AN IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR STORING GAS
Year: 1825

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES
OGILVY, of Verulam Buildings, Gray's Inn, in the County of Middlesex,
Esquire, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date
at Westminster, the Twentieth day of April, in the sixth year of His reign,
did, for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Charles Ogilvy, His especial licence, that I, the said Charles Ogilvy, my
exors, adiñiors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Charles Ogilvy, my
exors, adiñors, 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, and also in all His said
Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "AN IMPROVED
APPARATUS FOR STORING GAS;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a
proviso obliging me, the said Charles Ogilvy, by an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of
my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, and to
cause the same to be inrolled in His said Majesty's High Court of Chancery
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had,
will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Charles Ogilvy, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention to consist
in storing gas in reservoirs or vessels filled with charcoal; and in further
compliance with the said proviso, I, the said Charles Ogilvy, do hereby

page_text: describe a manner in which my said Invention may be performed, by the
following description thereof (that is to say):-
I provide a vessel made of wrought iron, copper, or any other suitable
metal; and I shall here describe a spherical-shaped vessel, as being more
simple to illustrate my Invention. I provide a wrought-iron spherical vessel
formed by the union of two hemispheres by means of flanges, and previously
to fitting them together, I turn two hemispheres of charcoal, or I provide
pieces of charcoal so as exactly to fit the cavities in the two parts of the
vessel, and place them so that when the hemispheres are united in the usual
manner, to make the joint air-tight, the vessel may be a sphere completely
filled with charcoal. To one of these said hemispheres I fit an ordinary air
stopcock, and the vessel so arranged constitutes my said apparatus for storing
gas. In order to charge the said vessel with gas (and by gas I include and
allude only to the following gaseous or aeriform substances, namely, atmo-
spheric air, oxygen, nitragen, hydrogen, carbonic oxide, carbonic acid gas, and
the mixed as well as pure inflammable gas or gases known as applicable to
various purposes of illumination), and which operation I call storing gas, the
following observations and process must be observed, that is to say, the char-
coal should be well burnt, and I have found the heaviest charcoal preferable;
and I do not recommend charcoal prepared from gummy or resinous woods.
The charcoal should also be perfectly dry, and the pieces used should be as
large as can be conveniently introduced within the vessel. The gas to be
stored also should be perfectly, or as nearly as the best precaution can render
it, dry, and free from all matters whatsoever held in solution by the gas which
are liable to liquid condensation under such degree of pressure as may be
used in the process of storing gas; but it must be observed that carbonic acid
gas at high pressure becomes a liquid, which liquid the charcoal will absorb
and evolve again in the state of gas. When the aircock is opened no other
of the gases above enumerated, except carbonic acid gas, is condensable at any
pressure less than thirty atmospheres, or four hundred and fifty pounds on the
square inch, at common temperatures. The storing apparatus I advise not to
be exposed to the sudden action of a forcing pump or other compressing
engine, as the heat evolved thereby diminishes the absorbent properties of the
charcoal; but the desired compression should in the first instance be made in
a separate vessel where the gas should be allowed to cool before it is intro-
duced into the storing apparatus. The storing apparatus having been pre-
pared, as before described, for receiving the gas on its first being used, an
pump should be applied to the air stopcock, and all the air as nearly as
acticable extracted from it, except when the object is to store atmospheric
air

page_text: air. The pump should then be removed, and the separate vessel containing
any of the above gases in a compressed state of carbonic acid gas in a state
of liquid condensation should be applied to the air stopcock, and the contents
of the same admitted into the storing apparatus. In order to prepare the
storing apparatus for receiving renewed supplies of gas, it should on every
occasion, where a liquid condensation of vapour has been formed, be intro-
duced with the aircock open into an oven or other such place heated to a
temperature of from three hundred to three hundred and fifty of Fahrenheit
to drive from the charcoal any vapours which may, notwithstanding the pre-
cautions used, have been introduced to the charcoal, passing such vapours off
by means of a tube, the one end of which is inserted in the oven or heated
place, and the other end placed in an open vessel under mercury, as it is
absolutely necessary that the oven or heated place used should have no opening
into nor admit in any way atmospheric air, as the charcoal would be thereby
injured.
Now whereas I do not claim exclusive right to any particular form of vessel,
or to any particular quantity of charcoal to be put in the same, for other forms
will answer as well as a sphere, and any quantity of charcoal will have an
effect, though the more that can be placed in the vessel the greater the effect
that will be produced; but that which I claim as my Invention is an appa-
ratus constituted of a vessel filled with charcoal, with an air stopcock, as
herein-before described, for the purpose of storing such gas or gases as are
commonly called and known as atmospheric air, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen,
carbonic oxide, carbonic acid gas, and the inflammable gas, and gas mixed as
well as pure, known as applicable to various purposes of illumination; and
such an apparatus for the purpose of storing gas being, to the best of my
knowledge and belief, entirely new, and never before used within that part of
His said Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called
England, His said Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
and also in His said Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, I do hereby
declare this to be my Specification of the same, and that I do verily believe
that this my said Specification doth comply in all respects fully, and without
reserve or disguisé, with the proviso in the said herein-before in part recited
Letters Patent contained; wherefore I claim hereby to maintain exclusive
right and privilege to my said Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Ogilvy, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twentieth day of October, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.
C. OGILVY. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twentieth day of October, in
the year of our Lord 1825, the aforesaid Charles Ogilvy 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 stamped according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Twentieth day of October, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.
Inrolled the Twentieth day of October, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.