AN IMPROVED METHOD OF CON- STRUCTING NAVIGABLE CANALS WITHOUT THE USE OF LOCKS OF INCLINED PLANES, AND WHEREBY MOST OF THE OBJECTIONS TO AND INCONVENIENCES ARISING FROM CANALS ARE EFFECTUALLY REMOVED
Year: 1794

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, EDWARD
ROWLAND and EXUPERIUS PICKERING, of the Parish of Ruabon, in the County
of Denbigh, Gentlemen, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Eighteenth day of March, in the thirty-fourth year of His
reign, give and grant unto us, the said Edward Rowland and Exuperius
Pickering, His especial licence that we, the said Edward Rowland and
Exuperius Pickering, during the term of years therein mentioned, should and
lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, our Invention of "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF CON-
STRUCTING NAVIGABLE CANALS WITHOUT THE USE OF LOCKS OF INCLINED PLANES,
AND WHEREBY MOST OF THE OBJECTIONS TO AND INCONVENIENCES ARISING FROM
CANALS ARE EFFECTUALLY REMOVED;" in which said Letters Patent there is
contained a proviso obliging us, the said Edward Rowland and Exuperius
Pickering, by an instrument in writing under our hands and seals, to 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 His Majesty's High

page_text: Court of Chancery within one calendar month after the date of the said
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same relation being thereunto had,
may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
Edward Rowland and Exuperius Pickering, do hereby declare that our said
Invention is described in manner following, that is to say :-
First, in order to erect our machinery for the purpose of raising a commer-
cial boat from a lower canal to an upper one, or lowering the same from an
upper canal, a space of land on a horizontal plane betwixt the upper and the
lower canal will be necessary. The length and breadth of such space of land to be
according to the size of the machinery, and the size of the machinery to be in
proportion to the dimensions of a commercial boat and ladling of any respective
canal, and which the machinery may be intended to convey. The difference of the
height of the two canals may be from one foot to a hundred as the machinery
in question may be built to serve any intermediate height, or greater, if
necessary. In the space of land above mentioned must be made a well, whose
depth must be as much as the perpendicular height of the upper canal from
the lower, with a further allowance for the depth of a diving chest, intended to
be put therein (the magnitude of the diving chest will be described hereafter).
The width of the well, if for boats of twenty-five to twenty-eight ton burden,
may be ten feet, and length from forty-five to forty-eight feet, and so in
proportion to any other sized boats. The top of the well to be rather below
the plane of the bottom of the lower canal; the well to be filled with water,
and to contain a diving chest, which is intended to be sunk or raised in the well
at pleasure. The diving chest may be made iu manner and form of a boat, but
clos'd at top, and that so exactly that no water shall be admitted, tho' sunk to
the bottom of the well. Its dimensions, if for boats of twenty-eight ton burden,
must contain eighteen hundred cubic feet vacuity, which would require a pres-
sure of fifty ton weight, in order to inimerge it in water. The weight for
ifore-mentioned purpose, and to balance it exactly, may be be considered, first,
pillars upon the diving chest of a length equal to the height of the upper canal
from the top of the chest, when just immerged in the water of the well, and which
may be made of iron or wood at the discretion of the builder; six or eight
will generally be sufficient; the pillars, if made of iron, and of sufficient strength,
and twenty-one foot long (which will be a length most ordinarily useful) will
be about six ton weight; but the length of the pillars will entirely depend
upon the height of the upper canal from the lower one. Upon the top of the
pillars must be fixed a cradle, to be made in the shape of a boat, and of a size

