IMPROVEMENTS IN VENTILATING ROOMS AND APARTMENTS
Year: 1848

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
DINGLE CHOWNE, of Connaught Place West, in the County of Middlesex, M.D.,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-eighth
day of December, One thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, in the twelfth
year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant
unto me, the said William Dingle Chowne, my exors, adñiors, and assigns,
Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the
said William Dingle Chowne, my exors, admors, and assigns, or such
others as I, the said William Dingle Chowne, my exors, adñiors, or assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and
at all times during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN VENTILATING
ROOMS AND APARTMENTS;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso
that I, the said William Dingle Chowne, shall cause a particular description
of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to be inrolled
in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery (within six calendar months
next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent,
as in and by the same, reference 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 Dingle Chowne, do hereby declare that the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are
fully described and ascertained in and by the following statement thereof
(that is to say):
:-
My Invention consists of applying a principle which I have found to prevail
in the atmosphere of moving up the longer leg of a syphon, and of entering
and descending in the shorter leg, and this without the necessity for the appli-
cation of artificial heat to the longer leg of a syphon.
And in order that my Invention may be most fully understood, and readily
carried into effect, I will proceed to describe the means pursued by me; and
in doing so, I will, in the first place, enter more at large into the principle on
which the Invention is based. I have found that if a bent tube or hollow
passage be fixed with the legs upwards, the legs being of unequal lengths,
whether it be in the open air or with the shorter leg communicating with a
room or other place, that the air circulates up the longer leg, and it enters and
moves down the shorter leg, and that this action is not prevented by making
the shorter leg hot whilst the longer leg remains cold, and no artificial heat is.
necessary to the longer leg of the air syphon to cause this action to take place,
thus is the direction of the action of air in a syphon the reverse of that which
takes place in a syphon (or like bent passage or tube) when used for water
and other liquid, wherein the water or other liquid enters and rises up in the
shorter leg, and descends or moves down in the longer leg. And my Invention
consists of applying this principle when ventilating rooms or apartments, such
as those of a house or ship, or other building or place.
And I will first describe the Invention as applied to the rooms of a house
where there are chimneys opening into such rooms, in each of which cases I
employ the chimney as the longer leg of the air syphon, which I arrange in
order to ventilate a room; and I am enabled to use the chimney, whether for
the time being there is or is not a fire lighted in the fire-place of the room;
but I prefer, when there is no lighted fire, that the fire-place should be closed
either by a register stove being closed, if one be used, or, if not, by a close
chimney. board, or by other convenient means; and I form a passage or
channel either when constructing the building, or by cutting away, if not pre-
viously constructed; or I otherwise forni such channel or passage, or more
than one, from the upper part of the room, or near the ceiling of the room,
and cause it to descend, and to enter the chimney at a point above the top of
the fire-place, when it is an open fire-place, and it may be lower down when
closed; and in order that the whole of the upper part of the room may be in

page_text: communication with such descending passage or channel leading to the
chimney, I form a hollow cornice sufficiently open to allow of the atmosphere
at or near the upper part of the room to flow into the same, and owing
to the atmospheric syphon, which will thus be formed, there will be a
constant flow of the air in a direction from the upper part of the room
down the descending channel or passage which will represent the shorter
leg, and thence into the chimney and away up the chimney which con-
stitutes the longor leg of the air syphon. When fixed gas burners or lamps
are used, then I prefer that a tube or hollow passage should be conducted down
to form the shorter leg of the air syphon in any convenient direction, and be
caused to enter the chimney in like manner to that described in respect to
channels or passages made in the brickwork from the ceiling or upper parts of
the room downwards, or such channels or passages may be of metal or other
material projecting from the walls of the buildings, or it may be down pillars
or channels, independent of the walls where the architecture or ornamenta!
portion of the walls or other parts will admit thereof, and it is not necessary
that there should be any bell over the chimney of a gas burner or other lamp,
for I have found that having an opening near the top of such glass chimney,
with a lateral tube opening into what I have called the shorter leg of the
syphon, the other end of such lateral tube coming near the top of the glass
chimney will be sufficient, as the products passing away from the glass
chimney under such circumstances, in place of rising up and becoming
defused in the room, pass laterally through the lateral tube to the opening into
the shorter leg of the atmospheric syphon, and thence into the chimney or
longer leg of the syphon, and by having several such openings and passages
descending and communicating separately or combining, they may all enter
into the chimney or longer leg of the syphon together, and such passages.
where necessary, may descend to and pass under the floor of the room; and this
means may be used for several gas or other burners, and also without the use
of the burners where it is not desirable to have a hollow cornice. In some
cases where it is desired to obtain ventilation in a room for temporary purposes,
such as where a person may be ill in a room, in such cases then by simply
using a flexible tube or other tube or tubes suspended over the person in a bed
or otherwise placed and conducted in such manner as to descend, and then to
enter a chimney, there will be a constant flow of the atmosphere of the room
to and through the tube or tubes, and thence into chimney or longest leg of
the atmospheric syphon thus produced, by which a room may be kept ven-
tilated with great facility, and the sick person constantly supplied with the
pure air which is constantly flowing into the room by the door or other

