A METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FREEING ROOMS AND BUILDINGS (WHETHER PUBLIC OR PRIVATE) FROM DISTRESSING HEAT SOMETIMES EXPERIENCED IN THEM, AND OF KEEPING THEM CONSTANTLY COOL OR OF A PLEASANT TEMPERATURE, WHETHER THEY ARE CROWDED TO EXCESS OR EMPTY, AND ALSO WHETHER THE WEATHER BE HOT OR COLD
Year: 1820

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
VALLANCE, of Brighton, in the County of Sussex, Brewer, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty George the Fourth did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of that part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twentieth day of June, in the first year of His reign, give
and grant unto me, the said John Vallance, my exors, adiñors, and assigns,
His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said John
Vallance, my exors, admors, and assigns, during the term of years therein men-
tioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's
Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "A METHOD AND APPARATUS
FOR FREEING ROOMS AND BUILDINGS (WHETHER PUBLIC OR PRIVATE) FROM DISTRESSING
HEAT SOMETIMES EXPERIENCED IN THEM, AND OF KEEPING THEM CONSTANTLY COOL OR
OF A PLEASANT TEMPERATURE, WHETHER THEY ARE CROWDED TO EXCESS OR EMPTY,
AND ALSO WHETHER THE WEATHER BE HOT OR COLD;" in which said Letters.
Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the said John Vallance, shall not
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in

page_text: what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within six calendar months 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, shall utterly
cease, determine, and become void, as in and by the same, relation being
thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Vallance, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained by the annexed Drawing, and the following description thereof
(that is to say):-
It is well known that the distressing heats experienced in crowded rooms
& buildings arise from the air of those places being heated and deteriorated
by the respiration and perspiration of the people who are in them, and to the
supply of fresh cool air being inadequate to the consumption of the people in
the place. The causes of this inadequacy are various. In some cases, it arises
from the rooms or buildings being built without any means of ventilation other
than what the doors and windows afford; in others, from the weather's being
so hot as to prevent even the most ample (present) means of ventilation from
being sufficient to keep the place cool; and in others, from the atmosphere's
being of so low a temperature as to cause ventilation to be prevented, lest the
influx of fresh (and in this case cold) air should be productive of catarrhous
affections. Now the method or methods I take to remedy this inadequate
ventilation, and, to do away with the distressing heats by which it is attended
are as follows:-..
"
There are three cases in which my methods are useful. The first is
when the temperature of the atmosphere is so near what is agreeable to
the body as for only a sufficient supply of fresh air to be wanted in any room
or building. The second is when the weather is so hot as for not only
a sufficient supply of fresh but also of cooled air to be necessary. And the
third is when the weather is so cold as for it to be desired that the supply of
air may be sufficient as to pleasant respiration of so raised; a temperature as
shall be agreeable to the feelings, and so arranged as shall prevent the chilling
and dangerous drafts and currents of cold air which are experienced near the
doors and windows of crowded places, so as that they may be in all parts
constantly of a pleasant temperature, and not (as is now the case) in one part
of one temperature, and near the doors and windows of another and lower
temperature, owing to the influxes of cold air which take place from doors

