TREATING FISH FOR OIL, AND UTILISING THE PRODUCTS OF SUCH PROCESS
Year: 1855

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Eathorne Gill, of Totnes, Devonshire,
Engineer, and Henry Brinsley Sheridan, of Parsons Green, in the County
of Middlesex, Gentleman, for the Invention of "TREATING FISH FOR OIL,
AND UTILISING THE PRODUCTS OF SUCH PROCESS."
Sealed the 2nd October 1855, and dated the 3rd April 1855.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Eathorne Gill
and Henry Brinsley Sheridan at the Office of the Commissioners of
Patents, with their Petition, on the 3rd April 1855.
We, WILLIAM EATHORNE GILL, of Totnes, Devonshire, Engineer, and
HENRY BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, of Parsons Green, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "TREATING
FISH FOE OIL, AND UTILISING THE PRODUCTS OF SUCH PROCESS," to be as follows:-
We take fish, or any part or parts of fish, and subject the same to great
pressure between iron rolls or rollers, having dissimilar speeds, and being
geared together with suitable gearing. This frictional pressure ruptures the
cellular tissue of the fish, setting free the oleaginous and aqueous matters,
leaving the solid matter free therefrom to a great extent, and enables the
solid parts to be removed in a consolidated state, ready for further treatment.
The compressed fishy matter, after it has passed through the rolls, falls on

page_text: to an endless web or apron of perforated metal or woven wire, which is made
to traverse, and so arranged as to deposit the solid matter wherever required,
whilst it permits the fluid matters to obey the laws of gravitation, and fall
through the openings, meshes, or perforations of the web or apron. The fluid
matter is received in suitable vessels or troughs beneath the apron, web, or
perforated band. The solid matter may be made to fall from the apron or
web into an iron trough having a circular bottom. We provide this trough
with an archimedian screw, made to revolve by suitable gearing from the
prime mover, and thus the matter will be gradually removed, and at pleasure
accumulated in suitable receptacles.
The oily matter obtained may be separated, purified, or treated by any of
the known processes, to make it suitable for the various purposes to which
it may be applied.
The consolidated fishy matter may be made further suitable for being used
as a highly fertilizing manure, and such a preparation as we shall denominate
normal guano, by the further processes we proceed to describe. We proceed
to convey the materials which have been deposited in the trough, as previously
described, by means of an archimedian screw or endless chain and brackets,
into the highest of a series of metallic troughs, having circular bottoms, and,
say, of twelve feet long each. These troughs are each surrounded by a metal
case, or steam-tight jacket, into which we introduce steam from a suitable
steam boiler, so as to subject the contents of each trough to a temperature of at
Icast 180°, whereby the water remaining in the fishy matter is vapourised, and
the material is propelled in the direction of the length of each tube or trough
by an archimedian screw revolving in each; at the upper part of the entrance
end of each trough I provide a funnel-shaped opening or hopper to receive
the material, and at the under side of the opposite end of the same trough I
arrange an opening or shoot, into which the fishy matter falls, and so into the
hopper of the tube or trough beneath, the screw of which is made to revolve
in the contrary direction so as to deliver the contents of such trough at the
opposite end thereof, and so on from that trough to the next lower in the
series, so as to continue the process of drying until the normal guano is in
such a state as to admit of its being stored ready for use. As soils are known
to differ in their composition, and so require an adjustment of the manures
applied to them, we introduce any required saline or other ingredient in deter-
mined proportions into the first of the series of evaporating and mixing troughs,
so that all may be well incorporated together. We also introduce blood, bone,
or other animal or focal matter when desirable.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said William Eathorne Gill and Henry Brinsley Sheridan in the
Great Seal Patent Office on the 3rd October 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, WILLIAM
EATHORNE GILL, of Totness, Devonshire, Engineer, and HENRY BRINSLEY
SHERIDAN, of Parsons Green, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Third day of April, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, in the seventeenth year of Her reigu,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said
William Earthorne Gill and Henry Brinsley Sheridan, Her special licence
that we, the said William Eathorne Gill and Henry Brinsley Sheridan, our
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as we, the said William
Eathorne Gill and Henry Brinsley Sheridan, our 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 "TREATING FISH FOR OIL, AND UTILISING THE PRODUCTS OF SUCH
PROCESS," upon the condition (amongst others) that we, the said William
Eathorne Gill and Henry Brinsley Sheridan, by an instrument in writing
under our hand and seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be
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 we, the said William Eathorne Gill and Henry
Brinsley Sheridan, do hereby declare the nature of our said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement:-
Hitherto fish has been used in some situations for manuring land unprepared,
being thrown upon the land in a more or less decomposed state; or the refuse
of fish markets has been treated chemically and combined with other chemi-
cally prepared materials to form a compost for manuring land; fish has also
been treated with acids and otherwise chemically prepared and combined;. but
iu all these applications of fish as a manure the full effect of fertilization has.

