IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH FIRE-PLACES FOR COOKING FOOD AND HEATING AIR OR LIQUIDS
Year: 1873

page_text: LETTERS -PATENT to James Robert Napier, of Glasgow, in the
County of Lanark, North Britain, Engineer, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH FIRE-PLACES FOR COOKING FOOD
AND HEATING AIR OR LIQUIDS."
Sealed the 9th April 1874, and dated the 17th October 1873.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Robert Napier
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 17th October 1873.
I, JAMES ROBERT NAPIER, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark,
North Britain, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said In-
vention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH FIRE-PLACES FOR COOKING
FOOD AND HEATING AIR OR LIQUIDS," to be as follows, that is to say :—
This Invention has principally for its object to economise fuel used in
cooking food and heating air or liquids, and in carrying it out according
to one modification; a fire-pot by preference made of earthenware having
a grated bottom and open top is placed within, and with.its highest part

page_text: a little below the highest part of a chamber of a considerably larger
horizontal area than the fire-pot and with a free space entirely round the
pot. The chamber is covered by a plate having one or more openings over
the fire, and has an outlet from its lower part into an ordinary chimney
or vent, or into a boiler or water heater, or into a heat radiating drum
as herein-after described, and thence into the chimney or vent.
The envelope or walls of the chamber may be a casing of sheet or
cast iron, or of brickwork, or a combination thereof; or it may be a
water casing or cistern with inlet and outlet pipes, and supplied
from a tank or the main as in ordinary kitchen range boilers.
Below the ash-pit of the fire-pot and above the outlet in the chamber,
there may be an oven with its door or doors entering through the side
walls of the chamber and a free space all round the remainder of it.
When cooking is required pots of the ordinary construction may be
used if large enough to cover the opening over the fire, or pots of
small sizes if cased or flanged so as to cover the opening. And there
may be used a portable boiler or kettle shaped to envelope the
fire on all sides except at the bottom; being made with an annular
or otherwise concentrically shaped water space projecting down and
around the fire pot and forming a fire gas holder.
The fire gases after leaving the chamber may be led into the upper
part of the gas holding part of a waste heat boiler, similar to the portable
one already described, with an outlet from its lower part into the
chimney or vent or into the upper part of a heat radiating drum or
casing having an outlet from its lower part into the chimney or vent.
The fire gases having with the herein-before described arrangements
to descend in the chamber, or in the waste heat boiler, or in the heat
radiating drum, finally escape with the least possible heat in them
relatively to the surface traversed, and a large portion of the heat
which in ordinary arrangements is allowed to pass unused up the
chimney is saved.
The waste heat boiler or the heat radiating drum may be in a different
apartment from the fire chamber part.
-There may also be a number of fire-pots in one chamber, forming a
moking hotte

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said James Robert Napier in the Great Seal Patont
*Office on the 15th April 1874.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
ROBERT NAPIER, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain,
Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by' Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Seventeenth day of October, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, in
the thirty-seventh year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, give and grant unto me; the said James Robert Napier,
Her special licence that I, the said James Robert Napier, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said James
Robert Napier, 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 "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH FIRE-PLACES FOR
COOKING FOOD AND HEATING AIR OR LIQUIDS,".upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said James Robert Napier, my executors or
administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or
one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was
to bo performed, 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 James Robert Napier, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and
by the following statement in writing, reference being had to the
accompanying Drawings, that is to say :-

page_text: My said Invention has principally for its object to economise fuel used.
in cooking food and heating air or liquids.
And in order that my said Invention and the manner of performing
the same may be properly understood, I hereunto append a Sheet of
explanatory Drawings to be herein-after referred to, and representing &
examples of cooking and heating apparatus as made with my improve-
ments. In these Drawings the same reference numerals are used to
mark the same or like parts wherever they are repeated..
Figure 1 is a vertical section of a modification of my improved fire-
places designed for heating, the air of a room. In this fireplace there is 1
a fire-pot 1, by preference made of earthenware, and represented as
supported inside of an iron tube or cylinder 2. This fire-pot 1 has ¸a
grated bottom 3 and open top, and it is placed within and with its.
highest part a little below the highest part of a chamber 4 of
considerably larger horizontal area than the fire-pot, and with a free 1
space entirely round the fire-pot. The chamber 4 is covered by a plate 5
having an opening over the fire, and in this opening I prefer to set a
tube 6 projecting down inside the fire-pot 1, and having a cap which
is perforated for the admission of some air to the top of the fire, and
which may have a valve for regulating the quantity of air so admitted. 2
Part or it may be the whole of the air requisite for the combustion of
the fuel in the fire-pot 1 is admitted by a passage 7 into the ash-pit 8,
and its amount may be regulated by a valve at the entrance of the

