AN IMPROVEMENT OR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE METHOD OR METHODS OF MANU- FACTURING OR PREPARING MADDER ROOTS AND MADDER
Year: 1813

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, MAURICE
DE JONGHI, of Kentish Town, in the County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-ninth day of
November, in the fifty-fourth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the
said Maurice de Jongh, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial licence,
full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Maurice de Jongh,
my exors, adñiors, and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of
years therein mentioned, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention or discovery
of "AN IMPROVEMENT OR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE METHOD OR METHODS OF MANU-
FACTURING OR PREPARING MADDER ROOTS AND MADDER;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the said Maurice de Jongh, shall
not particularly describe and ascertain 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, and cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within two calendar months next and immediately after
the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent, and
all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted, shall utterly cease,
determine, and become void, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto
had) may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Maurice de Jongh, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and manner of performing the same, are particularly described and ascertained
in manner following, that is to say:-
I do subject the said madder or madder roots to the manipulations or
processes herein-after described, or to some of them, as herein directed and
set forth, and I do for that purpose construct and use the mills, machinery, or
apparatus herein also described and explained, and in various particulars
thereof stated to be parts of my said Invention, and the said mills, machinery,
or apparatus do consist of,-
Firstly, a common grinding or crushing mill, consisting of two vertical or
rolling millstones or pieces of other fit material, which by means of an
upright shaft do roll round upon a flat bed, stone, or piece, and are provided
with sweepers or scrapers, which carry the material to be ground into the
path of the stones after the same may have been more or less spread or dis-
persed within or without that path by the pressure exerted upon it; and the
said sweepers or scrapers may and can, by means of simple machinery, be raised
or lowered accordingly as it may be required that the action or effect of the
same should be discontinued or kept in activity;. and the said. mills are pro-
vided with other sweepers or scrapers of a different form or inclination of the
sweeping or scraping edge: thereof, by means or virtue thereof the material
aforesaid can be sweeped or scraped and conveyed outward beyond.the path
of the stones; and these. last sweepers or scrapers are also capable of being
raised or lowered like the others; and with regard to the form, figure, position,
and inclination of the said several sweepers or scrapers, and the general con-
struction of the said mill and the parts thereof, and the same may be varied
as may be needful. But for as much as the said mills, sweepers, or scrapers,
and the parts: aforesaid, are well known to millwrights and other workmen,
and are used in various manufactories, and are here mentioned and referred
to because used in my said method, I do consider it to be unnecessary more
particularly to describe and explain the same.
And, secondly; I do construct.and make in the bed or floor of the said mill
last described, in that part which extends beyond the path of the stones or
grinding rollers, one or more receptacles or spaces into which I do severally
introduce drawers under covers or sliding pieces, perforated in the manner
of a sieve, with about seventeen holes in the length of one inch; such said
covers or sliding pieces may be made to vibrate by means of having an
indented part along their superficial' edge, or other convenient part, over
which the sweeper or scraper or sweepers or scrapers are to pass, and about

page_text: one eighth of an inch below the common surface, in order to prevent the
sliders from catching or being impeded. Or otherwise, I do, if preferred,
leave the said receptacles or spaces without drawers, and apply the perforated
cover above the same, although I consider the drawers to be the most con-
venient in practice; and the use and purpose of the said drawers or recep-
tacles is, to receive the finer part of the ground stuff as the mill revolves, and
by that means to facilitate the grinding of the coarser remaining part, and
prevents that fine part from being too much pulverised, and further save the
trouble and time of passing that part through the sieve. And I do declare
that the contrivance of constructing and making of receptacles or spaces with
or without drawers and with the perforated cover or sliding pieces for the
purpose and as described aforesaid, is a part of my said Invention, and that I do
grind my madder by any other well-known and suitable means and machinery,
as well as by the said rollers; and do apply and use my said last-mentioned
contrivance along with such machinery as may be capable of admitting the
same:
And, thirdly, I do make and use a new machine or apparatus which I call
ä gin, and the same consists of a vessel or receptacle so fitted up or mounted
as to revolve upon a line within or passing through the same, which may be
called its axis; and also of a piece either solid or having no accessible internal
cavity therein, and of such dimensions and so fitted up or mounted as to
revolve within the said vessel or receptacle upon the same line or axis,
and to leave a space between the internal surface of the said vessel or
receptacle and the external surface. of the said piece.. And farther, the
said vessel or receptacle is perforated with many holes communicating between
the said space and the outer air, and the surface of the said piece is
studded with many points or protuberances, and so likewise may be the
internal surface of the said vessel or- receptacle if required or preferred; and
moreover, the said vessel or receptacle and the said piece are severally and
respectively so fitted up or mounted as to be capable of revolving either both
in the same direction or in opposite directions; and with velocities considerably
or greatly differing from each other; and the effects of a machine of the nature
and kind here described upon such substances as may be introduced in
moderately-sized pieces into the said space will be, that the said points will
scratch, abrade, and tear off the external parts of such substances, and by that
action and the mutual friction of those parts or portions of the dust will 'be
produced, and will be thrown by the centrifugal force of the rotation through
the holes in the said vessel or receptacle, into the chamber or room-wherein
the
process may be performed. And as the cutical or external parts of the
bark of madder roots is of a different and inferior nature to the other parts, or

