CONVERT OR REDUCE HUMAN EXCREMENT INTO A POWDER DIVESTED OF ALL NAUSEOUS SMELL, PRESERVING AT THE SAME TIME ITS FERTILIZING PROPERTIES IN RENDERING LAND INFINITELY MORE PRODUCTIVE AND VEGETATIVE THAN ANY OTHER MANURE HITHERTO DISCOVERED
Year: 1802

page_text: TO ALL FERSONS TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME,
LEWIS JAMES ARMAND ESTIENNE, of Paul Street, near Finsbury Square, in the
Parish of Saint Leonard, Shoreditch, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman,
senils greeting.
WHEREAS, by His Majesty's Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at West-
minster, the Ninth day of January instant, reciting that the said Lewis James
Armand Estienne had, by his petition, humbly represented unto His Majesty
that he was in possession of an Invention, communicated to him by a foreigner
residing out of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, whereby
he was enabled to "CONVERT OR REDUCE HUMAN EXCREMENT INTO A POWDER
DIVESTED OF ALL NAUSEOUS SMELL, PRESERVING AT THE SAME TIME ITS FERTILIZING
PROPERTIES IN RENDERING LAND INFINITELY MORE PRODUCTIVE AND VEGETATIVE THAN
ANY OTHER MANURE HITHERTO DISCOVERED;" that he was the only person within
His Majesty's Realm to whom such Invention had been communicated, and
that the same had never been used by any other persons or person therein, to
the best of his knowledge and belief, and therefore prayed that His Majesty would
grant unto him, bis executors, administrators, and assigns, His Royal Letters
Patent for the sole use, exercise, benefit, and advantage of the said Invention
within that part of Great Britain called England, His Majesty's Dominion of
Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, for the term of fourteen years,
according to the Statute in that case made and provided; it is witnessed that
His Majesty did give and grant unto the said Lewis James Armand Estienne,
his executors, administrators, and assigns, His especial licence, full power,

page_text: sole privilege and authority, that he, the said Lewis James Armand Estienne,
his executors, administrators, and assigns, and every of them, by himself and
themselves, or by his and their deputy or deputies, servants, or agents, or such
others as he, the said Lewis James Armand Estienne, his executors, admini-
strators, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time,
and at all times thereafter during the term of years therein expressed, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, his said Invention within
that part of His Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
called England, His Majesty's Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-
upon-Tweed aforesaid, in such manner as to him, the said Lewis James Armand
Estienne, his executors, administrators, or assigns, or any of them, should in
his or their discretions seem meet; and that he, the said Lewis James
Armand Estienne, his executors, administrators, and assigns, should and lawfully
might have and enjoy the whole profits, benefit, commodity, and advantage,
from time to time coming, growing, accruing, and arising, by reason of the
said Invention, for the term of years therein mentioned; to hold and enjoy the
said licence, powers, privileges, and advantages therein-before granted, or
mentioned to be grauted, to the said Lewis James Armand Estienne, his
executors, administrators, and assigns, for the term of fourteen years from
the date of the said Letters Patent, according to the Statute in such case
provided; and in the said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, that if
the said Lewis James Armand Estienne should not particularly describe and
ascertain the nature of his said Invention, and in what manner the same was to
be performed, by an instrument in writing under his hand and seal, and cause
the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one
calendar month 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, should utterly cease and determine and become void, as by
the said Letters Patent, reference being thereto had, will more fully appear.
NOW THESE PRESENTS WITNESS, that in pursuance of and obedience
to the said proviso contained in the said Letters Patent, the said Lewis James
Armand Estienne, by this present Instrument in writing under his hand and
seal, intended to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery, doth
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of his said Invention, and in
what manner it is to be performed, in manner following, that is to say :-
A spot of ground should be selected, the surface whereof should be of a
gradual declivity from north to south, wherein five basons should be formed,
two of which, of equal size, should be dug parellel to each other on the highest
elevation of the ground, (numbered 1 and 2 as in the plan, for the sake of

