CERTAIN APPARATUS FOR GIVING MOTION TO MACHINERY, PART OF WHICH IS ALSO APPLICABLE TO HYDRAULIC AND PNEUMATIC PURPOSES
Year: 1810

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, MARC
ISAMBARD BRUNEL, of Chelsea, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom, bearing date
at Westminster, the First day of October, in the fiftieth year of His reign, give
and grant unto me, the said Marc Isambard Brunel, my exors, adñiors, and
assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I;
the said Marc Isambard Brunel, my exors, adŵiors, and assigns, 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,
an Invention communicated to him by a certain Foreigner residing abroad, of
CERTAIN APPARATUS FOR GIVING MOTION TO MACHINERY, PART OF WHICH IS ALSO
APPLICABLE TO HYDRAULIC AND PNEUMATIC PURPOSES;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Marc Isambard Brunel, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description
of the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within
six calendar months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Marc Isambard Brunel, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Inven-
tion, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, and particularly
'described and ascertained as follows, that is to say:-

page_text: In a vessel or receptacle containing cold water I fix a pump or other
mechanical instrument or organ, by means of which the common air can be
forced down to a suitable depth in the water, which depth depends on the
magnitude of the effect intended to be produced; but that among the various
instruments or organs, such as inverted buckets wheels, pump bellows, and
other well-known apparatus, I do give the preference to the inclined hollow
screw, known by the name of the screw of Archimedes; and by means of
the said instrument or organ I do force down air, and suffer the same to
escape into an inverted funnel, and thence thro' a pipe by which the said air
is conveyed to the lower part of a vessel or a receptacle containing hot
water, which may be heated by means of a fire kept up expressly for that
purpose, or which may in many cases be afforded with great economy in
such works as employ or produce hot water to be afterwards thrown away;
and, farther, I do place and suitably fix in the said last-mentioned vessel
or recepticle a bucket wheel of the same kind as those which are called over-
shot wheels, and I do so direct the escape of the air from the conducting pipe
before mentioned as that the said air shall ascend beneath the buckets of
the said wheel, where it will produce by its buoyancy an effect of the same
kind as would be produced by water delivered into the descending buckets of
the said wheel, if it had be placed in the open air instead of its being immersed
in hot water; and with regard to the proportional depth of water in each of
the two vessels or recepticles, the heighth of the column of cold water
(measured from the base of the inverted funnel before mentioned to the sur-
face of the fluid) should exceed the height of the column of hot water, in
order that the pressure of the higher column may overcome the resistance of
the lower, and convey the air thro' the conducting pipe from one vessel or
recepticle into the other. And I do further declare, that the said ascending
air may be made to produce motion by its buoyancy, if allowed to act under
an inverted vessel, but I give the preference to the wheel before described;
and in order that the operation and effect of my said apparatus may be more
clearly apprehended and understood, I do declare, that the ascending air, by
being brought into contact with the hot water, doth become greatly enlarged
in its dimensions beyond the dimensions of the same air when forced down
thro' the cold water, and that in consequence thereof the mechanical force
communicated to the wheel by the ascending air is much greater than the
force required to turn or give motion to the Archimedes screw or instrument
or organ employed as aforesaid in forcing the same down when cold; and
that I do employ a part of the said greater force in giving motion to the said
screw, instrument, or organ, and the remaining part in giving motion to

page_text: machinery, and that I consider it to be altogether unnecessary to describe the
immediate means or connections by which such communication of motion is
or may be made, because the same are capable of great variety, and cannot
but be obvious to any millwright or competent person. And further I do
declare, that altho' the dense fluid water, being the most cheap and universally
applicable in large works, hath been taken and declared as the medium for
operating in the said apparatus, the same effect may be produced by other
dense fluids in that part of my said apparatus in which the air is made to
descend, and that mercury in particular my be used with the said screw,
as the dense fluid for raising water in the method, called suction, or for
forcing the same by a reserved motion, and the same screw may be used
to propel air instead of bellows, when the same shall be suffered to escape in
its cold state, instead of transferring it into hot water as aforesaid. And
I do further apply the said screw, immersed in mercury, to carry down and
exclude air from a receiver communicating with the space above the upper
apperature thereof, which square must for this last-mentioned purpose be
secured from communication with the external air, and that the said screw,
with the vessel of mercury and receiver, do with much facility and advantage
produce the effect of the air pump.
In witness whereof, I, the said Marc Isambard Brunel, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, the Thirtieth day of March, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and eleven.