AN IMPROVED METHOD OR PROCESS OF MAKING AND MANUFACTURING OF, SAL AMMONIAC AND GLANBER AND OTHER SALTS FOR ALL COMMERCIAL PURPOSES
Year: 1792

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
MENISH,, of the Parish of Saint Mary, i Whitechapel, in the County.of
Middlesex, Chymist, 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 West-
minster, the Fifth day of July, in the thirty-second year of His reign, give and
grant unto me, the said William Menish, His especial licence that I, the said
William Menish, 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, my, Invention of "AN IMPROVED METHOD OR PROCESS
OF MAKING AND MANUFACTURING OF, SAL AMMONIAC AND GLANBER AND OTHER SALTS
FOR ALL COMMERCIAL PURPOSES;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained
a proviso, obliging me, the said William Menish, by, an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my
said Invention, and in what manner the same, is to be performed, to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within three calendar months after
the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation
being thereunto had) will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Menish, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described in
manner following, that is to say :-
Mix together any quantity of vitriol, of lime, gypsom, selenite, plaister, stone,
plaister of Paris, alabaster, or any other substance, by whatever name called
or known, that is composed of calcareous earth united to vitriolic acid, either
calcined or not calcined, reduced to powder, with such a quantity of volatile
alkali, either in the state of salt dissolved in water, or in the state of solution
in which it is commonly drawn, and called volatile alkaline spirit, as shall be
sufficient to decompose the gypson or selenite, and saturate the vitriolic acid.
The quantity of each the operator will readily ascertain by experience, as no
specific proportion can be laid down, the volatile alkaline solution or spirit
varying extremely in the quantity of volatile alkaline salt it holds in solution,
which depends on the method employed to extract it, and the state of the
different substances it is extracted from, and also whether the gypsom, selenite,
ct. be free from extraneous substances, and whether it be first calcined or not;
after being mixed and repeatedly stirred together, suffer them to remain some
hours to compleat the decomposition, when the volatile alkaline solution or
spirit will separate the vitriolic acid from the calcareous earth and unite with it,
and the calcareous earth will be precipitated to the bottom, from which the
new combination of volatile alkaline spirit united to the vitriolic acid or vitriolic
ammoniac may be drawn off, and is become fit and proper to be employed in
manufacturing sal ammoniac and Glauber salts; the former salt being com-
posed of marine acid, or acid of sea salt, united to volatile alkali, the latter
consisting of vitriolic acid and mineral alkali, the process of which being
commonly known and practised, is unnecessary to describe.
This Invention is to be understood to refer solely to the formation of vitriolic
ammoniacal. salts, or a solution of them, by means of vitriolic acid united to
calcareous earth, by whatever name it may be called, and for employing the
same in manufacturing of sal ammoniac and Glauber salts for commercial or
other purposes, and not to exclude others from making vitriolic ammoniacal
salts, if made from other substances which have been hitherto used, but to
prevent their employing calcareous earth united to vitriolic acid.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Menish, have hereunto set my
; hand and seal, this Second day of October, in the year of our Lord
One thousand seven hundred and ninety-two.
W* MENISH. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Second day of October,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid William Menish came before
our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
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.