page_text: been more or less impaired, and where treated chemically, the results attained
have been too costly for commercial use.
But the bones and adjacent parts of fish contain the principal elements of
fertilization, and the flesh, when freed from the oil and perfectly desiccated,
possesses valuable properties as a fertilizer. And it has been found by us in
the course of our experiments that many kinds of fish caught upon the coast
of Ireland, and elsewhere on our sea coasts, are entirely wasted, being sepa-
rated from the more commercially valuable fish, and thrown back into the sea;
and in the fish preserving and curing establishments, both at home and abroad,
the flesh is separated from the bony parts, head, &c.; the latter being thrown
away as valueless. Now, it is more particularly to perfectly apply these valuable
materials at present wasted that our Invention is intended; for such mate-
rials treated according to our Invention produce a manure equalled only in its
fertilizing properties by the best Peruvian guano, and as, unlike the chemically
prepared compositions, fish material prepared according to our Invention has
no tendency to secondary decomposition, or to become in anywise impaired by
time, when properly packed and stored. And we have found by chemical
analysis of some of the samples of waste fish material prepared by us according
to our Invention, that the following high results have been attained; and the
following analysis, although here given by way of example, is not the unvarying
result of our Invention applied to every kind of fish, (as will be readily under-
stood by any practical man,) inasmuch as the bones, gut, and other waste parts
of fish vary in their per-centage of the gross weight of the materials treated,
as well as varying in their chemical proportions and quantities, but the cost of
treating the most useful or chemically valuable fish, or parts of fish, is the
same as treating the poorer kinds.
Analysis of sample of manure prepared according to our Invention:-

page_text: We take fish, or any part or parts of fish, and subject the same to great
pressure between iron rolls or rollers, having so arranged the connections
between the said rolls or rollers and the prime mover, by cog wheels or other
contrivance for communicating motion, so that these rolls or rollers shall have
a dissimilar speed; and that difference of speed we have found to best suit our
purpose is, when one roll has made twelve revolutions, the other has also made
fifteen revolutions in the same time. But we do not confine ourselves to that
particular relation of speed, but allow the speed to be regulated by the nature
of the fish used, seeing the tougher fish, such as dog fish, would invite a greater
difference of speed, perhaps as twelve is to eighteen, to secure a sufficient
rupture of the tissue of the fish, and facilitate the expulsion of its oleaginous
and aqueous contents when pressed by the rollers or rolls. This frictional
pressure to which the fish has thus been subjected by rolls of as large
diameter as may be convenient, affords two results, the one solid and the
other liquid.
The solid or compressed fishy we receive on an endless apron of open-
wove iron or zinc wire, and by it is conveyed, when put in motion by any
connection with the prime mover, direct or indirect, into an open trough, in
which is made to work or revolve an endless or archimedian screw. T'he
operation of this screw is to bring to one end of the said trough what-
ever solid matter may have been brought over by the said endless web or
apron, and had been allowed to fall therefrom into this trough. This solid
matter now accumulated in a suitable recepticle placed for that purpose
at the further end of the trough, and an endless chain or belt made to
carry a series of buckets, dips into this recepticle, and removes or conveys
the solid fishy contents to a higher level, which motion is also derived from
the prime mover by any of the many well-known mechanical arrangements.
This solid fishy matter is thus raised sufficiently high to be delivered
into the upper one of a series of iron troughs; in each of these troughs
a worm or archimedian screw is made to revolve, and is so arranged as
to cause the contents to pass from one end of the trough, where it was
received by an opening in its upper side, to the other end of the trough,
where its contents are delivered by their gravity through a suitable opening
in the lower side, where the said contents are allowed to fall into an
opening in the upper part of the trough next and immediately below it in
the series of troughs, the screw of which is made to revolve in the contrary
direction, so as to deliver the contents of such trough at the opposite end
thereof, and so on from that trough to the next lower in the series. This
process is repeated through five or six of such troughs, or until the normal

