NEW OR IMPROVED METHODS OR MEANS OF TRANS- PORTING OR CONVEYING CANAL OR OTHER BOATS
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Christopher Anderson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
5th January 1871.
I, CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON, of Hubert Shed, Leeds Road, Bradford,
in the County of York, Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "NEW OR IMPROVED METHODS OR MEANS OF TRANS-
PORTING OR CONVEYING CANAL OR OTHER BOATS," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to economize water in the conveyance
of boats, and is especially applicable where water is scare for the supply
of canals, in the ordinary use of which it is well known that at each
passage of a boat either up or down a lock the said lock has to be filled
with water, which is then run to waste.
Now my improvements consist in the employment of a cradle or shell..
of suitable size and form capable of holding water in sufficient quantity.
for a boat to float in.
"
i
.

page_text: One method of employing this cradle is by sinking it in the canal
adjoining a lock in the pool were the boat is floating sufficiently low
for the boat to be floated above it, and by means of a suitable crane
or other suitable lifting apparatus raise the said crade with the boat
floating therein sufficiently high to pass over the bar or lock gate to
the other side thereof, whether in ascending or decending the said lock,
when the cradle is again sunk for the boat to float out of it. By this
method if a boat be ascending the lock the cradle of water will be
carried from the lower pool to the upper one, which will supply for
anothing boat descending the said lock, thus economizing water and
also dispensing with lock gates, as such will not be required.
Another method of employing this cradle is by abolishing the locks
or dams betwixt one pool and another now adopted, and forming the
bed of the channel at an inclination in suitable gradients and dispensing
with the use of water in the said channel, but which channel I supply
with rails after the manner of a railway of suitable strengths, and I
mount the said cradle on a series of wheels so arranged that they will
run on the said rails, and I apply thereto a steam or other locomotive
power engine to draw or propel the said cradle along the rails. At one
terminus of the channel I form a pool or basin to hold water for any
required number of boats to float in, and the other end may be either
another basin or a pool of an ordinary canal supplied with water in the.
usual manner, and I arrange apparatus for lifting the cradle with its
cargo of water with a boat floating therein into or out of such pool
or basin, as herein-before explained.
In the application of this tractive power I may rely upon the
frictional contract of the wheels with the rails, or I may employ a
chain extending from one terminus to the other, so constructed as
that suitable gearing of the locomotive engine will take into or act
upon the said chain to effect the draught or propullsion of the cradle
and its cargo.
Another method of constructing and employing a cradle is by having
it perforated or made in skeleton so as not to hold water, but lined or
padded inside with some soft or yealding substance, so that the boat may
fit itself thereto and thereby prevent damage or unequal strain on the

page_text: boat in lifting it out of the water. By this method the water is not
removed from one pool to another but passes through the perforations
or appertures of the cradle when being lifted, and so remains in the same
pool, thus economizing the water.