page_text: illustration, hereunto annexed). The third bason (N° 3) should be placed on a
platform, lower than those before mentioned, and should have a communication
from each of them by means of canals or sluices, with gates to open and close at
pleasure. The fourth (N° 4) should be placed on a platform still lower, and
should have a similar communication with the bason N° 3. The fifth bason
(N° 5) should be formed on the lowest platform, and the depth of it should
be considerably shallower than the others, but so as to enable it notwithstanding.
to be equally capacious, and should consequently extend over a greater surface
of ground, and should have a similar communication with the bason, N° 4..
The excrement, when collected from the various receptacles, should be emptied
into the bason, N° 1, until it is filled, where it should remain until the more
weighty particles have been deposited and formed a sediment at the bottom,
the liquid part remaining on its surface, from which a quantity of light and
solid particles will float and will become harder by the air. During the time this
bason (N° 1) remains full, the bason N° 2 may be similarly employed, when
the particles of the excrement in the bason N° 1 are considered to be suffi-
ciently separated, the progress whereof usually occupies eight or ten days, the
sluice or aqueduct which communicates from the bason N° 1 to N° 3 should
be opened, so that the liquid particles may be discharged into the latter bason,
where, after remaining a few days, it will leave a sediment at the bottom, and
by means of the sluice or aqueduct the liquid parts should be discharged into the
bason N° 4, from whence, after remaining until clarified, they should be drawn
off through the sluice or aqueduct into the bason N° 5, where all its moisture
and nauseous smell, by the effect of the sun or being commixed with quick lime,
will be absorbed thereby, and a manure produced therefrom possessing all the
vegetative salts and fertilizing properties the liquid itself contained. After the
liquid particles of the excrement are thus separated from the grosser and more
solid, the latter are to be dug out of the basons and spread on ground in-
clining from north to south, (N° 6 and 7,) but as contiguous to the basons as
possible, and be several times turned over to harden and dry, and when partly
so will assume various shades of colour and become similar in appearance to
cow dung, and as it becomes more dry will assume a grey appearance, like
pulverized earth. When completely dried it should be exposed under a build-
ing (N° 11), which should be so constructed as to prevent access of wet, but
admitting the air on every side, and it should be placed in accumulated heaps
to the very summit of the building. In this state it will have the appearance
of dried earth, and towards its surface will acquire a great heat, its smell being
similar to that of dried turfs, but to be perceived only on entering this repo-
sitory. Upon taking off its surface to the depth of six inches, a great quantity of

page_text: hot smoke will issue and the uncovered part will feel extremely heated, and
when arrived at its proper degree of heat, the thermometer of Reaunur, when
sunk into it, will be raised to the eightieth and that of Farenheit's to the two
hundred and twelfth degree. A violent ferment will necessarily ensue from
this heat, which will last for several days, when the bulk will gradually
diminish as the heat subsides, of which it will be entirely divested at the expi-
ration of a fortnight; the substance will then be in a fit condition to be used,
and, in order to be divested of all heterogeneous bodies, should-be sifted through
a wire sieve, the wires whereof should be distant from each other about four
or five lines; it should be then taken to a mill to be reduced to a powder, the
action whereof will entirely dissipate the turf-like smell, and will cause it to
assume that of dried earth. The mill alluded to (N° 10) should be circular,
containing a trough of a similar form, in the centre whereof should be placed
a pivot, upon which should be fixed a wooden beam, at the extremity of which
a wooden wheel should be placed nearly of a similar diameter with the trough;
the axis of the wheel should extend beyond the trough, and a horse being
attached to it will be enabled to move the machine in a rotular motion, whereby
the wheel will crush the excrement which is placed under it into a powder,
which, when so prepared, lies in a very small compass. Six hundred weight of
it being sufficient for an acre of land, one cart load will contain a quan-
tity of it capable of manuring eight or ten acres.
It is therefore apparent
that the economy to the consumer in servants, horses, and carts must be very
great. Its vegetative and fertilizing properties are of so potent a nature that
they will render lands infinitely more productive than any manure that hath
been hitherto discovered, and are equally beneficially to every nature of soil
and every sort of culture, at the same time possessing the peculiar advantage
of dispensing their efficacy without distributing to the soil the seeds of noxious
and impoverishing weeds.
In witness whereof, the said Lewis James Armand Estienne hath here-
unto subscribed and set his hand and seal, the Twentieth day of
January. One thousand eight hundred and two
N° 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, the basons; N° 6 and 7, the grounds, declining from
north to south, for drying; N° 8 and 9, stables and buildings for carts, &
No 10, the mill; No 11, the building for the excrement to be deposited when
nearly dry, in order to ferment; N° 12, warehouse for the powder when pre-
pared. A, a building for placing the utensils; B, a road for the horses and

page_text: carts to enter into the bason to carry away the excrement when fit to be placed
on the grounds for drying; C, sluices and aqueducts; E, places for the carts
to empty the excrement as collected from the receptacles.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Twentieth day of January,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Lewis James Armand Estienne camo
before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledge the Specifi-
cation aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained, in form above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the
Statute in that case made and provided.
Inrolled the same Twentieth day of January, in the year above written.