MAKING SALTFETRE OR NITRE
Year: 1741

page_text: HARRIS' SPECIFICATION.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, MARY
HARRIS and HENRY BURT, Executors of the last Will and Testament of
Thomas Harris, of Chelsey, in the County of Middlesex, send greeting,
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Second, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the
Nineteenth day of November, in the fifteenth of His reign, did give and grant
unto the said Thomas Harris, since deceased, His especial licence that he,
during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend his new Invention of "MAKING SALTFETRE OR NITRE,"
within England, Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and His Majesty's
Colonies and Plantations in America; in which said Letters Patent there is
contained a provisoe obliging him, the said Thomas Harris, by a writing under
his hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of the said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in
His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four kalendar months after the
date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being
thereunto had) may more at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said provisoe, we, the said
Mary Harris and Henry Burt, do hereby declare that the nature of the said

page_text: Invention doth consist and is to be performed in the manner herein-after
mentioned (that is to say) :-
-
Saltpetre or nitre is made of common salt, rock salt, sea salt, all salt springs
& nitre springs, all sorts of artificial salts, brines of every kind, either from fish
or flesh, and from all sorts of lime or stone that will be made into lime, all parts
of all animals, with their excrements, all sorts of vegitable substances, from
the greatest trees to the smallest plants; there being nothing created in the
animal, vegitable, or mineral kingdom, but is assisting in making saltpetre.
The method of making saltpetre or nitre from all natural & artificial salts
& brines of every kind is, to mix four tons of slacked lime, sifted, with one
ton of the above salts, and so in proportion to a greater or less quantity, and,
by calcination in a furnace for that purpose with wood, so to alter the nature
of them, as they may become a proper magnett for the nitrous particles of air.
After the calcination is over, the ingredients are taken out and put under a
shed, and watered with urine of any kinds, or a liquor prepared from any
sorts of wood, shrubs, leaves, grass, weeds, stubble, straw, dung, or any
vegitable substances whatsoever, steept in water; to which must be added
equal quantitys of slacked lime, and wood or other ashes, which, after
having fermented & stood some time, is to be drawn off, and kept to water
the above earth as the same becomes dry. The earth thus prepared lyes
exposed to the air till it is fit to mix with water, in order to draw the lixivium
away, which being filtered thro' ashes or sand, must afterwards be boiled
up to saltpetre. Saltpetre or nitre may also be produced by a commixture
of animal substances, some of which to be fermented in large vessels or
receptacles made for that purpose, and after a proper time brought into salt-
petre by evaporation; others to be buryed in the earth for some time till
putrified, then taken up and laid under a shed, exposed to the air, and watered
with urino or the said liquor before mentioned drawn from vegitables, and
managed as in the first process till brought into saltpetre. Mineral bodys also,
by calcination with lime, being brought into a proper state, and exposed to the
air and watered with the liquor prepared as in the first process, may be reduced
into saltpetre by the first method prescribed.-Nota bene, to all the liquors
prepared for watering any of the said processes, there should be added a small
quantity of spirit of nitre and fixed nitre. The quantity of each of these is
left to the discretion of every one who makes saltpetre.
In witness whereof, we, the said Mary Harris and Henry Burt, have
hereunto set our hands & seals, this Eighteenth day of March,
One thousand seven hundred & forty-one.
MARY HARRIS.
HENRY BURT.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the abovesaid Eighteenth day of
March, the before-named Mary Harris and Henry Burt came before our Lord
the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the abovesaid Writing, and all
every thing therein contained and specified in form above said. And also
the said Writing was stampt according to the form of the Statute made and
provided in the sixth year of the reign of King William and Queen Mary,
and so forth.
and
Inmolled the Dightonuth day of March in