CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION AND MANUFACTURE OF NAPTHA, PYROLIGNEOUS ACID, OR OTHER INFLAMMABLE MATTER
Year: 1845

page_text: DREW AND STOCKER'S SPECIFICATION.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, THOMAS
DREW, of Saint Austell, Cornwall, Chemist, and EDWARD STOCKER, of the same
Place, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Eighteenth day of March, in the eighth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said
Thomas Drew and Edward Stocker, Her especial licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that we, the said Thomas Drew and Edward Stocker
our exors, adiñors, and assigns, or such others as we, the said Thomas Drew
and Edward Stocker, our exors, adiñors, 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, our
Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION AND MANUFACTURE OF
NAPTHA, PYROLIGNEOUS ACID, OR OTHER INFLAMMABLE MATTER;" in which said
Letters Patent is contained a proviso, that we, the said Thomas Drew and”
Samuel Stocker, or one of us, shall cause a particular description of the nature
of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be
inrolled in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar

page_text: 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, we, the said
Thomas Drew and Edward Stocker, do hereby declare that the nature of
our said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed,
are fully described and ascertained in and by the following statement thereof.
We take peat, peat moss, or bog earth, dried or deprived of the greater por-
tion of its moisture, and with it charge stone or iron retorts, or retorts carefully
constructed of fire brick or clay; different shaped retorts may be employed,
but in order to the most economical application of heat we prefer oval retorts;
fire brick retorts should be D shaped, having the heat passing under the bottom
and over the top, an iron mouth piece being attached, to which the cover is
carefully fitted, and from which proceeds a short length of flange pipe for the
further attachment of the pipes required for the condensing apparatus. The
greatest care should be taken to provide pipes of a sufficient surface area and
length, in order to the proper condensation of the volatile products driven off
from the retorts. The heat applied to the retorts may vary from a scarcely
visible dull red up to a bright red. In the refrigeratory apparatus I prefer,
where locality will allow, not to pass the volatile products from all the retorts
into one pipe, but to conduct them separately through one line of pipes, having
at certain intervals, commencing at about ten feet from the retort, descending
pipes, through which the condensed products may pass down into a receiver
beneath each line of pipes; should be placed in shutes about two inches wider
and two inches deeper than the diameter of the pipe at the joint; the pipes
should have a fall of about an inch in five feet in the direction from the retort
towards the end of the condenser. The shutes should be placed so as to have
an inclination to the same extent in the opposite direction; by these means cold
water running through the shutes will meet with the coolest part of the pipes
first, and will therefore be best adapted for the absorption of heat. The
product of this distillation will consist of water associated with naptha or
pyroxylic spirit, acetic or pyroligneous acid, ammonia, tar, and oil and charcoal,
and an incondensible inflammable gas; these substances may be separated from
each other, as in the treatment of the like products of the destructive distillation
of wood.
Having thus described the nature of our Invention, and the best means we
are acquainted with for performing the same, we would remark that we are
aware it has been before stated that peat contains some of the above-described
substances, and we have discovered by various experiments that by the use of

page_text: stone or iron retorts, or retorts of fire brick or clay, that the products herein
mentioned may be manufactured advantageously, and we state these circum-
stances in order to mention that we do not claim to disill peat generally; but
what we claim is, the manufacture of naptha or pyroxylic spirit, and acetic or
pyroligneous acid, ammonia, and the other inflammable matters, by distilling
peat, peat moss, or bog earth in retorts or vessels made of stone or iron, or
of fire brick or clay.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Drow, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fifteenth day of September, One thousand eight
hundred and forty-five