IM- PROVEMENTS IN MAN ENGINES POR RAISING WATER AND LOWERING AND RAISING MEN
Year: 1868

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Morgan Brown, Engineer, of 13, Rue
Gaillon, Paris, in the Empire of France, for the Invention of "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN MAN ENGINES POR RAISING WATER AND LOWERING AND
RAISING MEN." A communication from Peeters Van Dyk, Mining
Engineer, of the Hague, Holland.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Morgan Brown
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 9th November 1868.
I, WILLIAM MORGAN BROWN, Engineer, of 13, Rue Gaillon, Paris, in
the Empire of France, do hereby declare the nature of the said Inven-
tion for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MAN ENGINES FOR RAISING WATER AND LOWERING
AND RAISING MEN," a communication from Peteers Van Dyk, Mining
Engineer, of the Hague, Holland, to be as follows:-
The Invention has for its object improvements in man engines for
raising water and lowering and raising men, and is for the purpose of
utilising the man engine ordinarily employed in lifting the miners as a
means of lifting the water of the mine during the time the man engine is
otherwise unemployed. For this purpose to each shaft of the lifts of the

page_text: man engine is attached a series of tipping buckets which alternately with
each stroke of the lifts are emptied and filled into each other, thus with
every stroke of the one lift lifting all the water in the buckets one stage
and discharging their contents into the buckets of the other lift when at
its lowest point of stroke, and with each stroke discharging one bucket
of water at the day level or ground level of the mine. To suspend the
action of the tipping of the buckets whilst the men are being lifted the
man engine is constructed with a variable stroke, that is, whatever stroke
is used for lifting water a portion of it will be required for the action of
tipping the buckets. When the men are to be lifted the stroke is reduced
by that portion, the remainder being equal to the distance apart of the
landing stage for the men.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said William Morgan Brown in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 15th January 1869.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
MORGAN BROWN, Engineer, of 13, Rue Gaillon, Paris, in the Empire of
France, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Ninth day of November, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, in the thirty-
first year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said William Morgan Brown, Her special licence
that I, the said William Morgan Brown, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, or such others as I, the said William Morgan Brown, mo
executors, administrators, or 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
MAN ENGINES FOR RAISING WATER AND LOWERING AND RAISING MEN," a com-
munication to me by Peeters Van Dyk, Mining Engineer, of the Hague,
Holland, upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said William
Morgan Brown, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in
writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should

page_text: journals and lightly loaded. The repairs are therefore less frequent than
in force pumps for great elevation; there is nothing hidden of the
mechanism, so that it may be easily inspected every day.
B. This man engine having a very great stroke (about 13 ft.) can be
changed into a water lifter, and allows of one shaft being used for the
men and for raising water.
C. One motive power suffices for raising water and for lifting the men,
an important consideration for the mines where the engine working the
man engine is only employed several hours a day.
D. The new apparatus is preferable to pumps for irrigating lands by
reason of the working not being liable to interruption by the earthy
and solid matters which river waters carry in suspension in great
quantities especially in tropical and mountainous countries.
Description of the apparatus, such as the Inventor proposes to
introduce, reserving to himself nevertheless the power to make such
changes in the details as to him would seem useful to improve the
system, for example, in the form of the buckets, and in the way in
which they are tipped, or the manner of guiding the lifts.
Two rods a, a, Figure 1 of the Drawings annexed, are moved in
opposite directions by the beams A and B describing a quarter of a
circle and united together by the rod c; these beams receive their
movement from the connecting rod D, which is itself put in motion by a
rotating shaft. At the lower extremity of each of these shafts is sus-
pended an arrangement of rods or lifts d, d, d', d', nearly similar to those
ordinarily employed in man engines. These two lifts are represented
in Figure 2, the one d, d, only is shown in Figure 1 in order to avoid
confusion in the Drawing. This construction of the lifts is made of a
peculiar shaped iron, called in France "Zores iron," of which Figure 3
shows the section full size; it is represented in vertical projection at
Figures 1 and 2. The lifts are guided in a vertical plane by the
rollers 1, r, Figure 1 working on the rails "Zorés " for one length of the
stroke, and for the rest of its length by simple notches cut in the wooden
or other traverses of the shafts (see also Figure 3. The lifts are
united by means of two flat ropes mounted on pullies (Figures 1 and 2)
this suspension serves also as a means of safety; by repeating these
pulleys at certain equal distances in deep mines the great weight of the
lifts is supported and balanced. The lifts serve to support the buckets e¹

page_text: 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 Lotters
Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said William Morgan Brown, 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, that is to say :-
The object of the Invention is to utilize the man engine ordinarily
employed in lifting the miners as a means of lifting the water of the
mine during the time the man engine is otherwise unemployed. For
this purpose to each shaft of the lifts of the man engine is attached a
series of tipping buckets which alternately with each stroke of the lifts
are emptied and filled into each other, thus with every stroke of the one
lift lifting all the water in the buckets one stage and discharging their
contents into the buckets of the other lift when at its lowest point of
stroke, and with each stroke discharging one bucket of water at the day
level or ground level of the mine. To suspend the action of the tipping
of the buckets whilst the men are being lifted the man engine is con-
structed with a variable stroke, that is, whatever stroke is used for lifting
water a portion of it will be required for the action of tipping the
buckets. When the men are to be lifted the stroke is reduced by that
portion, the remainder being equal to the distance apart of the landing
stages for the men.
The specialities of this new apparatus are, firstly, that it forms a
complete system of man engine, which it resembles by the form of its two
shafts furnished with landing stages and their alternate and rising and
falling movement. Secondly, that the water is lifted and carried by
buckets of convenient form but variable, which by appropriate mechanism
tip their contents one into the other at the end of the up stroke, so
that the water to be lifted is always in the shaft of the lift which is
ascending.
The advantages of this apparatus over lifting pumps are as follows:-
A. The new apparatus for lifting water has neither valve, piston, or
stuffing box. The parts subject to wear are axles moving slowly in their

page_text: to es, Figure 2, placed at equal distances from one another and able to
turn upon a horizontal axis.
The buckets represented in lateral projection, Figure 2, are not shown
in Figure 1, where, for one of the lifts only, the position of the axis of
cach bucket is shown by dotted lines.
For a complete apparatus three forms of buckets are required. 1st, a
pair of buckets e and e, Figure 2, represented separately by the two
projections, Figures 4 and 5. The buckets fill by immersion, the water
entering by the opening determined by the brim x, y. 2nd, a pair of
buckets e¹ and e³, Figure 2, specially intended to empty the water at the
surface of the earth represented upon a larger scale by the Figures 7
and 8. 3rdly, pairs of intermediate buckets es, e, es, e, of Figure 2, and
more especially indicated by the Figures 6 and 8. The number of these
buckets of course depends upon the height the water has to be lifted.
Each bucket in emptying makes a little more than a quarter of a revolu-
tion about (94°). The number of buckets to be placed upon cach lift
depends upon the depth of the mine, and the outfall of the water on the
capacity of the buckets, and the number of strokes the lifts make in a
given time. In our example the distance of the buckets is 10 ft. 6 in.,
and the stroke of the piston is 30 inches more (13 ft.). All the buckets
of the same lift counting from the first or highest one are united one to
the other by the rods f, so that the movement given to one bucket
is imparted to all the others. The quarter of a revolution that the
buckets should have to empty their contents one into the other is given
to them by the tappets 9, 9, 9', g', g and g'. The tappets g and g',
Figure 2, are placed and fixed by the side of the receptacle for the
water at the surface i and i; they act upon the buckets e', e², placing
them one after the other in the position indicated in the Drawing at e¹.
The two other tappets g, g, and g', g', Figure 1 (of which one of the two
only is visible though partly hidden by the bucket e³ in the projection,
Figure 2) are fixed to the wooden traverses of the shaft. Their form is
simply an inclined plane, the two first tappets forming an angle of 58°, the
two others of 28°. From the preceeding indication the working of the
apparatus will be easily understood by referring to the Drawings annexed.
The right lift attached to the rod a is at the end of its up-stroke whilst
the left lift is at its lowest point. The bucket e8 is filled by immersion,
the water filling it as indicated by the arrows near y, where the side of the

