IMPROVEMENTS IN FOG AND OTHER SIGNALS
Year: 1863

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Gilbert Troward Key, Lieutenant in Her Majesty's
Royal Navy, of Portsmouth, in the County of Hants, for the Invention
of "IMPROVEMENTS IN FOG AND OTHER SIGNALS."
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Gilbert Troward Key at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition and
Declaration, on the 25th March 1863, pursuant to the 9th Section
of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GILBERT
TROWARD KEY, Lieutenant in Her Majesty's Royal Navy, of Portsmouth, in
the County of Hants, send greeting.
WHEREAS I am in possession of an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
FOG AND OTHER SIGNALS," and have petitioned Her Majesty to grant unto me,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, Her Royal Letters Patent for
the same, and have made solemn declaration that I am the true and first
Inventor thereof.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Gilbert Troward Key, do hereby
declare that the following Complete Specification under my hand and seal
fully describes and ascertains the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, in and by the following statement, that is
to say:
This Invention consists in the application of bellows to sound a wind
instrument (such as a fog horn, the born entering the bellows and forming

page_text: the spout) or two or more differently sounding wind instruments, (as for
example, a fog horn and whistle,) for signalling during fogs and at other
times.
The bellows may be made in different ways, as for example, single acting,
such as those in ordinary use for blowing fires, or double acting, such as those
used by blacksmiths.
The single-acting bellows may be inflated by the action of a spring, which
would keep the two boards apart, so that no pulling out would be necessary,
and the sound would be produced by a simple compression of the instrument
with the hand or foot. Different wind instruments may be fitted to one pair
of bellows, or bellows with one fixed board, having a moveable board on each
side (the air valves being in the moveable boards) may be fitted with both a
fog horn and whistle, or other differently sounding wind instruments, sounding
either as required; (the instruments being placed on opposite sides of the fixed
or centre board respectively.) Both the bellows and wind instruments may
be made of various materials.
By the use of two or more instruments producing different notes, or a
single instrument producing two or more notes, or a single instrument pro-
ducing one note, but varying the length of the note or the intervals between
the notes or both, a complete code of signals by sounds may be established.
This system of signalling by a single instrument or by several is especially
adapted for use at sea during fogs and at other times when the ordinary
method of day or night signalling at present in use by flags and lights is not
available or desirable.
I claim as my Invention the application of bellows to sound a wind
instrument, or two or more wind instruments, for the purposo of signalling.
In witness whereof, I, the said Gilbert Troward Key, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-fifth day of March, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-three.
GILBERT TROWARD KEY. (L.S.)