IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC-LIGHT BUOYS
Year: 1883

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Edward Croft Greenway Thomas of No 11 Norland
Square Notting Hill in the County of Middlesex for an Invention of
'IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC-LIGHT BUOYS"
$5
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Edward Croft Greenway
Thomas at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 15th May 1883.
EDWARD CROFT GREENWAY THOMAS of N° 11 Norland Square, Notting Hill
in the county of Middlesex "IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC LIGHT BUOYS "
In the Specification to Letters Patent granted to me on the 16th August 1881
No. 3556, I described a form of buoy constituting a member of a floating break-.
water, the sides of that buoy being vertical and concave. My present invention.
relates to means of utilising such buoys as light buoys illuminated by electric
light.
For this purpose, I mount, in the hollows of the sides of the buoy, water-wheels,
so shaped that they are caused to revolve by the impact of waves passing the
buoy. Owing to the shape of the buoy, whatever may be the direction of the
waves, there will always be rotation of one or more of the wheels. In or on the
buoy, I place a dynamo-electric machine with a suitable accumulator and.
electric lamp, and I also provide clockwork which can be set so as to make and
break electric contact at predetermined periods, and so to bring the electric
lamp into action for such numbers of hours as may be suitable to different seasons
of the year

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said Edward Croft Green way Thomas in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 9th November 1883.
EDWARD CROFT GREENWAY THOMAS of N° 11 Morland [sic] Square Notting Hill
in the County of Middlesex "IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC-LIGHT BUOYS"
In the Specification to Letters Patent granted granted to me on the 16th August
1881 N° 3556, I described a form of buoy constituting a member of a floating
breakwater, the sides of that buoy being vertical and concave. My present
invention relates to means of utilising such buoys as light buoys illuminated by
electric light.
For this purpose, I mount, in the hollows of the sides of the buoy, water wheels,
so placed that they are caused to revolve by the impact of waves passing the
buoy. Owing to the shape of the buoy, whatever may be the direction of the
waves, there will always be rotation of one or more of the wheels. In or on the
buoy, I place a dynamo-electric machine with a suitable accumulator and
electric lamp, and I also provide clockwork which can be set so as to make and
break electric contact at predetermined periods, and so to bring the electric
lamp into action for such numbers of hours as may be suitable at different seasons
of the year.
The accompanying drawing is a plan of one of the members of a breakwater such
as I have described in the Specification N° 3556 of 1881 above referred to, adapted
according to my present invention to operate as a light buoy. In the two
concave sides I form hollows approximately semicircular in plan and in these I
mount water wheels A A with their axes vertical, so that the waves, as they are
deflected by the concave sides, cause either or both of the wheels A A to revolve
in the direction of the arrows. Both wheels may be connected by bevil gearing,
as indicated by the dotted lines, to a horizontal shaft B, or shafting and gearing
may be otherwise arranged so that the rotation of the wheels A A is communicated
to a dynamo electric machine arranged within or upon the buoy to produce the
electricity required for an electric lamp.
Having thus described the nature of my invention and in what manner the same
is to be performed, I claim :-
In combination with a wave deflecting buoy, water wheels mounted thereon, and
geared to a dynamo-electric machine, substantially as and for the purpose herein
set forth.
In Witness whereof I the said Edward Croft Greenway Thomas have hereunto
set my hand and seal this Eighth day of November in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and eighty-three.
E. C G. THOMAS (L.s.)