NEW-INVENTED METHOD OR METHODS, PROCESS OR PROCESSES, OR MEANS FOR RENDERING OR MAKING ARTICLES MADE OR MANUFACTURED OF HEMP OR FLAX, OR OF HEMP AND FLAX MIXED,, MORE DURABLE THAN ANY. SUCH ARTICLES ARE AS NOW MADE OR MANUFACTURED
Year: 1816

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, LEWIS
GRANHOLM, of Foster Lane, in the City of London, a Captain in the Royal
Navy of Sweden, do send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-fifth day of
October, in the fifty-seventh year of His reign, did give and grant unto me,
the said Lewis Granholm, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His
special licence, full power, sole privilege, and authority that I, the said
Lewis Granholm, my executors, administrators, and assigns, during the term of
years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in
His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my "NEW-INVENTED METHOD
OR METHODS, PROCESS OR PROCESSES, OR MEANS FOR RENDERING OR MAKING ARTICLES
MADE OR MANUFACTURED OF HEMP OR FLAX, OR OF HEMP AND FLAX MIXED,, MORE
DURABLE THAN ANY. SUCH ARTICLES ARE AS NOW MADE OR MANUFACTURED;" in
which Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Lewis
Granholm, 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's High Court of Chancery within two calendar.

page_text: months next immediately after the date of the said recited or partly 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, I, the said
Lewis Granholm, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described
in manner and form following (that is to say) :-
I render articles made of hemp or flax, or mixtures of these, more durable by
impregnating the said articles, or the yarn employed in their fabrication, with
a substance, or substances, or matter possessing the property or quality of
resisting mildew or putrefaction. This may be effected in various ways,
which, when the process and intention of it are once explained, will easily
present themselves to the mind of any chemist, but as an illustration of any
process, however easy in itself, is at once the simplest way to render its appli-
cation obvious, and at the same time to enable others who may reason upon
it to alter, vary, or modify the process according to the price of materials in
different places, and the greater facility with which one article may be obtained
than another, I will here present full instructions how the process may be per-
formed with some of the articles that are most commonly and easily to be pro-
cure. When it is intended to give to cloth or yarn, or other articles (except
articles made by ropemakers, and except articles intended to be tarred) made of
hemp or flax, or a mixture of these, the greatest degree of antiseptic power
and durability, the process is conducted in the following or in any similar manner
calculated to give the same result. I.-I make a strong caustic alkaline ley of
either potash or soda, but for the sake of clearness and brevity I will here
confine myself to the ley of potash. In this ley I dissolve clean tallow or oil,
or a mixture of these in any proportion which frugality may dictate, or (when
the colour of the article is not a matter of consideration) a mixture of oil and
rosin, or of tallow, oil, and rosin. The intention is to produce a saponaceous
solution in which the tallow or oil, or oil and rosin, or tallow, oil, and rosin shall
be in greater proportion to the alkali than in common soap. But I have to
remark here that common soap will answer the purpose, though I prefer the
saponaceous compound just described. The saponaceous matter (or the soap)
is to be dissolved in soft water, boiling hot, in such proportion that when a
drop of it is let fall upon a cold body (as iron or marble) it will be found when
it has cooled to be like cold starch or jelly. II.-I make a saturated solution
of murate or of sulphate of potash, or of soda. The salt employed should
be perfectly neutral without any excess of either acid or alkali. If it is
otherwise, neutralize the solution after it is made. For the sake of perspecuity

page_text: 1. shall at present confine myself to muriate of soda. Dissolve the salt either
in clean soft water, or what is known by the name of tar water, or, if circum-
stances permit, sea water may be employed instead of common water, which
will save a considerable portion of the muriate of soda. III. The cloth or yarn
(but to avoid prolixity I shall speak only of the cloth); the cloth is to be
put into any fit vessel, disposed in regular folds, and the saponaceous mixture
is then to be poured upon it boiling hot, and in such quantity as to cover it.
As a thorough impregnation is required, means should be adopted to prevent
the liquor from cooling suddenly. This may be effected in various ways, as
by having it inclosed in a case to admit steam all round it, or instead of
pouring the liquor upon the cloth, the cloth may be put into the boiling liquor.
In either case the cloth should remain immersed two hours. The cloth is
then to be taken out and the superfluous adhering saponaceous matter is to be
scraped or brushed from its surface, after which, if time permits, it should
be a little dried; this, however, is not indispensibly necessary, but when it
can be done it tends to facilitate the after impregnation, which is the next
part of the process. IV. The cloth is now to be put into the solution of
muriate of soda (II.), cold, and it should remain in it at least twenty-four hours,
but if three or four days it will be better. Any chemist will readily com-
prehend what has been effected. The muriatic acid having a stronger affinity
for potash than for soda, quits the latter more or less perfectly, and, seizing
upon the potash previously introduced into the cloth in the saponaceous
compound, leaves the tallow, or oil, or mixture (as the case may be) in the
fibres of the cloth. The cloth is now to be taken out and dried in the shade,
when it will be ready for use.
Having thus explained the result intended to be gained, every person
moderately skilled in the common well-known affinities of the acids, alkalies,
earths, and metals will readily perceive that the same result may be obtained
by employing alkalies and salts different from those which I have mentioned
by way of illustration. For example, the saponaceous compound may be
made with soda instead of potash; in this case precipitation of the tallow, oil, or
mixture (as the case may be) may be effected by making the immersion (IV.)
in a perfectly neutral sulphate of alumine, or of magnesia, or indeed of any
sulphate not prohibited by its expense, or which may not act injuriously on
the fibre of the cloth, for, as every chemist knows, some of them would after-
wards prove injurious; as, for example, were sulphate of iron is used, the iron
which would be deposited in the fibre would, by imbibing oxygen, in time
corrode, and injure the cloth. On this way of operating I need not enlarge
further, as from what has been stated it will be impossible that any competently

