AN ENTIRE NEW METHOD OF ADAPTING OR CONVEYING THE HEAT ARISING FROM THE FIRE OF COAL EMPLOYED IN COKE OVENS (BY A PARTICULAR CONSTRUCTION OF SUCH OVENS AND FLUES ADJOINING THERETO OR CONNECTED THEREWITH) FOR THE WORKING OF STEAM ENGINES, BAKING OF BREAD, MEAT, OR OTHER FOOD, CALCINING AND FUSING OF ORES AND METALS, MAKING OF BRASS OR STEEL, AS ALSO FOR THE PURPOSE OF WARMING OF ROOMS, STAIRCASES, OR LARGE BUILDINGS, HEATING WATER FOR BATHS, AND. WHICH IS APPLICABLE TO MANY OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES, AND MANUFACTORIES REQUIRING THE ASSISTANCE OF FIRE OR HEAT, BY WHICH MEANS THE EXPENCE OF THE COAL OR OTHER FUEL WHICH HATH HITHERTO BEEN NECESSARY FOR THE ABOVE OPERA- TIONS IS ENTIRELY OR IN THE GREATEST PART SAVED
Year: 1789

page_text: SEYMOUR CONWAY, send greeting.
COME, 1, HENRY
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His.
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Twenty-third day of June, in the twenty-ninth year of His reign,.
did give and grant, unto me, the said Henry Seymour Conway, His especial
licence that I, the said Henry Seymour Conway, during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within:
England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick upon Tweed, my Invention.
of "AN ENTIRE NEW METHOD OF ADAPTING OR CONVEYING THE HEAT ARISING FROM
THE FIRE OF COAL EMPLOYED IN COKE OVENS (BY A PARTICULAR CONSTRUCTION OF SUCH
OVENS AND FLUES ADJOINING THERETO OR CONNECTED THEREWITH) FOR THE WORKING
OF STEAM ENGINES, BAKING OF BREAD, MEAT, OR OTHER FOOD, CALCINING AND FUSING
OF ORES AND METALS, MAKING OF BRASS OR STEEL, AS ALSO FOR THE PURPOSE OF
WARMING OF ROOMS, STAIRCASES, OR LARGE BUILDINGS, HEATING WATER FOR BATHS,
AND. WHICH IS APPLICABLE TO MANY OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES, AND MANUFACTORIES
REQUIRING THE ASSISTANCE OF FIRE OR HEAT, BY WHICH MEANS THE EXPENCE OF THE
COAL OR OTHER FUEL WHICH HATH HITHERTO BEEN NECESSARY FOR THE ABOVE OPERA-
TIONS IS ENTIRELY OR IN THE GREATEST PART SAVED;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Henry Seymour. Conway,
under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my
said Invention, and how the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar month after the date of

page_text: the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, (relation being thereunto
had,) may more fully and at large appear.
•
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Henry Seymour Conway, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described
in manner following, that is to say:-
In the variety of cases in which the above Invention and improvement may
be employed according to the different purposes and situations, it would be
impossible to describe them so minutely as to admit of no variations, but the
general principle being adhered to, it will be sufficient to furnish such a descrip-
tion as may make the utility and practicability of them for the different
purposes or the most material ones to which they may be applied clearly
understood. 1st in working steam engines, the coal being spread on a flat or
dead hearth, as is usual in coke ovens, and being surrounded and covered over
with an arch or crown. of brickwork, formed so as well to contain and rever-
berate the heat, the proper openings must be made or left in the crown or the
search through which to convey the flame and heat of the coal while it is burning,
to be charr'd or made. into coke, so as to give heat to the boiler employed
sufficient to raise the steam necessary for working the engine to which it is to
be adapted, according to. the size of its cylinder and force required, and to this
the size of the oven, as well as the flues or openings, must be adapted. These
openings may be of different forms, having the necessary number of square
inches as à vent for the flame and heat, and may be variously placed, according
to the position and form of the boiler, but by different experiences and trials
are thought generally best when made in the backward part of the oven; the
draft being apparently brisker and the flame being conveyed under the bottom
of the boiler in such a stream or body as may give the necessary heat, it should
be drawn round the boiler in one or more flues, according to the shape of the
boiler and height of water. Where the latter is not considerable it may be
sufficient to fill the space under the boiler with flame, and then carry it off
to. the chimney, or direct it to any other purpose, taking care that the flues or
openings from under the boiler be so, framed as not to carry off the flame by
too quick a draft;. which, besides a due size given to such flues, should be farther
governed by registers placed therein, so as to check the draft at pleasure, by
that means either keeping a full body, of flame under the boiler, or increasing
its activity by a brisker draft, which may be varied according to the different
states of the fire.. When the heat is to be given to ovens for the purpose of
baking bread or biscuit, or for pies or meat, or any other kind of things to be
dressed or baked in ovens, the flame or heat must then be conducted so as
to heat all parts of the said baking ovens, whether placed over the coke ovens

