CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN SHIPS' BINACLES AND COMPASSES, AND IN THE MODE OF LIGHTING THE SAME
Year: 1809

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, EGERTON
SMITH, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Optician, and MICHAEL
HARRIS, of the same Place, Mechanic, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty did, by His Letters Patent under the
Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the Twenty-sixth day of September
last, give and grant unto us, the said Egerton Smith and Michael Harris,
our exors, adñiors, and assigns, His especial licence and authority, that we,
the said Egerton Smith and Michael Harris, our exors, admors, and assigns,
by ourselves or themselves, or by our or their deputy or deputies, servants or
agents, or such others as we, our exors, adñiors, or assigns, shall at any time
agree with, and no others, during the term of years therein mentioned, should
and lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, our Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN
SHIPS' BINACLES AND COMPASSES, AND IN THE MODE OF LIGHTING THE SAME;" in
which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging us, the said
Egerton Smith and Michael Harris, or one of us, under our hands and seals,
or under the hand and seal of one of us, to cause a particular description of
the nature of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six
calendar months of the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by
the same may more fully appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, tho said
Egerton Smith and Michael Harris, do hereby declare that our said Invention
is particularly ascertained and described is manner following, that is to say :-
Our Invention, called the Patent tell-tale binacle and compass, consists in
the following improvements:-
1st, in making and applying to use binacles and compasses so constructed
that the identical compass or compasses by which the helmsman is steering on
deck or above may be plainly visible at the same time in the cabin or below.
2nd, in illuminating the said compass or compasses in the night by a light
placed in the cabin or elsewhere below, which light economically serves the
double purpose of lighting the binacle and cabin.
3d, in so fixing the compass card that it is not liable to be unshipped or
thrown off its center, which practice frequently is attended with injury to the
center or card.
4thly, in enabling the mariner to steer with one compass only, and a binacle
of much less dimensions than the common one, for as the same compass by
which the helmsman is steering above may be seen below, it may be compared
with the common cabin compass, which two together supersede the necessity
of two in the binacle, where they often are placed so near as to attract each
other.
5thly, in so darkening the binaclo, that whilst the compass is distinctly visible,
all the surrounding parts are so much obscured that no light shows out of the
binacle to an enemy.
Our mode of effecting these improvements is as follow:-The bowl of our
compass is made open at the top and bottom, similar to the bowls of cabin
compasses which are sometimes made for the purpose of using in the
binacle when any accident happens to the common steering compasses. We
make our compass card of paper, parchment, silk, cloth, with or without
talk, glass; or other proper substance, printed on both sides. This may be done.
either by pasting two card faces together with their faces outwards, or in order
to obtain superior accuracy in the corresponding points, we print our cards in
the following way:-From a wood or other kind of engraving we take an.
impression of the card in the usual mode practised by printers, having pre-
viously placed on the other side of the paper, &c, a sheet of paper or other.
substance smeared with printing ink or other transferable black or colored.
substance, so that the coloring substance is impressed on the one side of the.
paper at the same time that the other side in contact with the block receives.
its impression. In order to steady or load the card when it is made of any of

page_text: the light substances above described, we stretch it upon two metal rims or
rings riveted together, one upon the upper and the other on the under surface,
which, when diametrically divided by and connected to the magnetic .needle,
hold the card firm and level; we support the center on which the card revolves
either perpendicularly upon a bar fixed across the bottom of the compass bowl,
or by drilling a hole through the lower glass of the bowl, through which hole
we insert the center perpendicularly, securing it by a screw and nut, both
which methods are commonly practised in the construction of cabin compasses
of the ordinary make. In order to prevent the card being unshipped or
thrown off its center, we fix another bar across the top of the compass bowl
(similar to the one on which the center is fixed, as above described). From
the center of this bar we project a wire downwards; the top of the cap of the
ucedle being hollowed out, this wire descends into that hollow, and although it
permits the card to move freely, will not suffer it to be unshipped. The box
in which we place our compass is open at top and bottom, and the light from
the cabin below is admitted into the binacle through an aperture or apertures
of six inches diameter, or thereabouts, in its bottom, over a hole or holes of the
same diameter in the deck, bevelled below, in the latter of which hole or holes
is placed a strong glass or glasses secured by coamings.
The binacle may be a single box large enough to admit and contain one
compass, or it may be made double, of the usual shape and dimensions;
immediately under the part where the compass rests we cut circular holes
corresponding with the apertures in the deck before mentioned, to admit the
light from below. It must be evident that when a light is placed in the cabin
or elsewhere below, just beneath the compass, that the lower face of the card
will be there visible, whilst the upper face of the card will be also visible to
the steersman upon deck. In order to exclude any unnecessary light which
might pass into the binacle, between the bowl and the box of the compass we
place (on corner cleats just above the compass box) a thin square board or
slide, with a circular hole cut into it corresponding to the circumference of the
compass card. By this means all the light which enters the binacle is confined
to the face of the said compass card.
We also apply our Invention to compasses of the usual construction in the
following way:-Cut a circular hole in the middle chamber of the common
binacle, and the light being admitted from below through an aperture in the
deck, as before described, may be received upon the face of a concave or plain
mirror, and from thence transferred to the face of either larboard or starboard
compass; and in lieu of the kind of paper card before described, we occa-.

page_text: sionally use a card of metal, with either the points or the interstices cut out,
and the spaces filled up with paper, printed or plain, pasted over its whole
surface.
In witness whereof, we, the said Egerton Smith and Michael Harris, have
hereunto set and put our hands and seals, the Fifteenth day of March, 5
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and ten.
(L.S.)
EGERTON SMITH.
MICHAEL HARRIS. (L.s.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Fifteenth day of March, in the
year of our Lord 1810, the aforesaid Egerton Smith and Michael Harris came 1
before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Speci-
fication aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in
form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Seventeenth day of March, in the year of our Lord One 1
thousand eight hundred and ten.