CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN INSTRUMENT OR APPARATUS FOR TAKING SOUNDINGS AT SEA, WHEREBY THE SAME WILL BE MUCH MORE SIM- PLIFIED
Year: 1806

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EDWARD
MASSEY the younger, of Newcastle, in the County of Stafford, Nautical
Instrument Maker, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Sixth day of June, in
the forty-sixth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said Edward
Massey, my exors, adiňiors, and assigns, His especial licence that I, the said
Edward Massey, 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, iny Invention of
"CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN INSTRUMENT OR APPARATUS
FOR TAKING SOUNDINGS AT SEA, WHEREBY THE SAME WILL BE MUCH MORE SIM-
PLIFIED," for which instrument or apparatus I have already obtained His
Majesty's Letters Patent, bearing date on or about the Twenty-fourth day of
March, One thousand eight hundred and two (a Specification of which last-
mentioned Invention was duly inrolled in Chancery); in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Edward Massey, by
an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular
description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty High Court of Chancery
within six calendar months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent,

page_text: as in and by the same (relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at
large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Edward Massey, lo hereby declare that my said Invention is described and
ascertained in and by the Drawing hereunto annexed, and the following
description thereof (that is to say) :-
The apparatus in its simplified state consists of a rotator A, as described in
my former Specification, the air-tight tube being shortened to within half an
inch of the vanes. It is fixed to an endless screw C, by means of a double
universal joint ; the endless screw is composed of a cylinder, on which the
worm is fixed, and an axis terminating in a locking plate at d, so that the axis
which is fixed to the double universal joint at 6 has a pumping motion, being
locked by a stud at e, when the rotator is in the position p, and unlocked
when in the position a, when descending. The worm acts in a wheel g, of
twenty-four teeth, the graduated scale being of twenty parts or fathoms; an
index, fixed to the brass plate, points to the numbers as the wheel turns.
The axis of the wheel is a pinion of seven leaves, that turns another wheel on
the reverse of the plate of fifty-six teeth, answering to one hundred and sixty
fathom; the combination of the register wheels being variable at pleasure; as
is also the rate of the rotator; at k is a piece of thin brass, acting as a spring,
to hold the rotator in an horizontal position by one of the vanes until the
apparatus strikes the water, which immediately forces the rotator into a
perpendicular position. The brass plate is in its greatest breadth about
six or seven inches, and is fixed to an iron bar m, n, 'about two feet long, one
inch broad, and three-eighths thick; it is fixed to the bar at the points j and 7,
by means of two screws; at the point j 'the screw is only tiglit to the brass,
and acts as an axis or 'center in the iron bar for the brass plate to move
between two small checks at 1, that project from the iron bar at I, the
screw at going through the two cheeks and plate at right angles with
the surface of the plate, and allowing the plate to move between the
checks for the space of about one inch; this motion is allowed to obviate the
edily of the plate, and the projection of the plate from the iron is to preserve
the rotator from the eddy of the weight at o, which may be either cast on the
iron or fixed by a ring, as in the present Drawing; at the upper point 'm, the
line is fixed. The height of the plate is about seven or eight inches, and fixed
within 'two or three inches, or thereabouts, of the top of the iron bar, to keep
the apparatus as near a perpendicular as possible, and out of the eddy of the
lead. The chief of the improvement consists in getting rid of the bevil rod
and drop piece, by which means the friction of the first action is considerably

page_text: reduced, and the present construction of the register is more simplified, so as to
be easily understood, and the mariner can without difficulty take the parts
asunder to clean.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edward Massey, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Thirty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and six.