page_text: at least is not valued so much as the other parts by the consumers, the said
parts will, after a certain time of working, be completely taken off and reduced
into dust or powder as aforesaid, and the inner parts may be preserved without
diminution. And moreover, altho' from the particulars aforesaid, it would be
easy for any millwrights, competent workmen in machinery of this or the like
nature, to construct my said gin, I do nevertheless think it proper to declare,
that the gin which I have found by experience and practice to be fully
effectual, as the following dimensions and fitting up; namely, the vessel or
receptacle is a cylinder of four feet and a half in length, and two feet and
a half in diameter, revolving on its axis placed horizontally, and by hollow
arbors fixed at each end thereof, and the internal piece is also cylinder of
wood two inches shorter than the length of the cavity of the vessel or recep-
tacle, and eighteen inches in diameter, revolving on its own arbor, which
passes concentrically through the said hollow arbors, and rests upon separate
bearings, and is worked by separate gear (which gear, as to both cylinders,
may be either drum and strap, or wheelwork, or any other well-known appa-
ratus of communication with the first mover); and the convex surface of the said
inner cylinder is studded all over with iron spikes, about three eighths of
an inch thick at the distance of two inches and a half asunder, and projecting
about one inch; and in general I cause the outer cylinder to revolve twenty
times or thereabouts in a minute, and the inner cylinder about two hundred
times in a minute; and I call the appartment in which the said gin is placed
the dust room, and I do in preference place the bearings of the arbors and
the machinery for producing the rotations on the outside of the said dust
room.
And, fourthly, I do fit up or appropriate two sifting rooms, in one of which
I place a sieve about six feet in length and one and a half or two feet wide,
having about six wires in the inch of the sifting bottom, and so mounted
as to have one end rather higher than the other, and to be subjected by
any of the well-known methods to an agitation of about one hundred
and sixty strokes in the minute; and I do supply the said sieve at the
higher end with madder roots to be sifted or cleansed, which by the agitation
are afterwards gradually conveyed to the other end, where the sieve has no
rim, and there they fall into a box or receptacle provided to receive them, and
in the other or second sifting room I place another sieve in all respects like
the former, excepting that the sifting cloth is much finer, and has about
seventeen wires in the inch, or holes to the length of an inch; or otherwise, I
do construct one sieve having the finer wires or cloth or texture aforesaid at
the higher part or half thereof, and the coarser wires or cloth or texture
at the lower part or half thereof, and do use the same to perform and

page_text: effect the separation of the finer and the coarser parts, by one and the same
operation, into different drawers or receptacles placed beneath; or otherwise
I do use the common boulting machinery, of the requisite fineness as to the
wires, for the same purpose.
And, fifthly, I do fit up and appropriate a room called the drying room, for
the purpose of drying madder roots, or madder partly ground, and in the said
room I do maintain and keep, by stoves or flues, or otherwise, but in preference
by the action of steam, as practised in various manufactories, a proper degree
of heat or temperance, which in most cases may beneficially be placed between
eighty degrees to one hundred and twenty degrees of Fahrenheit's scale; and
in the said room I place my madder in baskets or other fit vessels, which may
be hung up until the same is sufficiently dry. And with regard to the process of
manufacturing madder or madder roots, I do in the first place submit the same
to the action of the sieves or sieve herein-before described, or to the boulting
machinery aforesaid, and the small stuff which passes the finer sieve or cloth
or texture is of the most ordinary and least pure quality, called mull, and the
stuff which passes through the coarser sieve or texture, and which will
mostly consist of small fibrous roots, must be ground, after previous drying, if.
necessary, and is also most commonly of the quality called mull; or otherwise,
if the roots be of a better kind, this last may be added to the next quality of
madder known by the name of cameen, or even to the still better called
umbro, or may be ground twice, and the second grinding (which will at
the sifting over the fine sieve after the first grinding pass over the fine sieve and
fall into a receptacle or box on account of its being harder, as is herein-after
described and specified, of the larger and better parts of the roots) be put to
the quality better than mull, and such as it is mostly found to correspond
with, and the larger roots which fall over or out of the end of the sieves or
sieve, and cannot pass through the wires, are then subjected to the action of
the gin, or ginned after previous drying, if thought needful; and I do declare
that the quantity of about fifty-six pounds of madder roots, is a proper charge
fer a gin of the dimensions herein-before described, and that after remaining
therein in work for about half an hour, the same will be well cleansed from the
cutical or outward skin, and all external impurities which fly through the
holes into the dust room; and after having been passed over the fine sieve,
are put along with the mull, and the parts. not passing through the sieve
must be ground, and then also added to the mull. The cleansed or ginned
roots are then taken to the mill, being previously dryed, if found necessary,
and ground and afterwards sifted in the fine sieve, by which treatment the
fine sieve affords the quality called umbro, and that which falls over will be
found of lighter colour and harder, and is the heart of the roots, and is

page_text: generally believed to be the best part; these parts are to be grounded and
sifted again (after an additional drying, if thought necessary) till they all pass
thro' the fine sieve, and constitute the highest and best quality, called crop.
And I do declare, that the more of the said hard particles are ground and
sifted amongst the umbro, and the better will be that umbro, as also the remain-
ing. crop; and that it is necessary and advisable that every description of manu-
factured madder, and more particularly the finer sorts, should be kept in
casks well packed by screwing or ramming the same down. And farther, that
the operation of drying being more or less injurious to the quality of the
madder, it is proper that the same should be avoided as much as possible or
convenient...
. And moreover, that I do avail myself of the improvements herein described,
or any part thereof, in the manufacturing of madder roots, whether in their
natural state or after the same shall or may have been prepared by any
chemical or mechanical process, or otherwise in any respect changed from that
natural state.
And, lastly, in the erecting, constructing, or making any mill or set of
apparatus for manufacturing as aforesaid, I do, according to the local or other
circumstances or conditions of the case, avail myself of the means, implements,
apparatus, gear, and things heretofore used in mills for conveying grain or
other articles from place to place upon the premises, so that one apparatus
shall feed or supply the other, and that other inconveniences may be produced
and afforded as usual in such or the like cases.
In witness whereof, I, the said Maurice de Jongh, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-sixth day of January, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fourteen.