page_text: Pillars, six ton.
Cradle, six"
Water in the cradle, thirty-eight ton.
just so much larger as will admit of a commercial boat within it; the cradle
to have a door or slide at each end, to be opened or shut occasionally. The
doors or slides to be just so much wider than a commercial boat as will give
room for a boat to float in and out of the cradle freely. The doors or slides
of the cradle to be fitted so exactly that when leathered in the joints, and
shut or put down, no water may be lost; the weight of the cradle will be
about six ton, and the water that it must contain, in order that a commercial
boat may float in and out, will be about thirty-cight ton. The whole of the
weight fifty ton. The diving chest thus balanced;
the commercial vessel coming into or out of the
cradle will make no difference to the balance;
for when the boat with its freight enters the cradle, it displaces as much
water as its own weight; and when the boat leaves the cradle, as much
water succeeds as keeps the machine in equilibrium. At the end of each canal
that corresponds with the land wherein the machinery is erected, must be gates
or doors, such as would be necessary to communicate with a common lock, with
this difference only, the gates or doors of the lower canal need not be higher
than the water in the lower canal, and to open the contrary way. As one end
of the cradle will correspond with the gates of the lower canal when lowered to
the same plane, the framing of the doors or gates of such lower canal must be
made to fit the corresponding end of the cradle, and jointed so exactly that,
when covered with leather or wadding of oakum, and draws forcibly together
by dogs or screw bolts, no water may be lost. The same must be observed
with the framing of the gates or doors of the upper canal, and which must be
made to fit the corresponding end of the cradle when the cradle is drawn up
to the same plane with the upper canal, in all respects as the other before
mentioned. When the commercial boat is intended to be conveyed from the-
canal to the cradle, the cradle is to be bolted or screwed to the framing of the
doors of the canal, and then the door or slide of the cradle drawn up or opened,
and the doors of the canal opened; the boat is then free to float into the cradle; :
then the doors and slides of the canal and cradle being shut, and the bolts drawn
back or unscrewed, the cradle is prepared for ascending or descending, according
to its respective situation. It may be worked by a rack and pinions, or with a
capstan with ropes, &c. &c. A frame must be made from the bottom of the well
to the height of the upper canal on both sides the machinery, for the whole to
slide up and down in with freedom and exactness, and with rollers at the sides
and ends of the cradle and diving chest, to prevent any great degree of
friction. It would cause the machinery to move with greater exactness if, on

page_text: the sides and near each corner on the top of the framing, there was a largo
pulley for a ropo to pass over; one end of which rope should be fastened.to the
cradle, and at the other end a weight suspendod. The weights may be of
any magnitude that may be found convenient. to. regulate the machinery; for
instance, suppose four, two on each side, of one ton weight each, then the diving
chest may be made proportionally less. The weight answering the same put-
poso as the vacuity in the diving chost, and the whole load that rests upon the
pillars may bo balanced by weight alone, and do without the diving chest and
pillars, if in any particular situation it should be found diflicult to make a well
with security. In our models wo find only this difference, that the balancing
by weight is a cause of greater friction, and will require a framing so much the
stronger in proportion to the number and magnitude of the weights employed, and
also a capstan, such that a horse niay be applied to in or to work the machinery,
the weights may be connected to the cradle either by ropes or chains. It must be
observed that the machinery when crected with the living chest, and prepared
for descending, that the pillars. whether of iron or wood, as they descend into
the water, lose, if of iron, some of their absolute gravity, if of wood, the whole.
In order to regulate the difference that will be caused by the pillars descending
in water, it will be necessary to have a conical barrel, with a weight and ropo
proportionate to regulate the difference; the weight to be so applied as to
assist in forcing down the cradle in proportion as the pillars lose of their gravity.
The machine, whether with weights or a diving chest for a lialauce, will act
with the same uniformity with respect to the cradle that receives the commer-
cial vessel, and will make no other difference but the quantity of friction in one
case more than the other. Further, if a commercial boat be empty, or but half
laden. it will make no difference to the machinery acting, as a portion of water
will always remain in the cradle proportionate to the levity of the commercial
vessel and its freight. The machine with the diving chest may, in some situn-
tions, be applied with advantage to the use of water engines for mines, or
manufacturing of iron, cotton, &c. &c. &c.
In witness whereof, we, the said Edward Rowland and Exuperius
Pickering. have hereunto set our hands and seals, the first day of
April, One thousand seven hundred and ninety-four.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same First day of April, in the
year above written, the aforesaid Edward Rowland and Exuperius Pickering
came before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Spe-
cification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained, in form above
written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the
tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided.