IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PROCESS OF DRYING ORGANIC SUBSTANCES
Year: 1855

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Henry Samuel Boase, of Claverhouse Bleachfield,
near Dundee, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PROCESS OF
DRYING ORGANIC SUBSTANCES."
Scaled the 25th September 1855, and dated the 17th July 1855.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Henry Samuel Boase at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
17th July 1855.
I, HENRY SAMUEL BOASE, of Claverhouse Bleachfield, near Dundee, do
hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PROCESS
OF DRYING ORGANIC SUBSTANCES" to be as follows:-
This Invention consists of a peculiar combination of tunnels or drying
chambers through which the organic substances are progressively moved by
means of suitable carriages or waggons. For this purpose the drying house is
arranged in the following manner:-It consists of three passages or tunnels,
along which lines of railway are laid. On these lines run waggons on which
are placed the matters to be dried. The waggons are run in at the open end
of the first tunnel, which is traversed by a current of unheated air, by which
the drying is partially effected. When the waggon arrives at the end of this
first tunnel, it is withdrawn by a door at the end, and is then introduced into
another tunnel, which is traversed by a current of heated air, by which the
matters are completely dried, and therefore necessarily in parts over-dried. To

page_text: obviate this, the waggon passes into the third tunnel, through which the current
of air passes which has previously traversed the first tunnel, into which the wet
material is introduced, as before mentioned.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Henry Samuel Boase in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
17th January 1856.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, 1, HENRY
SAMUEL BOASE, of Claverhouse Bleachfield, near Dundee, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Iler Letters
Patent, bearing date the Seventeenth day of July, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, in the nineteenth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Henry Samuel Boase, Her special licence that I, the said Henry Samuel
Boase, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Henry Samuel Bonse, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter
during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
PROCESS OF DAYING ORGANIC SUBSTANCES," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Henry Samuel Boase, my executors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals,
should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be
filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Henry Samuel Boase, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof :-
This Invention consists of a peculiar combination of tunnels or drying chambers
through which the organic substances are progressively moved by means of
suitable carriages or waggons. For this purpose the drying house is arranged
in the following manner:-It consists of three passages or tunnels, along which
lines of railway are laid. On these lines run waggons on which are placed the
matters to be dried. The waggons are run in at the open end of the first

page_text: Figure I. shows a plan in section of the apparatus. A, A, are the walls of the
outer building, made of stone, bricks, or any other material sufficiently substantial
to protect the internal tunnels; a, a, partitions and ceilings of tunnels, made
of wooden framework, lathed and plastered. To the upright framework of
these partitions, rails b, b, of two-inch angle iron are bolted to form a con-
tinuous railway through the tunnels, as seen in Figure II., which shows a
transverse section, taken at the line 1, 1, of Figure I. B, the drying tunnel;
C, the cooling tunnel; D, the wet tunnel; E, entrance to the tunnel D,
permanently open; and O, communication between tunnels D and C, always
open; F, G, H, I, K, doors at the ends of the tunnels, having an up and down
movement in the same way as weighted sash windows. N is a flue leading
from the end of the tunnel C to the heating apparatus V, as is clearly seen in
Figure III., which shows a transverse section taken at the line 2, 2, Figure I.;
M is a flue leading from the heating apparatus V to the tunnel B; L is a
flue leading from the tunnel B to a chimney by which the air saturated with
moisture is discharged. The current may be established by fan or otherwise.
P is the transfer room, entered by the door c, and lighted by window d. On
the floor, rails e, c, are placed, transverse to the tunnels B and C, on which a
waggon
This waggon carries supporting rails in continuation of the
tunnel rails, so that when a waggon of yarn is run on it from B through the
open door H, it can be moved opposite to I, and transferred into the tunnel C.
R, preparing room, where the yarns are shook, and handled in the usual
way, and evenly spread out on the moveable wooden rods of the waggons Q;
S, large apartment, having next the tunnels transverse rails e, e, arranged and
worked on same principle as in transfer room P. The rest of the apartment
is used for bundling and packing the yarns. T, T, are the walls of the heating

