IMPROVING BITUMINOUS SUBSTANCES, THEREBY RENDERING THEM AVAILABLE FOR PURPOSES TO WHICH THEY NEVER HERETOFORE HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY APPLIED
Year: 1852

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Admiral the Earl of Dundonald, of Bel-
grave Road, in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of
"IMPROVING BITUMINOUS SUBSTANCES, THEREBY RENDERING THEM
AVAILABLE FOR PURPOSES TO WHICH THEY NEVER HERETOFORE HAVE BEEN
SUCCESSFULLY APPLIED."
Sealed the 17th January 1859, and dated the 5th November 1852.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Admiral the Earl
of Dundonald at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with his Petition, on the 5th November 1852.
I, ADMIRAL THE EARL OF DUNDONALD, of Belgrave Road, in the
County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said In-
vention for "IMPROVING BITUMINOUS SUBSTANCES, THEREBY RENDERING
THEM AVAILABLE FOR PURPOSES TO WHICH THEY NEVER HERETOFORE HAVE
BEEK SUCCESSFULLY APPLIED," to be as follows:-
My improvements consist in treating such substances, whether natural
bitumen or artificial pitch, in such manner that they shall retain or
acquire the properties of plasticity, cohesion, and flexibility, adapting
them as substitutes for the bitumen of Trinidad and New Brunswick

page_text: (for divers arts and manufactures), as patented by me on the 22nd day
of July 1851.
The manner of treating indurated bitumen and brittle pitch differs
in degree, by reason that natural bitumen, having been slowly and
gradually divested of its volatile components by the action of the atmo-
sphere, is thereby less injuriously changed than facticious bitumen or
pitch from which the fluids have been expelled by igneous evaporation,
which carbonizes a large portion of the residuum or pitch, destroying its
tenacity, and rendering it more brittle than bitumen inspissated under
the more gentle influence of the atmosphere.
My most improved proceedings whereby to restore or impart clasticity
to these substances, especially to artificial bitumens, consists in counter-
acting or avoiding the injurious effects of carbonization produced in the
formation of pitch by intense heat employed to expel the last portion
of naptha in the process of distillation. With this view, previous to
remelting the bitumen or pitch, I bruise or pound the material, in order
to expose as much surface as possible to the influence of gentle heat,
and also to facilitate the combination and operation of solvents thereon,
such as tar, petroleum, naptha, and the like; the mixture is then to be
inclted in appropriate vessels, preferring heat by steam or water baths,
which sufficiently liquify the amalgam, and enable it, by stirring, to
become of a uniformly plastic consistence.
It is obvious that natural bitumen gradually dried does not require
so great a proportion of solvent, nor precisely the same solvents, as the
carbonized, artificial, and brittle pitch, neither so much stirring and
manipulation, and that should such dissolved pitch prove too viscid (as
probably will be the case), it may be further diluted by petroleum, tar,
naptha, or other solvents, adding thereto, most beneficially, a small
portion of oil or fat; should the mixture prove too fluid for an intended
purpose it may be thickened by adding pounded bitumen or pitch, as
the case may be.
But the properties of cohesion, tenacity, and flexibility, thus in a
degree restored or imparted, may be farther increased (when the
mixture shall be cooled to a suitable temperature) by the addition of
filamentous materials, such as refuse wool, cotton, tow, the scrapings of

page_text: hair from hides, and other slender stamina, blended and combined by
stirring until the whole shall constitute one compaginous mass.
These remedies for hardness and brittleness in bitumens may, as
regards facticious bitumen, be in a great degree superceded by the
precaution of stopping the distillation of naptha at the point necessary
to prevent carbonization by intense heat, now used to expel the last
portion of naptha from the pitch or residuum, which precautionary
mode of proceeding will enable bitumens to be produced from mineral
or vegetable tar in a plastic state, and used in manufactures to which,.
in their indurated or brittle state, these substances have never heretofore
been suited or successfully applied.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,,
filed by the said Admiral the Earl of Dundonald in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 5th May 1858.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,.
ADMIRAL THE EARL OF DUNDONALD, of the Belgrave Road, in the
County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Fifth day of November, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, in the:
sixteenth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and suc-.
cessors, give and grant unto me, the said Earl of Dundonald, Her
special licence that I, the said Earl of Dundonald, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Earl of
Dundonald, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
thereafter during, the term therein expressed, should and lawfully.
might make, use, exercise, and vend within the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man,
an Invention for "IMPROVING BITUMINOUS SUBSTANCES, THEREBY REN-.
DERING THEM AVAILABLE FOR PURPOSES TO WHICH THEY NEVER HERETOFORE
HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY APPLIED," upon the condition (amongst others).
that I; the said Earl of Dundonald, by an instrument in writing under