page_text: and windows. Now the method I take with reference to the first of these
cases is as follows:-In some convenient place outside the building to be kept
cool I have fixed air pumps (or if more convenient bellows, such as are used
for blast furnaces) of sufficient size to inject about one cubic foot (or more or
less as circumstances, the heat of the weather, &c. &c., vary) of fresh atmo-
spheric air per minute for every person the place will contain, which pump or
bellows being worked by any convenient means) have leading from them pipes
that proceed to the bottom of the building, and entering it through the floor
or through the sides near the floor, go round it behind the skirting. boads:
These pipes have in them, at the distance of every six inches or foot (or more
or less), orifices to let the air pass from them, and as, when the skirting boards
are put down, I have a space of about half an inch left between them and the
floor, the air is thus admitted from the pipes to behind the skirting boards, and
from behind them into the room. When it is got there, and has been by the
air that follows it pushed forward and distributed over the whole surface of
the floor, it gives place to the air that follows and has pushed it forward, and
(the door and windows being kept closely shut) rises towards the ceiling. In
its ascent it passes the persons of the assembly, and becoming from the effects
of their respiration lighter, rises somewhat rapidly toward the ventilator,
through which it passes off. Now, were there never anything more necessary
than a such supply of fresh air as should prevent any accumulation of of
respired and heated air, I might here stop, as it is very evident that with things
thus arranged, and with the pumps or bellows, or whatever might be made
use of, of sufficient magnitude to inject air enough, the respired and heated air"
would be driven off as fast as it became so, and the atmosphere of the building
be constantly of a pleasant temperature, whether it was crowded to excess
or empty; but as the state of the atmosphere in summer renders it (as in
the second case I have mentioned) desirable that the supply of air should
be cool as well as fresh, I in this case either cool the air by passing it through
pipes or vessels surrounded by or placed in cold water, or I proceed thus :-
That air is a conductor (though an imperfect one) of caloric; that if it be
passed through water, colder than itself its temperature will be reduced; that
its capacity of caloric varies according to its density; that if condensed, it
will have part of its latent heat or caloric liberated and rendered sensible,
and that the latent heat or caloric thus rendered sensible may be abstracted
and carried off from the condensed air, are circumstances too well known and
too evident to need other than advertion to as properties, by taking advantage
of which I attain the desideratum applying to the case of cooled as well of
fresh air being wanted in any place of assemblage, since what I do in

page_text: such case is this: I condense the air and keep it condensed till the caloric
which the condensation, as it were, expresses from it, is carried off by whatever
medium (whether water or the atmosphere) the vessel or pipes in which it
is condensed is or are situated in, and then admitting it into the building to
be cooled it so abstracts and imbibes caloric as lowers the temperature of that
building; and as the effect of the caloric it thus abstracts and imbibes is
to expand and render it of the same density only as the atmosphere, the
cooling and supplying the place with fresh air are brought about, be the
weather hot as it may. The means by which I take advantage of these
properties and render them available to the effect of reducing the temperature
of any room or building to what I please may either be according to any
of the common and well-known methods of condensing air, or as follows:-
I have prepared (either in one piece or in two or more lengths bolted (by
flanges) or otherwise fixed together) a pump barrel of about ten feet long by
three inches diameter (or of greater or less diameter and length as may be
desirable), to which I have fitted a piston with an iron rod of two inches or
greater diameter. On the top of this rod is fixed a weight of one thousand (or
more or fewer) pounds, according to the size of the pump & the condensation
it is intended to give, which rod and weight are so prepared and adjusted as
that cranks or any convenient machinery (driven. by any convenient means)
may alternately raise them up and let them fall, as is done by the weight,
driver, ram, or whatever it is called, employed for driving piles; and this
pump barrel, and its piston and joints, being so fitted up as is necessary for
operating on air, and provided with necessary and efficient valves, as is done
by condensing air pumps, is used thus:-Setting the machinery by which
the rod is raised at work the piston is lifted to the top of the barrel, and as
soon as it has got there is suffered to fall down again, when the weight of the
piston rod, and what it is loaded with, and the momentum it acquires in
falling compresses the air in the barrel beneath into so small a space as that
a portion of the caloric which before this compression was latent, becomes
sensible or free, and for the disposal of this sensible or free caloric I arrange
as follows: From a part of the barrel beneath where the piston descends to,
I have proceeding a copper or lead pipe strong in substance, and (if of lead)
of small diameter, that it may bear the strain the condensation will cause;
which pipe or pipes (for I have many) should circumstances render it desirable
to make use of lead, when the condensation is very great, as then the bore of
each being very small they are better able to bear the strain without yielding
er rendering, which pipe or pipes lead to a very strong metallic receiver, and
as the pipe or pipes leading from the pump to this receiver are so situated

