IMPROVE- MENTS IN INKSTANDS
Year: 1860

page_text: PROV
ONAL SPE
TON left by Thomas
at
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 30th May
1860.
I, THOMAS GORDON, of No. 41, King Street, Soho, Westminster, in the County
of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN INKSTANDS," to be as follows:-
These improvements consist in making bottles to resemble cannon closed at
the muzzle, thereby leaving no place by which the ink can escape except by a
hole made where the touchhole is made in them, and where I fit a dipping
cup into these bottles, by which means the ink is supplied to the pen in à
small and regulated quantity thereby preventing the inconvenience of taking
up a superfluity of ink by the pen, and moveover needless evaporation, not-
withstanding the bottles may be full.
These bottles are suspended on centres in metal arms surmounting spindles,
which are fixed into the stands, the extremities of such spindles passing through
to the underneath part of the said stands, and is there fixed to metal arms at
their central parts, one on each spindle; to one end of these arms are affixed
a flat strip of elastic material, and to the other end of each a piece of catgut,
which latter is passed up a tube fixed over a hole made in the stands or placed
horizontally, or a groove can be made in the stands, in either of which moves
a disc of metal or other suitable material, to one side of which is fixed the
remaining ends of the said pieces of catgut. A hole is made through the

page_text: centre of this disc, through which is passed one end of another strip of elastic
material (but of a cylindrical or square shape to make it stronger than those
pieces first alluded to) which is fixed to said disc and on the same side as
the pieces of catgut, the other end being fixed to the top of the tube when the
same is fixed on the stands vertically, and to any convenient part when fixed
in the stands horizontally, or when a groove is made in the stands.
Now by this Invention the bottles can be made either of glass, metal, wood,
gutta percha, and any other material capable of being turned in a lathe pressed
or moulded to the above shape by lining all (except the first-mentioned) with
glass; they can also be mounted on wheels.
These improvements being easily adapted to various descriptions of ink-
stands the nature of this Invention will be sufficiently explained by giving an
example of the mode of adapting these improvements to a stand as follows:-
I take a stand 10 inches broad by 15 long, in which I make a pen tray
3 inches broad by 12 long and 1 from the front part of the stand and
from the same part 6 inches and the same distance 6 between. I make
two holes into each of which I fix a spindle, and I pursue the same manner of
arranging the different parts as that above described. By depressing the disc
in the tube the bottles are partially revolved, at the same time they rest ou
and glide up a curved edge piece of metal, fixed on the stand near to the
spindles till their muzzles become elevated at an angle of about 45, and at
right angles to the front of the stand, in which position they can be maintained
by means of a pin (projecting from the disc) being placed in a small slit made
in the tube transversely to a larger one made down the same, and in which the
pin moves, at the same time the ink flows to the other end of the bottles
and supplies the cups. On releasing the said pin the cylindrical piece of
elastic material pulls the disc up the tube again, thereby causing the said
bottles to return to their original position with their muzzles pointing down-
wards to an angle of about 45, and in contrary directions to each other, the
ink flowing to the same ends and leaving the dipping cups empty.