A COMPOUND METAL CAPABLE OF BEING FORGED WHEN RED HOT OR WHEN COLD, MORE FIT FOR THE MAKING OF BOLTS, NAILS, AND SHEATHING FOR SHIPS THAN ANY METALS HERETOFORE USED OR APPLIED FOR THOSE PURPOSES, AND ALSO FOR VARIOUS OTHER PURPOSES WERE OTHER METALS HAVE BEEN USED OR APPLIED
Year: 1779

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES KEIR,
of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent, bearing date at Westminster, the Tenth day of December, in the
twentieth year of His reign, did give and grant unto me, the said James Keir,
His special licence, full power, sole priviledge and authority, that I, the said
James Keir, my exors, admors, and assigns, should and lawfully might, during
the term of years therein expressed, make, use, exercise, and vend, within that
part of Great Britain called England, the Dominion of Wales, and Town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A COMPOUND METAL CAPABLE OF BEING
FORGED WHEN RED HOT OR WHEN COLD, MORE FIT FOR THE MAKING OF BOLTS,
NAILS, AND SHEATHING FOR SHIPS THAN ANY METALS HERETOFORE USED OR APPLIED
FOR THOSE PURPOSES, AND ALSO FOR VARIOUS OTHER PURPOSES WERE OTHER METALS
HAVE BEEN USED OR APPLIED;" in which said recited Letters Patent is contained
a proviso obliging me, the said James Keir, by writing under my 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 calendar months after the date
of the said Letters Patent, as in and by the said Letters Patent and the
Statute in that behalf made, relation being thereunto respectively had, may
more at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, and in pursu-
ance of the said Statute, I, the said James Keir, do hereby declare that my

page_text: said Invention is composed, performed, and made in manner following, that is
to say:
My compound metal consists of certain proportions of copper, zinc or
spelter, and iron, combined together by means of heat or otherwise; that is to
say Of one hundred parts of copper, seventy-five parts of zinc or spelter,
and ten parts of iron. When those proportions are well combined together,
they constitute a compound metal, which may be forged either when cold or
when heated to a blood. red. Although these proportions are the best, and
give the greatest strength and malleability when hot and when cold, yet other
proportions in which the iron or the zinc or spelter may be respectively dimi-
nished or increased within certain limits relatively to the copper will be found
to possess an inferior degree of these properties. These metallic matters may
be combined in various methods. The method which I follow is this:-Take
one hundred grains of pure copper, or substance containing copper in propor-
tion; of iron or steel filings or powder ten grains, or iron ore or pyrites or other
substance containing iron in proportion; charcoal dust thirty grains; pounded
window glass, forty grains; fusible spar, thirty grains; mix them all well toge-
ther; put this mixture into a crucible; fill up the crucible with charcoal
powder; set the crucible, thus filled, in a melting furnace; apply heat
gradually, more and more, till the copper melts; stir the mixture twice, or
oftener, with an iron rod; keep it melted half an hour; then add to it, by
degrees, eighty grains of zinc or spelter; stir all the metals well together;
keep them melted till about five grains of the zinc or spelter have evaporated,
and then pour the melted mixture into an ingot mould, or into whatever form
is required. An inferior kind of this metal may be made in the following
manner: Take one hundred and ten grains of copper, before it has been per-
fectly purified by smelting from the pyritous, vitriolic, or farruginous parts
contained in the ore from which the said copper was extracted, and melt the
said copper in a crucible or otherwise; add to the copper, when melted, eighty
grains of zinc or spelter, and mix these metals together, as above directed.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Tenth
day of April. One thousand seven hundred and eighty.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Tenth day of April, in the year
of our Lord 1780, the aforesaid James Keir 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
Statutes made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen
W and Mary of England, and so forth, and in the seventeenth year of the
reign of His Majesty King George the Third.
Inrolled the Tenth day of April, in the year of our Lord One thousand
seven hundred and eighty.