page_text: and arranged (either by being fixed in a cistern or trough, or in any way
that, will answer the purpose, which cistern, or whatever it may be, is, whenever
necessary, supplied with water), as that the expressed heat may be commu-
nicated to and carried off by either the atmosphere or water, the expressed
caloric or sensible heat is in consequence of these arrangements so carried
off as reduces the compressed air to the temperature of the medium (whether
the atmosphere or water) it is passed through, in which state it is admitted (in
the same way as was described with reference to the first case from the
receiver into the place it is intended to cool, and as the pipes by which it is
passed from the receiver to the place to be cooled are so arranged by their
communication with the receiver being at all times open, and by having
stopcocks near the ends which open into the building) as to be part to be
receiver, and so keep up the condensation of the air till it actually enters
the place (or as nearly so as circumstances will admit or render desirable); the
effect of the admission of this condensed air into the place, is (owing to this
air's abstracting and imbibing caloric from the place) to cool it, and as the
weight with which the piston rod of the pump made use of is loaded is such
as to give a condensation of about ten atmospheres (or more or less as
circumstances, the heat of the weather, &c. &c. vary), and as so many pumps
such as has been described (or one immensely large one in their stead) are
made use of as shall inject about one cubic foot (or more or less, as circum-
stances may require), of air per minute for each person the building will hold, it
will be kept constantly cool & free from any distressing heat, even if crowded to
excess during the hottest weather. This is one way in which I proceed to reduce
the temperature of air. Another way I take is this: I have condensing
pumps, of magnitude and number sufficient to inject at about the rate I have
mentioned, and from them I pass the air into the bottom of a cast-iron or
other cylinder or cylinders (of any convenient diameter and height) standing
perpendicularly nearly filled with water of a temperature lower than that
of the air; and as the air, when forced into this vessel or vessels, rises through
the water, as in rising it is cooled by the water, and as the air after
it has risen through the water is, owing to the cylinder's being close
at top, and to the pipes or cocks, through which the air has egress from
them, being purposely made of so small a bore, or so little opened, as to cause
the air to have on it a condensing force, proportioned not only to the altitude of
the column of water it passes through, but also to, and increased by, the
smallness of the aperture of egress, as owing to these circumstances the air
may be as much condensed as it was in the last case, and also as it is con-
ducted and admitted into the place to be cooled in manner before mentioned

page_text: the same effects are brought about by it. These are the methods I take as to
the second of the casés I mentioned. As to the third of them, and when the
weather is so cold as for it to be desired that the supply of air may be efficient
as to pleasant respiration of so raised a temperature as shall be agreeable to
the feelings, and in such way arranged as shall prevent and do away with
the chilling and dangerous drafts and currents of cold air which are experienced
near the doors and windows of crowded places, so as that they may be 'in all
parts constantly of a pleasant temperature, and not (as is now the case) in one
part of one temperature and near the doors and windows of another and lower
temperature, owing to the influxes of cold air which take place from doors and
windows." I either warm the air by forcing it through pipes or vessels sur-
rounded by or immersed in heated oil or tallow or melted lead, or I proceed
thus: By adequate pumps I pass air (at the rate before mentioned) through
water, as in the last instance, but with the differences that the water is hot
instead of cold, and that the air, instead of being restricted in passing from
the top of the cylinders or vessels the heated water is in, is suffered to pass
from them as fast as it rises through the water, and so as for no condensa-
tion to take place with reference to it after it has left the water, and as pipes
lead from the tops of these cylinders or vessels to the building whose atmo-
sphere it is wished to renovate, as in the instances which have been mentioned,
the effect of supplying the place with a warmed medium of respiration is brought
about let the weather be as cold as it may. Now where there is nothing more
than this necessary it is evident I might here stop; for as there would be an
efficient supply of fresh air injected, and as this supply would be so treated in
passing through the hot water it has to rise through as to be of a temperature
agreeable to the feelings, not only would present unpleasantness be prevented,
but also would those fears which females and persons of delicate constitutions
entertain of taking cold when going from the heated atmospheres of crowded
places into the open air in cold weather be done
away with.
But as there is
another evil to which places are subject, and as this evil occasionally causes
much suffering and solicitude, I proceed to describe how I so arrange as to
prevent the chilling and dangerous drafts and currents of cold air experienced
in rooms and buildings, and how I in consequence attain the desideratum of
keeping them everywhere "of a pleasant temperature." From any building
ventilated, according to the methods hithertoo in use the air passes off un-
checked by any other circumstances than the size of the ventilation aperture,
the degree of rarefaction and levity imparted to it by the respiration, &c., of
the people inside, and the rate at which other air can find its way into the
place, through the doors, windows, or other apertures of the place. Now it is

