IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE. OF CAPS OR COVERS APPLICABLE TO BOTTLES AND OTHER VESSELS,, AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION. OF. SUCH OR OTHER CAPS OR. COVERS
Year: 1868

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Alexander Southwood Stocker, of Lamb's Conduit
Works, Artillery Street, Horsleydown, in the County of Surrey, for
the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR THE
MANUFACTURE. OF CAPS OR COVERS APPLICABLE TO BOTTLES AND OTHER VESSELS,,
AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION. OF. SUCH OR OTHER CAPS OR. COVERS."
Sealed the 21st August 1868, and dated the 28th February 1868..
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Alexander Southwood
Stocker at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 28th February 1868.
I, ALEXANDER SOUTHWOOD STOCKER, of Lamb's Conduit Works,
Artillery. Street, Horsleydown, in the County of Surrey, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY.
OR APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF CAPS OR COVERS APPLICABLE TO BOTTLES.
AND OTHER VESSELS, AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SUCH OR OTHER CAPS OR:
COVERS, to be as follows:-
I add toothed wheels or other equivalents to the apparatus or means
employed and described in the Specification of a Patent granted to me
on or about the 20th day of August 1867 for improvements in bottles,
and in the manufacture of caps or covers for the same, and I construct

page_text: by such machinery caps or covers with screws or their equivalents in
their inner peripheries together with holes, projections, indentations,
and suitable figurations therein simultaneously with the manufacture
of the cap or cover, and I use and employ sheet mouldod, perforated, or
other vulcanised india-rubber, or other elastic medium to such or other
caps or covers as are more particularly applicable to bottles known and
technically called in the market infants* feeding bottles, such being
previously prepared for this especial purpose or use; these caps or covers
when their filling pieces are placed in their intended resting places
will form compound caps or covers, having chambers therein of a novel
and useful character, inasmuch as they will admit of air passages or
currents of air sufficient to allow much more comfort when in use
than by those now generally found in the market, while the vessel at
all times, either when wholly or partially filled, or in whatever position
or positions it will lay or be placed will remain hermetically liquid-tight
and clean, two desirable points hitherto unattained; other caps or
covers, either with or without screw threads, therein, or caps or covers
made wholly or partially of vulcanized india-rubber, may have a portion
of my Invention applied thereto with great advantage.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Alexander Southwood Stocker in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 28th August 1868.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALEXANDER
SOUTHWOOD. STOCKER, of Lamb's Conduit Works, Artillery Street,
Horsleydown, in the County of Surrey, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-eighth day of February, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, in the
thirty-first year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Alexander Southwood Stocker, Her
special licence that I, the said Alexander Southwood Stocker, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Alexander Southwood Stocker, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no, others, from time to time and at
all times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and

page_text: lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Islé
of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR
THE MANUFACTURE OF CAPS OR COVERS APPLICABLE TO BOTTLES AND OTHER VESSELS
AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SUCH OR OTHER CAPS OR COVERS," upon the
condition (amongst others) that I, the said Alexander Southwood
Stocker, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed
in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Alexander Southwood Stocker, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement thereof, that is to say :-
I add toothed wheels or other equivalents to the apparatus or means
employed and described in the Specification of a Patent granted to me
on or about the 20th day of March 1867, for improvements in the
manufacture of stoppers to be applied to bottles and other receptacles,
and I construct by such machinery caps or covers with screws or their
equivalents in their inner peripheries, together with holes, projections,
indentations, and suitable configurations therein, simultaneously with
the manufacture of the cap or cover, and I use and employ sheet,
moulded, perforated, or other vulcanized india-rubber, or other elastic
medium, to such or other caps or covers as are more particularly
applicable to bottles known and technically called in the market infants'
feeding bottles, such being previously prepared for this especial purpose
or use. These caps or covers when their filling pieces are placed in
their intended resting places will form compound caps or covers having
chambers therein of a novel and useful character, inasmuch as they
will admit of air passages or currents of air sufficient to allow much
more comfort when in use than by those now generally found in the
market, while the vessel at all times, either when wholly or partially
filled, or in whatever position or positions it may lay or be placed will
remain hermetically liquid-tight and clean; two desirable points
hitherto unattained; other caps or covers made wholly or partially.

page_text: of vulcanized india-rubber may have a portion of my Invention applied
thereto with great advantage.
And in order that my Invention may be more fully understood and
readily carried into effect, I will proceed more fully to describe the
same.
My Invention relates, first, to the manufacture of rigid caps or
covers, such or of the kinds as are to be screwed on to the necks of
blown or burst off glass bottles with corresponding screws provided
thereon by blowing for their reception, some of these species are described
in the Specification of a Patent granted to me on or about the 26th day
of March 1867, N° 869.
In the Specification of 1867 to which I refer, it will be seen that I
have no tooth wheels mentioned for conducting the up-and-down motion
of the male which produces the female screw in the inner periphery of
the cap or cover, neither are there any holes provided in the crown
of the cap or cover I employ in connection with the means therein
referred to, a pair of tooth wheels, the smaller one being placed on
the screw shaft and the larger one on a shaft fixed to the machine at
a desirable distance convenient to gear into the smaller one, a lever
or handle is affixed to the larger wheel, so that by giving it about
half a revolution the smaller pinion will give the screw a much higher
rise and lower fall, also a more rapid motion than by the means adopted
in the Specification of my former Patent before referred to. This is
most essential in the manufacture of glass caps. In the centre of the
extreme end of the male screw which produces the female screw in
the cap
I affix a cylindrical pin or punch about a quarter of an inch
in diameter, and three quarters of an inch in length. I also provide.
a hole in and through the bottom die that forms one part of the cap to
correspond with this punch. When motion is given to the machine,
these new parts will act as a pair of punching tools and produce the
cap with a hole perforated through its centre simultaneously with its
manufacture, and thereby make a provision for the tube ordinarily used
with a feeding bottle to pass therethrough and to be employed there-
with. Rigid screwed caps or covers may be composed and made in
any known manner, out of any known rigid or non-elastic material or
materials capable of receiving and holding therein the filling pieces to
be deposited in them, forming thereby my compound cap or cover