page_text: Sheet On
apparatus; an oblong rooni, divided into three compartme
each containing twenty cast-iron steam pipes, three inches internal diameter,
nine feet in length, and placed perpendicularly, connected above and below by
horizontal pipes. W is a steam boiler for supplying steam to pipes in V.
Z, Z, are boiler flues; X, X, are walls of boiler house; Y is a party wall
between boiler and steam pipe houses.
Figure IV. shews an end elevation of the tunnels and doors F, K, G, as
seen from the interior of the chamber S.
DRAWINGS ON ENLARGED SCALE.
Q. yarn waggon; a frame made of Memel wood, morticed together and
strengthened by bed screws, with cast-iron wheels, cased like window pulleys,
and having one of the sides lengthened for screwing fast to the frame; they
are three inches in diameter, with half-inch flange, and three-quarter inch
wide, flange one-eighth inch. The ends of the frame on the upper part have
triangular notches at equal distances from each other for supporting the ends
of the rods or yarn bearers.
These rods are also made of Memel wood, cut into equilateral triangles of
two and half inch sides, quarter inch of angles cut off, and edges rounded.
On these rods the hanks of yarns are evenly spread. The hanks are three
feet nine inches long when dry; three feet seven inches when wet. Into the
loops at the bottom of the hanks, picces of wood are placed, which are three
inches wide, one and a half thick, and four feet three inches in length.
The object is to keep the yarn in its place and straight by a moderate weight.
The banks of yarn thus arranged form open continuous channels from one end
of the tunnel to the other, thus considerably diminishing the obstruction to the
current of air.
U, the transfer waggon, also made of wooden framework, and run on much
larger wheels, six or eight inches in diameter. The connection between the
rails supported by this waggon and the rails of the tunnel is effected by
moveable pieces of iron, seven inches long and one and a half inch wide, united
with the angle-iron rails by a hinge joint. Before closing the doors of the
tunnels these are turned up. When a waggon is to be withdrawn, the transfer
rails-being placed, the door is opened and the waggon pulled forward, the
hinged pieces fall on the transfer rails, and the connection is formed.
The mode of working this arrangement is as follows:-The wet yarns,
having been prepared and arranged on the waggons Q in the preparing room
R, are pushed forward into the wet tunnel D, the rail b of D being continued
into R for this purpose. Having passed along D, they are withdrawn through

page_text: the door F on to the rails of the traversing waggon U, running on the rails e, e,
in the room S, which is pushed opposite to G, and through it transferred into
the drying tunnel B. Having passed through B, the waggons Q are suc-
cessively withdrawn through H on to the rails of the traversing waggon U on
the rails e, e, in P, which is pushed opposite to I, and through it transferred
into the cooling tunnel C. The yarns which had been thoroughly, indeed
over-dried in their passage through B. are cooled, and gradually recover their
natural sate of moisture in their transit through C, and when withdrawn in
rotation from C by the door K, they are, as regards temperature and bygro-
metric tension, in the same state as the atmosphere. The yarn waggons are
taken out on the traversing waggon U, the door K is shut, and the finished
yarn taken off for bundling in the apartment S.
On commencing to work, the drying tunnel B must be filled as quickly as
possible, and as the yarn dries and is transferred into the cooling tunnel C, the
waggons in B must be pushed forward, and the empty part of the tunnel next
G filled from D. When the tunnels are once filled, they are to be kept so by
transfers in rotation as fast as the waggons of finished yarns are withdrawn
at K. The empty waggons Q are returned to the preparing room R by a rail
placed outside and above the tunnel D.
Having thus described the nature of my Invention, and the manner of
performing the same, I would have it understood that I do not confine myself
to the exact details described; but what I claim is, the manner herein described
of drying organic matters by means of apparatus in which the drying is com-
menced by a current of unheated air and completed by a current of heated
air, and in which also the matters when in parts over-dried are subjected to a
current of moist air, in order to restore the dried matter to an uniform
hygrometric condition, corresponding with the atmospheric temperature.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Samuel Boase, have hercunto set
my hand and seal, this Fifteenth day of January, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six.
Witness,
PETER CARMICHAEL,
Dens Works, Dundee.
HENRY SAMUEL BOASE. (L.S.)