page_text: owing to this that drafts take place into buildings; since whenever air passes
rom the ventilator of any place a quantity equal to what so passes off enters
hat place (generally toward the bottom) to make up for it, and as when the
loors and windows are kept shut. (as is the case in cold weather) ingress by a
duct equal to that of egress is prevented, all other possible means of entrance
become made use of by the air, and as each crack and crevice about the place
affords it a passage through them it finds entrance, and from every one of them
issues the current we term a "draft." Now the way in which I prevent and
do away with these "drafts" is this:-Instead of suffering ventilation to take
place at, as it were, the pleasure of the air, I restrict and regulate it thus: I
first have the windows of the place prevented from opening; I then have the
joints and crevices both of these windows and the room in general. so filled
with putty, or so treated with any such kind of lute or luting as will answer
the purpose, as shall prevent their.becoming channels through which drafts or
currents may find their way either into or out of the place. I then have the
doorways arranged thus: Removing the present doors I make the doorway
about six feet wide, by about the same height, and have fitted and (by puttying;
luting, &c. &c.) made air-tight into it a cylinder (of wood or metal) of about
six feet diameter, by 'about the same height, closed at both ends, and placed
upright on one of them, so as ppear somewhat like a cask built into the
wall. Through the side of this der I have two apertures cut, each about
four feet wide, by the height of he cylinder, inside its ends; which apertures
are opposite each other, and witheir middles in the line of the centre of the
cylinder so as to leave a way of about four feet wide, or more or less according
to the size of the cylinder, and the apertures in it are varied) right through
the middle of it into the place, as shewn by Figure First of the Drawings
annexed, where the cylinder is represented as placed in the wall with the
apertures. in it.
In the centre of the cylinder I have now put (perpen-
dicularly) a shaft of about three inches diameter, and of the length of the
cylinder, and having it, and the centres of the top and bottom of the
cylinder, so prepared and fitted to each other as that the shaft may easily
turn round or revolve. *I then have fixed on it at right angles to cach
other, and four at top and four at bottom, eight arms or radii, the bottom
of four being exactly under the upper ones.. To those arms I have
fixed four sheets or. pieces of iron plate of such lengths and widths as
will just go into and fill up (though without touching) the space left
between the shaft and the side of the cylinder; and these things being
so done as that the plates or leaves fixed on the arms- may turn easily
round inside the cylinder and the inside the cylinder and the ends and sides