page_text: Pots or vessels 10 of the ordinary construction may be used, being
by preference large enough to cover the openings over the fires, or pots
of small sizes may be used if cased or flanged so as to cover the
openings; and there is used a portable boiler or kettle 11 shaped to
envelope the fire on all sides except at the bottom, being made with an
annular or otherwise concentrically-shaped water space 12 projecting
down and round the fire-pot 1 and forming a fire gas holder.
Round one of the fire-pots there is constructed an annular boiler or
water heater 13, which may be supplied from a tank or the main as in
ordinary kitchen range boilers.
The fire gases from the fire-pots 1 pass down annular spaces 14, 15,
formed round each pot and corresponding to the chamber 4 of Figure 1
into a space 16 at the base of the range.
I proposed to place an oven beneath the ash-pit of a fire-pot, but I'
now disclaim such an arrangement, as I do not think it so convenient as
placing an oven 17 as shown in Figures 2 and 3, that is to say, to the
side of a fire-pot or between two fire-pots..
It will be seen from the horizontal section, Figure 2, that the oven
space is extended entirely round the annular chamber 14 for the down-
ward passage of the gases from one of the fire-pots, so that it
receives heat from all parts of the shell of that chamber 14.
It will further be seen from the vertical section, Figure 3, that the
bottom of the oven space 17 is heated by the fire gases in the bottom
space 16; and it is also heated at one side by the gases passing up a
space 18. This space 18 surrounds the boiler or water heater 13; and
the gases finally pass from it to the chimney by a flue or passage 19
indicated by dotted lines in Figure 2; or if preferred the gases may be
led from the back of the bottom space 16 directly to the chimney
without passing up the side flue 18.
The combination of two fire-pots 1, as shown in Figures 2 and 3,
forms a cooking battery, and three or more may be similarly combined;
and when there is more than one fire-pot in the battery or range, there
may be a single final outlet flue for the gases, or separate ones for the
several fire-pots or sets of fire-pots..
In a convenient arrangement where different amounts of heat are
required at different times, two fire-pots 1 as shown in the horizontal

page_text: L
section, Figure 4, are substituted for one of those in the modification
shown in Figures 1 and 2, so that one, two, or three fires may be used
at a time according to requirement. The several fire-pots of a battery
may
also be of different sizes.
Figures 5 and 6 are horizontal and vertical sections of a cooking 5
range with a single fire-pot 1, but constructed so that the fire gases after
descending into the bottom space 16 pass up a tube 20 into the upper
part of a cavity 21 in the bottom of a boiler or water heater 22 formed
with an annular downwardly projecting water space 12 surrounding the
cavity 21. The fire gases issuing from the top of the tube 20 descend 10
again between the tube and the annular water space 12, and then
. proceed to the chimney by the flues 18, 19.
This improved mode of applying the "waste" or partly used fire
- gases for heating a boiler or water heater 22 may be advantageously
adopted with boilers, or heaters of various sizes, and whatever may be 15
the source of the partly used fire gases. In this way for example, the
"waste" heat of puddling furnaces or iron heating furnaces may be
applied to steam boilers.
If the fire gases have still any available heat after leaving any of the
modifications of apparatus herein-before described, they may be led into 20
the upper part of a heat radiating drum or casing having an outlet
from its lower part into a chimney or vent; and such heat radiating
drum or casing may be in the same apartment as or in a different
apartment from that in which the heat generating apparatus is placed.
As in all my improved arrangements herein-before described the fire 25
gases or gaseous mixtures resulting from the combustion of the fuel
. have to descend in the chambers (4, 14, 15,) or in the "waste" heat
chamber (21), or in the "waste" heat radiating drum, they finally
escape with the least possible heat in them relatively to the surface
traversed, and a large portion of the heat which in ordinary arrange- 30
ments is allowed to pass. unused up the chimney is saved.
The fuel I prefer to use in my improved apparatus is gas coke or
smokeless fuel, but other kinds of fuel may also be used in it.
Having thus particularly described my said Invention and the manner
of performing the same, I have to state that I do not restrict myself 35
to the precise details herein described or delineated, but that what I

page_text: believe to be novel and original, and claim as the Invention secured to
me by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is,―
1. The arranging or combining together of the parts of fire-places for
cooking food or for heating air or liquids in the improved modes,
substantially as herein described and delineated.
2. The setting of the fire-pot or vessel in which the fuel is burned in
an annular or other chamber surrounding the fire-pot, and in which
chamber the fire gases descend, as herein-before described.
3. The constructing of a kettle, water heater, or steam boiler, with an
annular or other water space projecting down so as to surround the fire,
or so as to surround the upper part of a tube, from the top of which
the fire gases issue, substantially as and for the purposes herein-before
described.
In witness whercof, I, the said James Robert Napier, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of April, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-
described.
In witness whercof, I, the said James Robert Napier, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Fourteenth day of April, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-
four.
Witness,
EDMUND HUNT,
Patent Agent,
Glasgow.
JAMES R. NAPIER. (L:s.)