A CERTAIN METHOD FOR THE APPLICATION OF MECHANICAL POWERS TO THE PROPELLING SHIPS AND VESSELS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION THROUGH THE WATER
Year: 1811

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, STEDMAN
ADAMS, of Connecticut, one of the United States, now residing in London,
Esquire, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, bearing
date at Westminster, the First day of May, in the fifty-first year of His
reign, give and grant unto me, the said Stedman Adams, my exors, adiiors,
and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said Stedman Adams, my exors, adññiors, and assigns, should and
lawfully might, during the term of years therein expressed, make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and
also in all his Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of
"A CERTAIN METHOD FOR THE APPLICATION OF MECHANICAL POWERS TO THE
PROPELLING SHIPS AND VESSELS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION THROUGH THE WATER;" in
which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said
Stedman Adams, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to
cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be enrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within six calendar months after the date of the said
recited Letters Patent, 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 Stedman Adams, do hereby declare that my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained in and by the Drawings hereunto annexed, and the following
description thereof, that is to say:--
I, the said Stedman Adams, do hereby declare that my said Invention or
discovery of a new method of propelling vessels or boats by the application of
the power of steam or any other mechanical power is as follows:
D repre-
The said
The annexed. Drawing marked A represents a perpendicular or kite view
of a horizontal section of the plan of the machinery. And my said Invention
consists of two or more cylinders, represented in the said Drawing by the letters
B, B, made of iron or other convenient metal or wood, placed in a horizontal
position fore and aft at or near the bottom of the vessel or boat, and there
properly secured in their position. C represents the keelson of the vessel or
boat, and on each side of it is placed one of the aforesaid cylinders.
sents the stern of the vessel or boat, and the place for the rudder.
cylinders have a communication with the water at the stern of the vessel or
boat on each side of rudder. E represents the head of the cylinders joined by
fanges F, F, as in the said Drawing. G, G, represent the pistons; H, H, the
gates of the machinery by which the motion is communicated from the steam
engine or other mechanical power to the piston rods marked I, I, and moving
horizontally. The vessel or boat is propelled by the alternate horizontal motion
of the pistons aforesaid, marked G, G, beating against the resisting water
flowing into the cylinders, and the force of the current of water which follows
the pistons in their return. K, K, represent the stuffing boxes through
which the piston rods play.
The
The cylinders and pistons may be of various sizes, and should be propor-
tioned to the size of the vessel or boat, and their propelling power.
figure at the bottom of the aforesaid Drawing, marked A, represents a side
view of a section of the whole.
In witness whereof, I, the said Stedman Adams, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventh day of May, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and eleven.
STEDMAN ADAMS. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventh day of May, in the year
of our Lord 1811, the aforesaid Stedman Adams came before our said Lord
the King in His 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 stampt according to the tenor of the
Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Sixteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and eleven.