page_text: my hand and seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be per-
formed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Earl of Dundonald, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement thereof (that is to say):
My Invention of improvements consists in the adaptation and
application of bituminous substances to various purposes; and, first,
to the treatment of common facticious bitumen or pitch, as a cheap
material whereby to form or protect the submerged foundations of
piers, sea walls, juttics, and embankments, to consolidate the beds
of rivers or the gravel on beaches, and thus prevent injurious changes
and the blocking up of harbours by shifting sand, often most injurious
to commerce.
First, as to the protection of piers of bridges from the currents or
underwash, by which those of the Thames, for instance, are in progress
of being destroyed.
I heat stones after the manner that bricks are burnt in kilns (if
need be), in a barge or otherwise, and I melt the gas pitch in pans or
boilers, and I prefer to add thereto resinous or adhesive substances to
the extent (say) of one fourth, and of viscuous or unctious oil of tar,
or similar oil, one tenth, which oil I prefer to be previously saturated
with caoutchouc, and I stir the whole until the solution becomes
amalgamated.
These preparations being made I dip the heated stones successively
into the liquid mixture, and drop them around the pier or structure
desired to be protected, which operation is to be continued until coated
stones so dropped accumulate sufficiently to guard the foundation from
further injury.
The heat enveloped within the slow transmitting bituminous coating
of the stone suffices to melt the bitumen or pitch between parts
which come in contact, even at the depth of several fathoms under

page_text: water. This bituminous, resinous, and oleaginous mixture may, for
such uses, be combined with sand, grit, or other substances now
employed to grout lime.
Similar operations suffice for the protection of other submerged
foundations, or to enable the construction of works where the exclusion
of water by piles or other devices would be costly, inconvenient, or
impracticable. Caisoons may be made with bottoms of bituminous
grout or other such materials, so that the decay of the usual wooden
rafters shall not prove ruinous to the destined superstructure.
Sifting sand or rolling gravel on beaches may be arrested and
consolidated by pouring this adhesive mixture thereon, and the beds of
rivers and bank sides may be conglomerated, and shoals prevented
from accumulating, by converting loose sand and gravel to a bitu-
minous concrete, which operation is equally applicable to the banks
of canals.
In like manner the interstices between the massive blocks of stone
which constitute breakwaters may be filled up, and the injurious effects
of internal hydraulic pressure averted.
.
Rude works, such as these, may be performed by means of facticious
bitumens and pitch, but I prefer the natural cohesive bitumen of
Trinidad or New Brunswick, which has gradually been deprived of its
volatile components, to pitch produced from tar, subjected to intense
heat during the process of gas making, and in the subsequent distillation
of naptha.
These indurated natural bitumens and hard substances require to bo
pounded, sifted, and masticated with about one tenth of their weight of
unctuous oil, then to be rolled and thoroughly washed by an alternating
or rotatory crushing motion or other device in tepid water.
. The materials thus rendered homogenous, tenacious, and plastic, are
suited to numerous important purposes, amongst which is the distri-
bution of liquid manures through pipes of an undecomposeable material..
This mixture, with the addition of gummy and resinous matters (open
to public use), constitutes a preparation of great flexibility, of which
water pipes may be formed free from the noxious impregnations imparted
by leaden pipes.

page_text: Sixty parts of Trinidad bitumen (which I prefer), five parts of rosin,
tive of shellac or other indurated gum, and ten of viscid antiseptic oil
and salt, amalgamated as before explained, with twenty-five per cent.
of caoutchouc, produce a good and lasting mixture, admirably suited
for the joining together of all kinds of pipes, whether by pouring it hot
into their bell-mouthed ends, as lead is now used, or by caulking
it in a waxy state, combined with strands of rope or other filamentous
substances, and wedging up the cohesive and elastic juncture.
These plastic joinings are peculiarly adapted by their flexibility
for connecting earthenware pipes, especially those built into the walls
of dwelling-houses, where the settling of masonry cranks their present
rigid connections, to the great injury of public health, from noxious
emanations.
The viscid, unctuous, or (so called fixed) and antiseptic oil of petroleum,
bitumens, or tar, may be obtained in a sufficiently useful state, and in
great abundance, by arresting the process of distillation in extracting
naptha before the induration of pitch.
With this material as a solvent the bottoms of ships and vessels may
be incased in an impermeable, durable, elastic coating, to which copper
sheathing will closely adhere, as if the bottom of the vessel, the coating,
and the copper were one solid material.
The interstices between the floor timbers of ships and vessels may
also be filled up (to the exclusion of bilge water), whereby the frame
will be united, as if formed of a single block, and the vessel rendered
healthy.
Having now described the nature of my Invention, I declare that
my claims are,
First, I claim the means herein set forth of continuing or imparting
the solvent power of heat to facticious bituminous compounds, in order
thereby to unite and consolidate materials under water for the con-
struction or protection of submerged foundations; I claim the manu-
facture of bituminous cemented bottoms for caisoons, the conglomerating
of shingle or sand on beaches or in rivers, and the use of such adhesive
bituminous compounds to arrest rolling gravel or shifting substances,
which now frequently block up the entrances of ports and rivers.

page_text: Secondly, I claim the use and application of the bitumens of New
Brunswick and Trinidad, prepared and combined as aforesaid, which
preparations may advantageously be applied to purposes to which gutta
percha or caoutchouc have or can be employed.
Thirdly, I claim the use of such prepared bituminous substances,
whether artificial or natural, for the joining of pipes and incasing the
bottoms of ships and vessels in a continuous, unbroken, adhesive, clastic,
and impermeable coating,
Fourthly, I claim the use and application of the aforesaid viscid
unctuous oils as preservative of vegetable gums and resins.
In witness whereof, I, the said Earl of Dundonald, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Fifth day of May, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three.
DUNDONALD. (L.S.)
15 Witness,
S. CARPMAEL.