An Improved Method of and Appliances for Transporting Ships on Land.
Year: 1889

page_text: Date of Application, 6th July, 1889
Complete Specification Left, 3rd Apr., 1890-Accepted, 3rd May, 1890.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
An Improved Method of and Appliances for Transporting Ships
on Land.
ANDRÉ FÉLIX ALEXANDRE MANIER Teacher of Languages 15 Beaumont Street,
Oxford, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
The ship is enclosed in an iron cage filled with water and resting on a platform
which, strong and rigid, is mounted on wheels and rolls on rails. The cage consists
of three sections which can be drawn apart and connected by means of screws and
bolts, and hemp or india rubber bands.-When a ship arrives at the bank, it is led
into the middle section of the immersed cage and properly secured; the two other
sections, likewise immersed, are brought on to the middle one, screwed and firmly
joined as described above; the whole is then drawn up the shore by a compensating
weight rolling on a parallel way and consisting of an iron cage filled with water and
made like the first. On a level reach, a permanent engine draws the wire cable; on
an incline, this wire cable is drawn by a compensating weight. When a steep hill
has to be crossed, a circular cavity is constructed at the top, within which a pontoon,
flat at the upper and circular at the lower surface, revolves on wheels or rollers, like
a section of a ball in a socket. Whilst revolving, the flat top of the pontoon takes
any desired inclination, so that it can receive the travelling platform with its load at
the summit of the ascent and transfer it on its way down hill. In this manner,
the heavy load may always rest on a rigid support, and the wheels may be springless.
On reaching the sea, a lake or the estuary of a river, the forepart of the cage is
drawn out, and the ship, which never left its element, goes on its way.
lateral deviation can be effected by means of an horizontal turning platform.
A mere
Water tanks conveniently situated and fed by mountain streams or waterpipes.
supply the overweight which starts the naval train. By letting some water escape
whenever the motion tends to become accelerated, the conductor regulates this motion
or stops it altogether. The mere turning of a valve answers every purpose. Sidings
made at any part of the line would be so many harbours, affording every facility for
loading and unloading whilst involving but little expense. Such a mode of ship
conveyance would extend to inland towns the advantages enjoyed at present by sea
ports only. The facility with which existing railways, canals, watercourses, estuaries
could be avoided or crossed without swing bridges or lock gates would greatly simplify
and shorten, not only the carrying out, but also the preliminary stage of such a
scheme.
So far as I know, the construction of the cage and oscillating pontoon, are new
features; this it is for which singly and collectively I claim protection.
D
₪1 '
T1 1000
ANDRÉ FELIX ALEXANDRE MANIER.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
An Improved Method of and Appliances for Transporting Ships
on Land.
I ANDRÉ FÉLIX ALEXANDRE MANIER teacher of languages 15 Beaumont Street,
Oxford do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :-
The appliances consist of the following parts:
I. a. At each end of a shiprailway a harbour, the bottom of which is sloping; the
depth of this barbour may reach ten yards or more.

page_text: ·
b. On the sloping bottom of this harbour, one or several railways, over which
platforms run on low wheels; the upper surface of these platforms is concave; these
platforms are entirely immersed.
c. On the hollow and upper side of these platforms, sections of an iron tank are
resting by virtue of their weight only, their lower and convexe side coinciding with
the concave surface of the platform.
All these sections are partly immersed and open at the top; two are closed at one
end, the others are opened at both ends; hempen or elastic bands run along the
flanges; bolts and screws are distributed along these same flanges.
II a. On land, a ship railway of the required width and strength.
b. On this railway a platform mounted on wheels,. concave at the upper surface,
I like those described in paragraph I b.
c. At the meeting point of two different directions, an horizontally rotating turn-
table, the upper and lower surfaces of which are parallel with one another.
d. At the meeting line of two gradients of equal steepness, a similar turntable, the
upper surface of which makes the desired angle with the lower one.
e. At the meeting line of two gradients of unequal steepness, a vertically oscillating
pontoon, flat at the top and sides, curbed at the bottom, rolling on wheels, carrying
rails on the upper surface, susceptible of any desired inclination.
f. On very steep gradients, compensating weights which are drawn up by a
descending train and help in pulling an ascending one.
The apparatus works as follows:
When a ship arrives at a harbour, she is led till she lies exactly over one of the
immersed railways, as described in paragraph I band represented by R, figure II.
Immersed platforms are brought under her, each carrying a section of a tank.
See H, figure II and C, D, figure I. The sections and platforms, having been
screwed and bolted together, see D figure I and E, figure II, and a few fenders
placed round the ship, the now articulated platform is drawn down towards the
deeper part of the harbour, till the upward pressure separates the tank G, the ship E
and the water which lies between them from the platform H (see figure II),
without the help of any mechanical appliance whatever. This floating lock E F G is
brought exactly over the immersed foot of the land shiprailway; a platform, sec
paragraph II is drawn over the rails, under the floating lock; both platform and
lock are drawn together till the one rests over the other and they form a rolling
train. When this rolling train must change direction or inclination, it is received on
a turntable or a pontoon, described in paragraph Il, c, d, e, and represented by A, B,
figure I. After the necessary rotation or oscillation, the train is transferred to the
next direction, or from one plane to the other. When, by means of locomotive or
fixed engines, the ship has been drawn to the harbour, the sections of the tank are
unscrewed and the ship swimms freely.
In order that the same platform, see paragraph II b, may receive tanks of various
widths, it is provided with wooden wedges; with these the tanks are shored up when
necessary.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said Inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what 1
claim is :
1. The manner of enclosing the ship, the articulated platforms and tanks.
2. The lifting up or letting down of the ship without the use of locks, vertical lifts,
pumps or other machinery than wliat is required for ordinary traction.
3. The transferring of the ship from one gradient to another by means of a turn-
table with a fixed slope or an oscillating pontoon.
Dated, Oxford, this Thirty-first day of March Eighteen hundred and ninety