MENTS IN PORTABLE SEATS, STOOLS, OR CHAIRS."
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Elsey Mouland at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 14th October 1880.
JOHN ELSEY MOULAND, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster. ** IMPROVE-
MENTS IN PORTABLE SEATS, STOOLS, OR CHAIRS."
My Invention relates to that class of folding camp, steamboat or picnic stool,
in which cross legs are pivotted to the seat in pairs, and in which the folding is
accomplished by the pivots of one pair sliding in slots in the other. Though only
described for stools, it will be obvious that it is also applicable for other seats or
chairs.
In the class of stools as now constructed it is very difficult, and almost impossible
to make the stool sufficiently light for ready transportation, and at the same time
stiff and solid enough as not to be liable to sway from side to side by the
movements of the occupant or by the motion of the vessel, and thus eventually
become so loosened as to fall down and be rendered useless. These difficulties are
fully described by my Invention, which consists of a seat secured by pins to the
frame of a slightly tapering form, that is, the bars forming it are larger on their
upper surface. To these bars the two pair of cross legs are pivotted. On each bar
of one of these legs is a pin sliding in slots cut in the two bars of the other leg.
The two bars of the unslotted legs are strengthened by braces and transverse bars
preferably rivetted. The slotted bars of the other leg have also two transverse bars
just above and below the slots, whereby the splitting of the leg is prevented and
additional strength imparted thereto. These bars also act as stops to prevent the
stool being carried beyond the plane in which it is folded, and to serve as a stop
to take the strain and weight of the stool when in use off the pivots and the upper
walls of the slots. The unslotted legs are also reinforced by two transverse bars
rivetted thereto, as above described.
The width of the seat frame between the tops of the legs that are unslotted is so
much less than that across the tops of the slotted legs as to allow of the pivotting
and sliding of the former within the latter, and it is this construction which of
two pairs of legs, and the seat being brought into line with each other in one.
and the same plane, when the stool is to occupy a compact position to be carried
by hand from place to place so as to be packed away in small compass.
Within the frame under the seat may be secured a sheet of cork, which adds
buoyancy, and adapts it for use as a life preserver in case of need. Waste pieces of
cork or cork dust may be employed instead of a single sheet, in which case the

page_text: seat would be provided with a top and bottom strip in the space between which
the filling of cork would be placed.
I also arm the legs with india rubber feet, when used on yachts and passenger
steamers, or with a small pad on each foot, as the india rubber pad not merely
deadens the sound through the deck into the cabin beneath when chairs are moved
or tilted, but it prevents the stools from slipping when the deck is at a steep angle
during lurches.
In describing the above Invention I do not bind myself to the exact arrange-
ment of parts herein described, as it will be obvious that the position of the slotted
and non legs can be reversed without in any way altering the Invention's
character.