page_text: openings. When a room is to be ventilated having a fireplace in the centre
or other part of the room with a descending flue into a chimney, then the
channels, passages, or tubes which are to constitute the shorter leg of the atmo-
spheric syphon, may be conveyed from near the ceiling down under the floor,
and be connected with the flue of the fireplace, or they may, when they have
descended, be carried direct into the chimney; by this means, the impure
atmosphere at the upper parts of the room will be conducted off, and the room
well ventilated. I would remark, that where the shorter leg has branches, it is
not necessary that the open ends of such branches should be as high as the
highest point of the shorter leg, as the air will enter a branch passage which
is lower, and will then ascend for a distance, and then descend in the shorter
leg of the air syphon. When it is desired to ventilate an apartment of a
building or other place having no chimney, which can be used as the longer
leg of the syphon in making up or arranging an atmospheric syphon for venti-
lating such place or apartment thereof, then I construct a chimney and
apply within the place one or more channels, pipes, or passages, in connection
therewith, and which are to constitute the shorter leg of the syphon," as above
described in respect to rooms of houses. And in this manner also may all-
parts or apartments of mines be ventilated; thus, supposing it to be desired to
ventilate the goaf of a mine, in such a case, one or more pipes, passages, or
channels being laid or affixed therein, and carried as high up as possible, the
other end of such passage or passages are to be carried up one of the shafts
of the mine to the surface of the earth and opened into a chinney which.
would become the longer leg of the atmospheric syphon, by which arrangement
the gases and atmosphere of the goaf, in place of from time to time getting
into the mine, would be constantly carried away. And if desired, the whole
of the mine may be ventilated in this manner, for in place of having a furnace.
in the upcast shaft, as now practised, it will be only necessary to raise a tall
chimney over the upcast shaft, so that the downcast shaft and the mine below,
shall be made the shorter leg of the atmospheric syphon, and the chimney and
upcast shaft the longer leg of the syphon, and thus a constant ventilation will go
on. In such cases, I should recommend that the goaf or other apartments of the
mine liable to have gas and foul atmosphere accumulate therein, and which
cannot be readily brought to partake of the general ventilation of the mine,
should have their separate apparatus applied, as above explained, but the one
chimney will be sufficient. It is not essential that the passage constituting
the shorter leg should be closed from its upper part downwards, for I have
found that if there be openings at several places the air at the upper part
enters, and it also enters at any opening or openings lower down.

page_text: Having thus described the nature of my Invention, and the manner in
which the same is to be performed, I would state, that I do not confine myself
to the details so long as the peculiar character of the Invention be retained,
and the principle of what I have called the atmospheric syphon be applied by
suitable apparatus or means for ventilating rooms and apartments.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Dingle Chowne, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of June, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-nine.
the
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-seventh day of June, in
year of our Lord 1849, the aforesaid William Dingle Chown came before
our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above
written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the
tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Tinrolled the Twenty-eighth day of June in the roar of our Lord One