CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM ENGINES
Year: 1822

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JACOB
PERKINS, late of Philadelphia, in the United States of America, but now of
Fleet Street, in the City of London, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom, bearing
date at Westminster, the Tenth day of December, 1822, in the third year of
His reign, give and grant unto me, the said Jacob Perkins, my exors, aditiors,
and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that
I, the said Jacob Perkins, my exors, admors, and assigns, during the term of
years therein mentioned, 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, the Invention of
"CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM ENGINES," of which I am in possession in
consequence of communications made to me by a certain Foreigner residing
abroad and of discoveries by myself; in which said Letters Patent there is
contained a proviso that if I, the said Jacob Perkins, shall not particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manuer
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.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said Jacob
Perkins, do hereby declare the nature of mysaid improvements to consistin heat-
ing water or other fluid or fluids for the purpose of generating steam for steam
engines in a vessel or vessels kept during such process of heating full of such
water or other fluid or fluids, and also under pressure, and which said vessel I
sometimes substitute for the ordinary boiler used in steam engines, and call a
generator. By this said arrangement steam is generated with a much smaller
quantity of fuel than by the ordinary boilers used in steam engines of a like
power.
And also I do hereby declare that the nature of my said improvements doth
further consist in causing such water or other fluid or fluids so heated as afore-
said to escape from under the said pressure, and pass at once from the gene-
rator into the steam pipe, where it becomes steam or vapour, and in that form
may pass thence to the cylinder, or to any other situation connected with
steam engine without the necessary intervention of any steam chamber or other
reservoir of steam.
a
And also that the nature of my said improvements doth further consist in
causing such escape of water or other fluid or fluids to take place by forcing
other water or other fluid or fluids into the generator, and thereby maintaining
the generator in that state of fulness required for the purposes of my said
Invention.
And also that the nature of my said improvements doth further consist in the
application of the herein-before declared improvements generally for the
purpose of generating steam for steam engines, whether such steam be employed
to act through the steam pipe without a steam chamber immediately on the
piston of a steam engine, or to be collected in a reservoir or steam chamber,
and thence to act on the piston, or for heating the water for ordinary steam
other
for steam engines.
engines, or for any
purpose
And in further compliance with the said proviso, I do hereby describe a
manner in which my said Invention may be performed, which manner is the
best I have hitherto discovered or am at this time in possession of or informed
of, and which is ascertained by the following description thereof, reference
being had to the Drawings and Figures annexed, that is to say:-
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS.
The Drawing marked No. 1 represents my said herein-before described
improvements. A, A, is the thick vessel which I call a generator, and is here
represented as formed of copper or other suitable metal about three inches
think which will lead to thedimensions of the other parts of the Drawing. This

page_text: vessel is to be heated in a furnace, and may be used as a substitute for an
ordinary boiler to a steam engine. On the top of the generator is a steam or
escape valve V, acted upon by the lever L and the adjusting weight W. The
valve V communicates with the steam pipe S, which is represented as cut off
just above the throttle valve. B is a safety pipe, and at the end of which is
an indicator F; this safety pipe is of course always open to the generator.
G is the feeding or injection pipe leading from the forcing pump P, which is
worked by an apparatus herein-after more particularly described. In order to
generate steam the vessel A, A, must be filled with water or other fluid or
fluids from the pump P, and heated by a furnace or otherwise, the steam or
escape valve V being loaded, by the means of the weight W, with a pressure
greater than the expansive force of the steam to be generated from such water
or other fluid or fluids at the time of its generation. When the water or other
fluid or fluids in the generator has attained the necessary degree of heat, say
from 400° to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, more or less, an aditional quantity of
water or other fluid or fluids is pumped into the generator, sufficient to force
out a portion of that already heated in the generator from under the weighted
valve V into the steam pipe S, where it instantly becomes steam. In order
that this operation may be renewed and continued regularly, I make use of an
adjusting weight on the handle of the pump P, which is a small single-stroke
forcing pump, with a weight R, performing the office of an air vessel in the
Drawing No. 1, but without it in the Drawing No. 2. At the end of the
pump handle is a chain, which I connect with a simple crank movement; and
thus, by a corresponding adjustment between the weighted steam or escape
valve V, the throttle valve, which it is not thought necessary to shew in this
Drawing, and the weight on the handle of the pump P, a certain quantity of
water is forced into the generator at every stroke of the pump, and a corre-
sponding quantity forced from under the weighted valve V to become steam.
The Drawing marked No. 2 represents my said Invention in another form
and differently applied, being here represented as employed only to heat the
water of an ordinary steam-engine boiler, with a view principally to save fucl.
The letters in this drawing correspond, as far as similar parts are employed, to
those in the Drawing marked No. 1. C represents part of a tube leading to
a common boiler of a steam engine.
Now, whereas the materials of which mysaid improvements are constructed,
and the exact proportions of the relative parts of my said improvements, are
not subjects for which I hereby claim exclusive privilege, though I have
described those materials and proportions which I have found most useful;

page_text: neither do I hereby claim exclusive privilege for the peculiar forms of the
various mechanical agents which I employ, but only for a combination of such
and the like agents as will produce the said improvements the nature of which
is berein-before declared, and for which a claim to exclusive privilege is herein-
after made.
And whereas I have only represented in my said Drawings annexed such
parts of a steam engine as comprise my said improvements, the various modes
of applying such said improvements by means of the steam pipe being too well
known to require particular description here; and whereas my said generator
may be heated by a variety of known furnaces, therefore I have not described
any one in particular, but the one I have used and found to be the best is one
of the cupola kind fed by a blast; and whereas I have described in my said
Drawing marked No. 1 a safety pipe and indicator and a forcing pump,
neither of which are in themselves new, but which apparatuses or similar one
constitute a combination necessary to my said improvements, and are inserted
as such. I therefore hereby claim exclusive privilege for the following
improvements only, that is to say :-
Firstly, for heating water or other fluid or fluids for the purpose of gene-
rating steam for steam engines in a vessel or vessels kept (during such process
of heating) full of such water or other fluid or fluids, and under a pressure
greater than the expansive force of the steam to be generated from such water
or other fluid or fluids at the time of its generation.
Secondly, for causing such water or other fluid or fluids so heated as afore-
said to escape from under the said pressure, and pass at once from the gene-
rator into the steam pipe, where it becomes steam or vapour, and in that form
may pass thence to the cylinder, or to any other situation connected with a
steam engine, without the necessary intervention of any steam chamber or
other reservoir of steam.
Thirdly, for the manner of causing such water or other fluid or fluids to
escapeas aforesaid, that is to say, by forcing other water or other fluid or fluids
into the generator until the pressure against the steam valve shall cause it to
rise, the valve being so loaded as not to rise except by means of such extra
pressure as aforesaid.
Fourthly, for the general application of such water or other fluid or fluids so
heated as aforesaid, and of the steam or vapour generated thereby, whether
such steam or vapour be employed through a steam pipe without a steam
chamber or reservoir to act immediately on the piston, or to be collected in a
reservoir or steam chamber, and thence to act on the piston, or only for