page_text: qualified person can mistake the nature of the process, or find any difficulty in
applying it to practice; I shall therefore only remark in addition, that when
this process is applied to articles used in salt water, as to fishing nets, or yarn
employed in their fabrication, alkaline sulphates should be employed for the
solution (II.), for if metallic or earthy sulphates be employed, the soda of the
'sea water, by the well-known laws of chemical affinity, will decompose the
earthy or metallic sulphate left in the fibres of the article, and the muriatic
acid at the moment of its liberation from its union with the soda of the sea
water may injure the fibres; alkaline muriates may also be used. If that of
soda, it obvious that no decomposition can be effected by sea water which
has the same constituents, and if muriate of potash be used the same con-
sequence follows, the muriatic acid having a stronger affinity for the potash
with which it is already neutralized than for the soda of of the sea water. It
must be observed. that when alum is used, it must be free from iron. Sails
already in use, coverings for tents, and other articles, which from circum-
stances it may be found. difficult to submit for a time to immersion, as above
directed, may with proper pains be much improved by applying repeatedly the
saponaceous. mixture, hot or in a warm state to the surface by means of a
brush,. and afterwards by the same means the solution (II.), which is to effect
precipitation, I have to remark here that cloth-prepared as before ‹lirected
not only resists mildew or putrefaction, but is rendered more pliable and closer
in the texture, and better able to resist the effects of weather than when not
so prepared. 'But as cases may occur in which all these qualities may not
be required, but where security against the injuries of mildew is desirable,
for such cases I alter my process for one less expensive. For mere protection
against injury éffected by hot weather, or when closed up in warehouses, and
in other situations subject to heat, and for mere protection agairist mildew, the
use of the saponaceous compound is not necessary; all that is then wanted is
either to discharge entirely from the fibre of the cloth or yarn the whole of
the vegetable mucilage or other putrescent matter which it contains naturally,
or with which it may have been impregnated in any of the stages of manu
facture, or to impregnate the cloth with some substance fitted to destroy the
deleterious powers of the said mucilage or other putrescent matters; the latter
is the object and intention of the process which I shall now describe. The
cloth or other article is to be put into a hot solution of any of the neutral
muriatic or sulphuric salts, and to be left in it for a few hours (the solution
can also be used cold, but then the time for impregnating must be at least
'twenty-four hours; if three or four days can be allowed, it is better; afterwards
it is to be taken out, and dried in the shade; it is then fit for use. It must be

page_text: obvious to every person at all acquainted with the chemical properties of
bodies, that as. some salts are more deliquesscent and less soluble than others,
those that are less so should be preferred; I have found allum free from iron
when perfectly neutralised with alumine) to answer very well. For yarns, for
tarred and untarred articles made by rope makers, and for other articles
afterwards to be tarred (as, for instance, cloth or yarns for cloth intended to
be tarred, or converted into what is called tarpaulin,) the sulphate of alumine
should not be used, but rather the muriate of potash or of soda..
In a similar manner, ropes or cordage of any kind already manfactured,
whether tarred or untarred, may be improved by immersion in a solution of
neutral muriate of potash, or of soda, till well-impregnated, but immersion of
the yarns is always preferable (the solution for tarred ropes.ought not to be
hot, for untarred ropes the solution should be hot, but may even be used cold).
For the sake of correctness I must remark here that, strictly speaking, the
preservation of mildew is a term not perfectly applicable to ropes and tarred
articles; ropes as well untarred as,tarred, and other tarred articles when closed
up in warehouses-and in-other situations, are apt to get injured in hot weather,
or by heat, and the same will be more liable to take place in hot climates or
situations; it is for the purpose of preventing this that my process is applied
to them. Cloth or other articles intended only to be preserved against
mildew may, when circumstances do not allow them to be immersed, be
brushed over repeatedly with any of the saline solutions, hot or in a warm
state, as before recommended (see II.), and they will be completely protected,
and if it be then wanted to give them greater durability also than what arises
from being merely secured against mildew, they, when dried, may be brushed
over with a mixture of clear oil and tallow, or a mixture of clean oil and rosin,
or oil, tallow, and rosin, applied hot. When yarn that has been subjected to
either of the preceding processes is to be wove into cloth, it is of great advan-
tage that the starch or flour employed in making the paste or dressing used
by the weaver should be impregnated with neutralized alum free from iron,
or with any of the salts above alluded to, as proper to be used in my said
process or processes, and this will be best effected by first making the paste
with simple water, but of a consistence too thick for use, or else evaporated
to such a consistence, and then thinning it by adding the solution of the salt
in a boiling state.-N.B. Yarn not in this manner prepared will receive the
like advantage from this method.
Lastly, for the saline solution (II.), mixtures of the neutral salts may be
employed, but in every case it is desirable that the solution should be tested

page_text: or proved to shew whether it contains only free acid, and if it does the solution
should be rendered neutral by the addition of earths or alkalies.
In witness whercof, J, the said Lewis Granholm, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-fourth day of December, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixteen.
L. (L.S.) GRANHOLM.
Signed, sealed, and delivered by the within-
named Lewis Granholm, being first duly
stamped, in the presence of
JAS. ELKINGTON, jun',
No. 31, Fenchurch Street.
Inrolled the same Twenty-fourth day of December, in the year above
written.