IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS AND ARRANGEMENTS FOR APPLYING AND USING WATER OR HYDRAULIC POWER AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR STEAM, ANIMAL POWER, COMPRESSED AIR AND OTHER MOTIVE POWERS, IN MINES, UNDERGROUND WORKINGS, AND OTHER PLACES
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Henry Thompson and
Francis Giles Henwood at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on
the 21st August 1880.
WILLIAM HENRY THOMPSON, of Finsbury Square, and FRANCIS GILES HENWOOD,
of 28, Budge Row, India Rubber, Gutta Percha, and Steam Packing Manufacturer,
both in the City of London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS AND ARRANGEMENTS
FOR APPLYING AND USING WATER OR HYDRAULIC POWER AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR
STEAM, ANIMAL POWER, COMPRESSED AIR AND OTHER MOTIVE POWERS, IN MINES,
UNDERGROUND WORKINGS, AND OTHER PLACES."
The object of this Invention is to enable water to be more readily and
conveniently used as a means of obtaining motive power in mines, underground
workings, and other places, without having to employ special or separate means for
removing it from such places after it has been used in giving out power and
allowed to escape into the mine or working or elsewhere after it has done its work,
and thereby overcome what has hitherto been found an objection when water is
employed for this purpose by the methods generally in use.
In carrying out our Invention, we employ a suitably proportioned pipe or pipes,
or other suitable conducting channel or channels, extending down the shaft or
below the surface or ground level of the working or quarry or other place to the
required or desired depth or distance, and cause it or them to extend to the
required or desired distance, and then extend up and out of the shaft, or out of the
underground working or quarry or other place, or to the desired point of exit.
Into this or these descending pipe or pipes, conducting channel or channels, we
lead or conduct the water to be used from its natural source of supply, reservoir,
or other elevated head situated above the level of the mine, shaft, underground
working, quarry, or other place, and where sufficient head does not exist, or is not
otherwise readily obtainable, from an accumulator or vessel under pressure, and to
this or these pipe or pipes, conducting channel or channels, we connect or attach a
suitable or required number of flexible or other branch pipes for the purpose of
eading or conducting the water through the roadways or workings, or to the
position or positions where the various hydraulic hauling, pumping, or other
machinery is or are situated, and by connecting these said pipes or pipe to such
machinery enable the water to transmit its pressure or power to the same, and
fter passing through such machines, instead of allowing it to escape or flow

page_text: out into the workings or other place or places to be again raised to the surface by
pumping machinery or otherwise specially removed, we lead or connect branch
exit pipes from such machinery or machines into the main exit or ascending pipe
which proceeds from the lowest part of the mine, underground working, quarry, or
other place to the surface or point of exit, so that by the tendency of water to rise
to the level, or nearly so, of the entrance or source of supply, and to attain and
maintain a state of equilibrium with the ascending column, it may join the rising
column of water and flow off with it to the point of exit.
By continuing or leading the exit pipe in a direction less elevated than the
source of supply, or so that it contains a less pressure than that in the accumulator
or vessel under pressure when such is employed, it may be conducted into another
shaft, underground working, or other place, and again employed in a similar
manner, or be continued to various other parts of the works for putting machinery
into motion or for transmitting motion on the surface, and it will be obvious that
so long as the point of exit of the water from the pipe or channel is kept below the
level of the point of supply or entrance of the water into the pipe or channel, there
will be the power or pressure due to the difference of level to be made use of, so
long as the water is kept flowing or confined in such pipe or channel and not
allowed to escape out of the same.
By the arrangements herein before described it will be seen that we are enabled
to take advantage of the natural law, which causes all liquids when confined in
suitable channels to rise to the level of the source of supply, or to the height equal
to the pressure, or nearly so, where an accumulator, is used, and so lead the water
down into a mine or other place below the source of supply, take out the power
given by the head, and cause it to flow out again, without requiring the aid of
special pumping engines or other separate apparatus to discharge it, and are
enabled to lead on the exit water to another mine or other place where power may
be required by keeping it in an enclosed and suitably proportioned pipe, tube, or
conducting channel, from its entrance from its source of supply up to its final point
of exit or escape, with but little more loss than that due to the friction of the water
in passing through the pipe, tube, or conducting channel or channels, and so obtain
greater convenience in its use, and a more extended facility for the economical
employment of what is admitted to be a cheap and economical power, and so secure
the advantages of a superior, cheaper, and more convenient power for such purposes.