page_text: back part of the bucket is opened for a sufficient depth. The bucket
never fills higher than the stop y, which exactly determines the quantity
of water to be lifted at each stroke. All the other buckets are made of
such a capacity that after receiving the contents of the buckets e or e
the level of the water shall be low enough to avoid any spilling. The
level of water of a full bucket ought to be about 4 inches below the
spout, so that it shall not begin to tip its contents till it is inclined 18°.
By these means and with a well chosen form of spout all loss is avoided
in tipping one bucket of water into the other. Whilst the bucket e
is filling by immersion in the reservoir of the shaft, the buckets e, e*,
and e² have been filled in the same time by the buckets e', e, and es,
whilst the highest one of all e¹ has poured out its contents on the
surface. At each simple stroke of the piston all the buckets of the
shaft which is descending aro empty, whilst those upon the ascending
shaft are full; each single stroke of the piston therefore carries to the
surface outlet the contents of one bucket. The normal position of the
buckets is vertical, as the Drawing shows, for the full buckets on the left
lift.
In order that the buckets shall right themselves after they are
discharged and retain that position, when they are charged up to the
time they strike the tappets, each bucket is fitted at its base with a
brace jointed to the axles or prolonging them so as to pass under the
buckets in the form of a bent axle
to give them the necessary
weight to keep them constantly vertical, as shown at Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
The connecting rods ff, contribute also by their weight to right the
buckets when the rollers quit the tappets. The righted buckets ought
to rest against a pin fixed in the lifts, so that all swinging may be
avoided. The traverse S serves also to right the buckets in case the
counterweight has not acted. On calculating the work spent to lift
the water and so tip it at the end of each stroke into the opposite
buckets, and including the force absorbed by the friction of the axles
and the displacement of the counterpoise, also taking into account the
actual weight of water put out, and comparing the force expended with
the useful effect obtained, it will be found to give a useful effect of
82 per cent.
The Drawings annexed show that the motion is imparted by beams

page_text: attached to some motor with rotating axle. The alternate movement of
the lifts can also be more simply produced by uniting each of the lifts
direct to the two cylinders of a steam engine, the cylinders being placed
vertically and axially with each of the corresponding lifts. It is in this
way that the man engines of the Coal Company of "L'Esperance de la
Société John Cockerill de Seraing," are worked.
In all cases it will be indispensable to adopt an arrangement that will
admit of the speed of the stroke being slackened at the end of each
stroke, considering that such an arrangement does not belong absolutely
to a general plan of the Invention, which consists in the present case in
lifting water in a novel manner. I shall not say any more upon this
point.
The following is a description of the mode in which the apparatus is
used as a man engine:-When the apparatus is to be used as a man
engine the buckets must be emptied by tipping, to do which the
connecting rods of the buckets e and es must be unhooked. After which
the apparatus will empty itself in n-1 strokes, when n indicates the
number of buckets on a lift; the stroke is then shortened from 13 ft.
to 10 ft. 6 inches. In the mechanism indicated in our design this
reduction is obtained by taking out the wedges q, q, of the beam A,
Figure 1, and moving them slowly, which displaces the sliding block P
of the connecting rod carrying it into the second position p¹; then
putting in the wedges q, q, the block of the connecting rod is refixed
so as to give the lifts a stroke of 10 ft. 6 inches. With a stroke of
10 ft. 6 inches the traverses 1, 1, etc. of the two lifts will be opposite
each other or at a level with the end of each stroke. In using these
traverses 1, 1, as landing stages for the feet, and the parallel traverses o, o,
shoulder height for the grasp of the hand of the miner when he steps
out of the lift going up or down as he desires the apparatus will be
identical with the man engines, that is to say, there is no essential
difference with the ordinary kind. These landing stages 7 and 1",
corresponding to the level of the galleries M and N, as the landing
stages d and with the galleries or floors for leaving A and B. It is
possible to establish upon the traverse a landing stage in wood more
commodious which will hold at least two men at once. The capacity of
the buckets after the dimensions indicated is 70 gallons, the apparatus
not containing any water when being used as a man engine can then be
used in all safety with a load up to 7 cwt. per landing stage.

page_text: It is therefore for this system of lifting water by man engines, at the
same time retaining them for their ordinary use, that I claim the
privilege of a Patent of Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Morgan Brown, have here-
unto set my hand and scal, this Twenty-ninth day of December,
in the year of our Lord One thousand cight hundred and sixty-
eight.
Witness,
D. H. BRANDON,
13, Rue Gaillon,
Paris.
W. MORGAN BROWN. (L.S.)