page_text: or in the back, or in any other direction sufficiently contiguous. For this
purpose flues are to be formed under the bottom of the baking ovens in such
manner as to disperse the heat as near as may be equally to the different parts,
carrying it from the bottom by a circular flue each way round the search or
sides, from whence it rises to give heat in the same way over the top, making
the brickwork in each part of a thickness calculated to give the requisite
warmth without burning, for which end it should be made somewhat thickest
under the bottom where it comes first from the coke oven, and thinest over
the crown, where it may have lost something of its force. An oven or machine
for baking biscuit on this plan has been erected and worked, by which three
baking ovens are heated from the fire of the same coke oven, one of them being
placed immediately over, and the two others behind the same coke oven, on a
level with it, and as near as they could stand to each other at equal distance
from it; the flame for heating the two last issuing from the back of the coke
oven, and that for the first rising by flues or openings through the crown, all
the said openings from the coke oven being governed by registers between the
coke and baking ovens, so as that the flame may be shut off from any or all of
them at pleasure; to which are also added other registers in the chimney
flues, to damp or check the heat, and detain it more or less in its circulation
round the several baking ovens respectively. The baking ovens may also be
heated by the admission of the flame from the coke oven into them through a
large opening for as long time as may be necessary to give the proper heat.
The mouth may at the same time be closed, and only a smaller opening or flue
left sufficient to carry off the flame and to keep the body of the oven full, as in
reverberating furnaces; those small openings may also be governed by registers;
it should, however, be observed not to admit the flame till the fire in the coke
oven is become clear; the said opening from the coke oven being afterwards
closed by a register, the heat will then remain equal or diminish gradually, as
in the common way of heating' ovens by faggots, &c., and in this manner two
or more baking ovens may be heated alternately from the same coke oven, and
the process continually repeated. When metals are to be calcined or melted a
furnace adapted to those purposes is placed contiguous to the coke oven, from
whence the flame should be conveyed immediately through large openings and
in as full a body as may be, with this caution, that in melting the fire should not
be suffered to pass into the furnace (being shut off by registers) till the sulphur
and smoke of the coals is past off, and the flame appears bright and clear; in
all cases the chimney should be raised to a considerable height, as of thirty or
forty feet, or more, as is common for furnaces, in order to command a quick
draft, which may be constantly restrained by the registers as above described.

page_text: This Invention has (as may appear in part from what has been said) the
peculiar property and advantage that the same oven may at the same time be
applied to several different purposes, or that two or more coke ovens may be so
placed as to be applicable to one and the same purpose, as in the case of steam
engines, or of some metallic processes where a great force of fire is required.
And in steam engines the steam may be acquired either from two or more
different boilers, or the heat of the different coke ovens applied to single boilers
of an extraordinary dimension, and at all such forges where the price of coal is
any way considerable, and the demand of coke great, this method seems to
offer the highest advantages. Another particular in these constructions, of
singular advantage in many cases, is the readiness with which they may be
made to turn off the fire and to cool, for in those not only double registers may
be used immediately to shut off the flame, but also air holes placed between
those registers to be opened like them at pleasure, as well as other air holes
also to open between the crown of the coke oven and bottom of the boiler,
or. into the circular flues, if desired, which will prodiguously quicken the
cooling, and which, being afterwards stopt with bricks or plugs well adapted,
and luted, where necessary, will render the alternate admission and exclusion
of the air compleat, and will have the farther advantage of making openings
to clear the different, flues occasionally. When the purpose to be served
is that of warming houses or staircases, the oven may either be placed in some
.convenient spot joining to the wall of the house, and the flame or heat drawn
from it into flues within properly disposed to receive and conduct it, or the
body of the oven may be placed within the house, covered, as stoves often are,
in such manner for convenience or appearance as may be thought best, which
may be the more easily done, as coke ovens of a moderate or even small size
are found to give heat so as to produce very considerable effects. The heat or
.flame being conducted through the flues, as before mentioned, to the places to
be warmed or heated, may be used for different domestic or other purposes; an
oven of this kind, of no more than three feet diameter and one and a half feet in
the height or little more, having been experienced to keep a boiler containing
seventy-two gallons of water constantly boiling, so as to evaporate nine gallons
per hour, and to work at the same time a small still, and sometimes to calcine
or melt both copper and iron. It may be useful to mention that registers much
exposed to the immediate heat of the fire should be made of the best Stour-
bridge or other strong loom or brick earth, or of a composition of such loom
and old burnt ware from glass-houses, &c. pounded, or other like composition.
In other parts they may be conveniently made of iron of different thickness,
according to the different distances from the fire. It has also been found useful