page_text: to be screwed on to the necks of blow or burst-off feeding bottles with
corresponding screws formed thereon by blowing.
Figure 1 represents a section of the upper part of a feeding bottle,.
having a screw cap applied thereto constructed according to my
Invention.
I will now explain how I proceed to prepare the peculiar pieces of
rubber according to my Invention, and to combine them with those
portions or parts that are now used with feeding bottles generally. I
mould or otherwise form pieces of rubber or other suitable material
or materials into round discs or other convenient forms; that shown
at Figure 2 is suitable to be employed with the stopper shown at
Figure, 1. Through its centre I make a round hole, as shown, in which
I place and employ the vulcanized tube of india-rubber now generally
used with ordinary infants' feeding bottles, taking care that the hole
in this disc shall be somewhat smaller in diameter than the tube to
be employed therein, in order that the latter shall be collapsed tight
and thereby form a liquid-tight joint; at this part I provide in the
cap a chamber or recess somewhat smaller than the disc, into which I
place or force the latter (with the tube therein) and so form this part
also as to make it a liquid-tight joint. I beforehand prepare through
the disc of india-rubber between the outer edge of the centre hole
therein and the outer edge or diameter of its extreme edge a series
of chambers a, at the bottom of which through the thin parts I cut
through each one what is known as and technically called a leech
bite b; these leech bites arc for the purpose of causing air passages
therethrough, so that sufficient draught shall be admitted into the vessel
to allow the infant to draw its food therefrom when in use; I then
insert into the cap an india-rubber or other suitable ring c with a hole
therethrough. When all these filling pieces are in their intended
resting places, I place on the cap and screw it down tight on to the
bottle, the action of the screw or its equivalent will grip the ring and
form at that part also a liquid-tight joint. This apparatus compounded
in the manner described will be found complete, affording unusual
comfort to the infant when in use, and avoid all danger of leakages,
want of cleanliness, breaking of corks and caps, and the many other
objections hitherto found in ordinary infants' feeding bottles. The
chambers in the caps for holding the leech bite discs are moulded

page_text: simultaneously with the holes in the glass caps to which I have before
referred by shaping the tools suitably for the purpose, or they may be
turned, cast, or otherwise formed in any known manner out of other
rigid or non-elastic material or materials than glass.
In some instances instead of employing the arrangement before
referred to I employ a disc of sheet rubber, such as that shown at
Figure 3, having a hole made therethrough for holding and collapsing
the tube and performing the like advantages at that part as are obtained
in the smaller one herein-before referred to, and between the outer
edge of the centre hole of this disc and its extreme edge a series of
leech bites d are cut for the purpose of producing air passages there-
through, thereby the same advantages in like manner to the disc
herein-before referred to will be obtained. The action of the screw cap
gripping the outer edge of the rubber disc when screwed down thereon
will form also a liquid-tight joint at that part.
Figure 4 shows the upper part of a feeding bottle with screw cap
and parts applied thereto as above described.
Another part of my Invention consists in the application to and
employment with feeding bottles of vulcanized india-rubber caps or
covers, either in their entirety or in combination with metal or other
convenient substances as are capable of being applied to and holding
mselves firmly by their elasticity on to the necks of feeding bottles
without the aid of screws for the purpose when combined with the
vessels with which they are intended to be used of attaining the same
beneficial or like results as are realised by the means herein-before
set forth, and I proceed as follows, viz., I take a cap or cover of
desirable shape, manufactured either by moulding, dipping, or making it
up of pieces, or constructing it in any other convenient manner. When
I have this cap or cover produced of the desirable configuration to fit,
and by its elasticity to hold itself on to the neck of a desirably shaped
bottle to and with which it is intended to be applied and employed,
and also of desirable thickness, I picrce or otherwise make a round
hole in the centre thereof similar to that in the rubber disc herein-
before mentioned for the purpose of holding therein and employing
therewith the ordinary tube now used with feeding bottles generally,
and forming at that part a liquid-tight joint. Between the outer edge
of this centre hole and the extreme edge of the cap or cover, I cause

page_text: to be made therethrough a desirable number of leech bites for the
purpose of procuring a free draught; by these means the infant is
enabled easily to withdraw its food from the bottle.
Figure 5 represents the neck of a feeding bottle with an india-rubber
cap applied thereto, as above described.
In some instances it may be found expedient to place in the centre
hole in this cap or cover and permanently fix it therein a metal eyelet e,
as shown at Figure 6, through which the flexible tube is intended to
be passed, and form thereby a liquid-tight joint. This provision is made
to prevent the accidental withdrawal of the flexible tube and its
appendages therewith from the bottle and out through the hole in the
top of the cap or cover when pulled unnecessarily, which from
experience I have often found to be the case, whereas the rigidity
of the application, employment, and uniting of the metal with the
rubber will act as a fulcrum or abutment, and prevent all mischief,
keeping the cap or cover when fixed upon the bottle with all its
filling pieces therein intact and wholly undisturbed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Alexander Southwood Stocker,
have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-eighth day
of August, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and sixty-eight,
ALEX. S. STOCKER. (L.S.)
Witness,
FRED. HARRIS,
Patent Agent,
35, Southampton Buildings.