AN IMPROVED PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR IMPREGNATING AIR WITH HYDROCARBON VAPOURS OR VOLATILE OILS FOR LIGHTING AND HEATING PURPOSES
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Denton Abel at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
8th July 1872.-A communication from abroad by Siegfried
Marcus, of Vienna, in the Empire of Austria.
I, CHARLES DENTON ABEL, of No. 20, Southampton Buildings,
Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR
IMPREGNATING AIR WITH HYDROCARBON VAPOURS OR VOLATILE OILS FOR LIGHTING
AND HEATING PURPOSES," to be as follows:-
This Invention has reference to an improved construction of that
description of portable apparatus for impregnating air with hydrocarbon
vapours or volatile oils wherein the air is forced through a chamber
containing materials saturated with hydrocarbon liquids or volatile oils,
and is thus caused to take up the vapour of such liquid or oil.
Inside a casing is arranged, firstly, a clockwork mechanism which
imparts rotary motion to a spindle having two cranks, each connected
by a connecting rod to a separate bellows, the cranks being arranged

page_text: to work the bellows alternately, so that the air is being drawn into
the one bellows while it is forced out of the other.
In order to cause the cranks to work the bellows with a constant
force notwithstanding the variable power of the spring of the clockwork,
a fly wheel is provided, and the action of the apparatus is stopped when
required by causing a spring to press against the fly wheel. From the
two bellows the air is conducted through a branched pipe into a
regulating chamber similar in construction to the bellows, the upper
moveable disc or flap of which is weighted to an extent corresponding
with the pressure at which it is desired to force the air through the
impregnating vessel. This disc is connected by a link to a lever on a
cock on the inlet pipe, so that when the disc rises beyond a certain point
it will close the cock more or less, and thus cause a more or less
constant pressure to be maintained. From the regulating chamber the
air is conducted through a pipe into the upper end of the impregnating
chamber. This is divided by a number of horizontal partitions into a
series of superposed compartments, each of which is provided, firstly,
with a vertical partition having an aperture at one end, and secondly,
with a tube at the other end projecting to a certain height into the next
compartment above. These tubes are arranged alternately on opposite
sides of the vertical partitions, so that the air on entering a compartment
through one such tube is caused to traverse the spaces of the com-
partment on each side of the partition before issuing through another
tube into the compartment below. Each compartment is filled with an
absorbant porous material, by preference hair, and is charged with the
liquid hydrocarbon or volatile oil to a level not exceeding the height
of the said tubes, the oil being introduced through a stoppered opening
at the top of the chamber into the uppermost compartment, whence it
flows down through the said tubes into the compartments below. A
stoppered aperture is provided in the lowest compartment at a level
corresponding with that at which the oil should stand therein, so that
when the oil begins to flow out of this aperture it will indicate that all
the compartments are filled to the required extent. From the lowest
compartment of the impregnating chamber an outlet pipe conducts the
air impregnated with hydrocarbon vapour to the top of the chamber,
where a communication is established by a branch pipe provided with
a cock between the before-mentioned air inlet pipe and the outlet pipe,
so that by opening the said cock more or less a greater or smaller

page_text: proportion of air not charged with hydrocarbon vapour may be admitted
from the inlet pipe into the outlet pipe so as to mix with the im-
pregnated air passing through the latter, for the purpose of modifying
the nature of the flame when this is required for other purposes than
for illuminating
The outlet pipe conducts the impregnated air to the lamp or other
burners, which may be fixed on the casing of the apparatus itself.