or of manganese may
have been so employed to purify such solutions, lixiviums, leys, or runnings of
such soda balls, and may have been used in excess, that is to say, in quantities
beyond what would have been sufficient for the precipitation of the whole of
such sulpher as aforesaid, a portion of the prussic acid will also in most or all
such cases have been precipitated or thrown down in a state of mixture with
the sulphuretted precipitate, and will thereby be so far lost, at least for the
present, but may be subsequently partially recover, and made available for the
manufacturing of such pigment or pigments as aforesaid by the use of the
following method or contrivance, that is to say, by dissolving the whole of
such so mixed precipitates in any proper acid and by using the solution of
such precipitates as the metallic salt or salts, in order to precipitate such
sulphur from other quantities of such solutions, leys, or runnings from fresh
soda balls. And I do further declare that it is by no means needful for the
practice of my present Invention that the same should be used or carried on
by such persons alone as are or may be manufacturers of soda balls, but that
the same may also be profitably used by any such persons as may manufacture
crystals of soda, or as may manufacture soap by means of the solutions, lixi-
viums, leys, or runnings from such soda balls so purified as aforesaid, either
by the use of carbonic acid gas, or by the use of salts of iron or of manganese,
or by both methods jointly; provided only, that such persons may be able to
obtain or to procure such mother leys, or such spent leys or liquors as may
have been so used in the manufacture of soda or of soap, on terms sufficiently
low for that intent or purpose. And I do finally declare that such solutions,
lixiviums, runnings, or leys, or spent or mother liquors or leys, as do contain
such prussic acid or such prussiate or prussiates are capable of being used
in order to afford or yield such pigment or pigments as aforesaid by modes of
operation which may be much varied from the course and practice which I
have above described, and do preferably recommend, as, for instance, that such
pigment or pigments may be made in equal quantities, although not without
some difficulty, of equal quality, and in no case with equal economy, by being
precipitated from such solutions, leys, or runnings, or spent or mother liquors
or leys, without any previous purification from such sulphur as aforesaid; or,
for further example, such pigment or pigments may be made by using means

page_text: well known to chemists for the previous separation of such prussic acid, or of
such prussiate or prussiates from such solutions, lixiviums, leys, or runnings,
from such balls or spent or mother leys or liquors as may as aforesaid respec-
tively contain them, and by the subsequent application of such so separated
prussic acid, prussiate or prussiates, to the formation of such pigment or
pigments, but that I do consider all such varied modes of operation as properly
included within the scope and meaning of my Patent for the present Invention,
which I do hereby declare to consist in essence or in principle in the process
or processes of making or extracting such pigment or pigments as aforesaid by
the use of such prussic acid or such prussiate or prussiates as may exist in the
solutions, lixiviums, leys, or runnings, and in the spent or mother leys or
liquors of such soda balls as I have herein-before specified, by whatsoever
known or profitable modes of operation the aforesaid solutions which contain
such prussic neid or such prussiate or prussiates may be made available in
manufactoring such pigment or pigments as aforesaid.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Attwood, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Sixteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and thirty-four.
CHARLES (L.S.) ATTWOOD.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Sixteenth day of July, in the
year of our Lord 1884, the aforesaid Charles Attwood came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Sixteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and thirty-four.