IMPROVEMENTS IN FIRE ENGINES
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Thomas Hughes at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 4th October 1870. A communication
from abroad by August Ludwig Schultz, of Tempelburg, Germany.
EDWARD THOMAS HUGHES, of the Firm of Hughes and Son, Patent Agents,
123, Chancery Lane, London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN FIRE ENGINES." A communication
from abroad by August Ludwig Schultz, of Tempolburg, Germany.
This Invention relates to improvements in fire engines, and has for its object to
substituto horse power for manual labour in working the ordinary hand fire engine.
It consists in the application to a fire engine of a whim gin driven by horses and
actuating the fire engine, as hereafter more particularly described and illustrated on
the accompanying Drawing, on which Figure 1 is a longitudinal section (taken on
line A, B, in Figure 2) of a fire engine to which this Invention is applied; Figure 2,
a sectional plan of the same; Figure 3, a sectional view on line C, D, in Figure 1,
shewing the pump mechanism with its air vessel and connections; and Figure 4, a
sectional end view taken on line E, F, in Figure 2, shewing the whim gin (partly
broken away) and the break working the axles.
a is the air vessel of the fire engine; b and b', the forcing cylinders; c and o³, the
linked piston and connecting rods; d, d, the cranked axles which are mounted and
turn in the pillow blocks e and e', being supplied on their upper ends with the
toothed wheels fand f gearing into the wheel of the whim gin g which is toothed
on the inner circumference of its flanged underside as shown. The whim gin_g
turns on its pivot h in the step bearing i, Figure 4; the valve boxes i, j, of the
forcing cylinders 6 and 6' are shaped so that the pistons k and k³ may entirely make
the water or air contained in them escape. The pipe conducting the water into
the air vessel a reaches nearly to the bottom.
The feeding water is admitted by ordinary suction pipes 7 of caoutchouc which
are fixed to the cylinders in the ordinary way.
At those parts of the caoutchouc tubes & where the horses are passing consequent
on the circular course of the whim gin g, protective coverings of iron tubes or other
device may be used.
To the frames of the carriage are applied four (or more) staysm (Figures 1 and 2)
which serve to prevent any turning movement of the carriage during the circular
course of the horses and whim gin g. These stays enter the ground and prevent
any lateral movement of the carriage..

page_text: The rumble, which is not represented on the Drawing, must be arranged so that
it does not form an obstacle to the action of the horses and whim ging; other
utensils and ladders may be also applied in a manner that they do not obstruct the
acting of the engine.
The fire engine having arrived at the place of the fire the stays m are first fixed
on the right and left hand sides of the carringe for preventing all lateral movement.
The break n of the wheel axles is then screwed down for preventing the advancing
and retrograding movement of the carriage. The pole of the carriage is now
removed and the poles of the whim gin g, which are placed when not required for
use under the frame of the carriage, are fixed in the channels or slots made for
them on the upper side of the whim gin g, and the horses being harnessed to the
outer ends of the poles the apparatus is ready for use.
Every obstruction to the action of the engine having been removed and the
horses started the toothed wheel of the whim gin g begins to turn and gearing into
the small wheels fand f which turn the crank axles & and d'; the pistons and
kobtain their alternate movements by means of the linked piston and connecting
rods c, c², which slide in the guides o and o¹, and the fire engino is thereby operated
according to the rapidity of the horses in their circular course.
to
This Invention modified is applicable to any description of fire engine as well as
pumps or other engines hitherto worked by hand.