IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PROCESS OF AND APPARATUS FOR CARBURETTING GASES OR ATMOSPHERIC AIR SO AS TO RENDER THE SAME APPLICABLE FOR LIGHTING, HEATING, OR PRODUCING MOTIVE POWER
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Bristow Hunt at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 12th
July 1870. A communication from Emile Charles Maillet, of Paris,
in the Empire of France.
I, BRISTOW HUNT, of No. 1, Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn, in the
County of Middlesex, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PROCESS OF AND APPARATUS FOR
CARBURETTING GASES OR ATMOSPHERIC AIR SO AS TO RENDER THE SAME APPLICABLE
FOR LIGHTING, HEATING, OR PRODUCING MOTIVE POWER," (a communication
from Emile Charles Maillet, of Paris, in the Empire of France,) to be
as follows:-
The process of carburetting gas or atmospheric air has been known
for several years,
and the principle of all the Inventions on this subject
has been to cause a current of air or gas to pass over light oils called
essences or volatile oils, so that it becomes saturated with the vapors of
the latter and carries them off with it to the burners.
Various apparatus has been constructed for producing this gas, all
of which have given results more or less satisfactory, and presented
inconveniences caused by the arrangement of their various parts.

page_text: It is necessary to give to the carburetting apparatus such an arrange-
ment that the process is carried on in a continuous and uniform manner
and free from all danger.
It is important to avoid, firstly, residuum or wash; secondly, lowering
of the temperature which retards the process; thirdly, variation in the
flame; and, fourthly, to prevent a large consumption of the liquid.
The improved apparatus is composed of a box of suitable metal of
any convenient form serving as a reservoir for the liquid, several cylinders
(also of metal) placed in pairs and communicating with each other
either below or above, the upper ends of the said cylinders being perforated
with small holes and covered by a dome-shaped cap. These cylinders
or compartments have two bottoms, the upper one perforated and the
lower one plain and provided with a vertical tube leading to a collecting
tube, lastly they are filled with pumicestone broken into pieces about
the size of a nut, or with any other spongy matter which is unalterable
by contact with the liquid employed. The above-named compartments.
being placed in two rows, each row is connected by pipes to a small
receiver. Two other cylinders or compartments having a single bottom
and capable of being opened at the top are filled with cotton wick not
pressed closely, they communicate with each other, and one of them
is in communication with one of the nearest of the compartments
previously referred to, the other being provided with a tube and tap
to allow the gas which it receives to escape. All the compartments are
enclosed in a metallic casing which is called a furnace, because it is
heated by means of a horizontal tube having several short vertical tubes
and terminating outside in a species of funnel placed over a gas burner.
Two chimneys serve to create a draught and to cause the air which
enters by the heating tube to circulate and escape. A bucket chain
enclosed in a case raises the carburetting liquid from the bottom of the
box where it is always kept at one level by a bent syphon tube in con-
nection with the reservoir. The buckets of this chain have two spouts
and pour the liquid which it raises into a small trough which has a
partition in the centre of its length, whereby the liquid is divided into
two equal parts and then conducted to the two small receivers above-
named. Movement is given to the chain of buckets by a spring, or
weight, or any other suitable arrangement of mechanism.
The same mechanism also gives motion to a treble bellows which sends
its blast into a suitably sized receiver, to pass from thence by a tube into¨

page_text: the compartments filled with pumicestone. Instead of a bellows any other
blowing machine may be employed. The liquid raised by the buckets
falling on to the pieces of pumicestone drops from one to the other in
a, shower and quickly evaporates, and the air or gas which is forced by
the bellows through the compartments becomes saturated therewith, and
in passing through the two compartments filled with cotton the latter
will take up any small particles of liquid that the rapidity of the passage
of the air or gas through the carburator may have caused it to carry off,
at the same time should any portion of the air or gas not have become
thoroughly saturated in passing through the carburator its saturation
will be completed by passing through the cotton.