A METHOD OF SHEATHING SHIPS, ROOPING HOUSES, AND LINING WATER SPOUTS WITH A MATERIAL NOT THERETOFORE USED FOR THOSE PURPOSES
Year: 1805

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, CHARLES
SYLVESTER, of Sheffield, in the County of York, Chemist, sends greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, in and
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain and Ireland,
bearing date at Westminster, the Eighteenth day of May, in the forty-fifth
year of His reign, give and grant unto CHARLES HOBSON, of Sheffield, in the
County of York, Silverplater, the said CHARLES SYLVESTER, and JOHN MOOR-
HOUSE, of Sheffield aforesaid, Surgeon, His especial licence that the said Charles
Hobson, Charles Sylvester, and John Moorhouse, 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, their Invention
of "A METHOD OF SHEATHING SHIPS, ROOPING HOUSES, AND LINING WATER SPOUTS
WITH A MATERIAL NOT THERETOFORE USED FOR THOSE PURPOSES;" in which said
Letters Patent there is, amongst other things, contained a proviso obliging
the said Charles Hobson, Charles Sylvester, and John Moorhouse, or one of
them, by an instrument in writing under their hands and seals, or under
the hand and seal of one of them, to cause a particular description of the
nature of their said Invention, and in what manner the same is to bo

page_text: performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within
one calendar month after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent,
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, the said
Charles Sylvester, doth hereby declare that the said Invention is described in
manner following, that is to say :-
The material made use of for the purposes aforesaid is the metal called zinc,
otherwise spelter, and such metal is cast into ingots, bars, or pieces of any
convenient size, shape, or figure, after which the same is to be rolled between
rollers, so as to convert it into plates of any required thickness. But it must
be observed, that in order to prevent the zinc or spelter from cracking or
breaking into pieces by the pressure of the rollers, the bar or piece previous to
rolling must be heated by fire to a degree of heat between two hundred and
three hundred degrees of the scale of Fahrenheit's thermometer, and kept at
that heat till the metal is reduced to one fourth of its original thickness, after
which it may be rolled to the thickness required without further heating.
After this process the plates are found to be very hard and difficult to be bent
or worked; the said plates must therefore be annealed by again heating them
to the temperature before mentioned, and the plates will then possess the
tenacity and flexibility required for sheating ships, roofing houses, and lining
of water spouts. The sheets of zinc or spelter in the state last mentioned
may be cut, bored, punched, or perforated like copper, and may be fastened
with iron nails to ships or vessels, having the usual treenails, bolts, or basten-
ings, but not of copper; or otherwise, in preference, the nails may be of iron
coated with zinc or spelter, or with tin. And it is hereby declared, that the best
general rule or instruction for applying metals as fastenings for zinc or spelter
sheathing, or for ships so intended to be sheathed, is to take that metal which
is nearest in that power which chemists call galvanism to zinc or spelter
itself, and causes the least quantity of oxydation when made with zinc or
spelter into a galvanic pill. Iron and tin are metals of this description, and
those among metals in general are to be preferred of which a piece being
laid in salt water, in contact with a piece of zinc or spelter, is found to
produce the smallest change in the zinc or spelter in any given time.
The sheets of zinc or spelter for roofing of houses, or lining of spouts,
are to be manufactured, annealed, and fastened in the same manner
and with the same materials; or otherwise, when it's thought needfull
to fasten the plates more closely to each other, the same may be done by
a solder composed of tin and zine or spelter, or a solder of tin and lead,

page_text: similar to that used by plumbers and other artists under the name of soft
solder.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Sylvester, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Twelfth day of June, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and five.