page_text: guano which was the fishy matter has become sufficiently dry for commercial
purposes.
The liquid portion of the produce from the rolls passes through the wire-
wove endless apron, and is received on an inclined platform, and flows off by
suitable channels into tanks. It may now be treated as desired by the usual
process of boiling, skiming, &c., or by allowing the water and the oil, &c. the
opportunity and time to obey the laws of gravity when the separation of a cheap
article is desired.
The oily matter obtained may be separated, purified, or treated by any of the
known processes to make it suitable for the various purposes to which it may
be applied. It may be desirable when in a large manufacture to arrange over
the rolls two sets of toothed rolls, similar to those used in bone-crushing mills,
and the fish may there be primarily treated as bones are crushed, and the supply
to the rolls be thus regulated with a great accuracy.
The troughs in which the archimedian screws revolve are of iron of a
crescent form, having a longitudinal opening on the upper part, as is formed
of two thicknesses or sheets of iron, having a row of rivets on each side of the
longitudinal opening, to join them together, and an increasing space to three
inches immediately under the centre of the trough; this space to be filled with
steam of three hundred degrees or more from the boiler. We prefer an
adaptation or modification of the archimedian screw, where employed, so
that it be not a continuous web or blade, but a series of bolts having
their ends bent to the same angle as the blade of such a screw as would
be necessary, and properly secured to the centre or shaft. Our intention
in this arrangement is to break up the cakes or clots of fishy matter, to
facilitate the drying of it, and produce a normal guano in every respect fit for
the immediate use of the agriculturists. But as soils are known to differ
in their composition, and so require an adjustment of the manures applied
to them, we introduce any required saline or other ingredients, in deter-
mined proportions, into the first of the series of evaporating and mixing
troughts, so that all may be well incorporated together. We also introduce
blod, bone, or other animal or fecal matter when desirable.
Having fully described our Invention, its peculiarities, and relation to some
existing and more or less well-known processes, we wish it to be understood
that we do not claim the expressing of oil from fish by rollers, mounted and
geared in the ordinary manner of mounting and gearing rollers for crushing
or compressing such like materials;
s; nor when such treatment is performed
upon fish for producing and utilizing the oil alone, as, for instance, in treating
the livers and parts of the cod fish for cod liver oil. But we claim, treating

page_text: fish for oil in the manner described, by which the cellular tissues of the fish,
both of flesh and bones, are thoroughly ruptured, and the fluids liberated and
expressed therefrom, the fluid parts being separated from the solid parts, and
by the further mechanical contrivances described, or their equivalents, for
breaking up, carrying on, and mixing the solid matter, as also the combination
of the heat from steam introduced into parts of such mechanical arrange-
ments, by which the solid parts of such fishy matter are gradually desiccated
in their progress through the machine, and while in course of manufacture,
by which it is converted into normal guano, which may be used either alone
or in combination with other matters which may be mechanically combined
therewith.
We also claim the differential arrangement of geared rollers, and the
other mechanical parts described, whether they be employed separately or
combined when used for treating fish for producing a manure, and whether
the oil expressed from the fish or parts of fish be made commercially useful
or not.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Eathorne Gill, on behalf of
myself and Henry Brinsley Sheridan, have hereunto set my hand and
scal, this Third day of April, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and fifty-five.
WILLIAM EATHORNE GILL. (L.S.)
Witness,
WILLIAM SMITH, C.E.,
10, Salisbury St. Adelphi.