page_text: of these leaves being so fitted to each other as that when the leaves are turne
round there may not be a space greater than about the sixteenth of an incl
left between them, the apparatus for the doorway is complete; and the
cylinder through which the place is entered has within it four leaves or.wing
somewhat like the fans of a winnowing machine fixed perpendicularly. Now
the effect of this apparatus is this;-Were a common door to be made use of
whenever it was opened free egress or ingress would be given to air, and i
would pass from or into the place as circumstances dictated; but with a door
arranged as I have described, no air can at any time pass either into or out of
the place excepting by the narrow space or crevice left between the edges of
the leaves and the inside of the cylinder. Since, as the leaves are all at right
angles with (or to) each other, and as the two apertures in the cylinders are
neither of them to be so wide as to be equal to ninety degrees of a circle of the
same diameter as this doorway cylinder, it follows that, turn or cause the leaves
to revolve as we may, two of them will always be within the uncut parts of
the cylinder and constantly interposed between the inside of the place and the
open air, and in consequence of this that there never can be any other passage
for air into or out of the place by this doorway than by the space or crevice
between the edges of the leaves and the inside the cylinder. When the
windows and doors are thus finished I proceed as follows with the ventila-
tion: To the aperture in the ceiling, through which ventilation takes place,
I have fixed a pipe of the same diameter as that aperture, which pipe goes
through the roof, and then descends and opens into a reservoir or cistern, as
shewn by Figure Second of the Drawings annexed, where the dotted line
shews the pipe inside, and the continued line shews it outside the roof. Now
with things thus arranged, and with the cistern so far filled with water as
immerses the end of the ventilation pipe a few inches in the water, I set air
pumps (prepared and arranged as has been described) to work, when air fresh
of a temperature pleasant to the feelings, is injected at such a rate as is
sufficient for the consumption of the people inside; and as, from the arrange-
ments and lutings I have mentioned, the only places where this air can find
egress are through the ventilation pipe, and by the spaces or crevices between
the doorway cylinder and the leaves that revolve in it, and as these spaces or
crevices are, when the cylinder and leaves are well finished and fitted to each
other, as almost nothing in comparison with the quantity of air injected, it
follows that the ventilation pipe must be the main channel of exit; and as
before any air can pass through this pipe it must displace the water inside that
end of it which is immersed in the cistern, and as to displace this a slight
pressure must be thrown upon it, and as the causing this pressure will sonic-

page_text: what (most trivially to be sure) condense the air in the ventilation pipe, and
also as this condensation will, owing to that principle of fluids by which action
and reaction are communicated, be reverted or reflected back upon and caused
to take place with respect to all the air in the place, the whole of it will be
somewhat condensed, and in consequence the place will have in it a quantity
of air greater than what it would under common circumstances have, according
to the depth to which the end of the ventilation pipe is immersed in the
water; and as this compressed state of the air, and the place's thus having
within it more than it would under common circumstances contain, and being,
as would vulgarly be said "more than full," is contrary to the natural
tendencies of air, its expansive principle will be exerted, and every crack and
crevice about the place will become a channel to let air out instead of into it,
and, in consequence, both will drafts into the place be effectually prevented,
owing to every cranny through which they used to enter becoming a channel
of egress instead of ingress, and also will the desideratum of constantly main-
taining in all parts of the place "a pleasant temperature" be attained. This
is the way in which I prevent and do away with "drafts," and in consequence
attain the desideratum of keeping places constantly of a pleasant temperature
in all parts, and when the door and ventilation apparatus. are well arranged
and fitted to each other, and their effect not counteracted by any of the cracks
and crevices which are about rooms being suffered to remain unluted or
otherwise unstopped, it will be found efficient, and the evil it is intended to
remedy effectually done away with. Also do I occasionally altogether dis-
pense with water as to cooling the compressed air, and dissipate the expressed
heat by the medium of the atmosphere surrounding the vessel in which the air
is condensed. Also do I, when desirable, proceed as to either cooling or
heating air by merely pumping or otherwise forcing it through pipes or vessels
immersed in or surrounded by (for cooling it) cold water, (or for heating it)
Also do I
by heated oil or tallow, or fused lead or steam, or hot water.
vary the shape, form, construction, and arrangement of the ventilation
apparatus as may be desirable. Also do I alter as to the method of bringing
the air into the room or place according to convenience, leading the pipes to
the middle or to any other part of the floor instead of to behind the skirting
boards as may be desirable.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Vallance (party hereto). have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twelfth day of December, in the
year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty.
JOHN (L.S.) VALLANCE.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twelfth day of December, in
the year of our Lord 1820, the aforesaid John Vallance came before: our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according to
the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Thirteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty.