IMPROVEMENTS IN LAMPS AND STOVES FOR THE APPLICATION OF BLAST HEAT TO HORTICULTURAL, AGRICULTURAL, AND OTHER SPECIFIED PURPOSES
Year: 1863

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frederick George Stuber at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
16th October 1863.
I, FREDERICK GEORGE STUBER, of 20, Waterloo Road, in the Parish of
Lambeth, County of Surrey, Teacher, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN LAMPS AND STOVES FOR THE APPLICATION OF
BLAST HEAT TO HORTICULTURAL, AGRICULTURAL, AND OTHER SPECIFIED PURPOSES,"
to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in the construction of a simple "blast lamp" for
small or horticultural purposes, and of a "blast stove" for larger or agri-
cultural purposes.
In the lamp a liquid or gaseous fuel may be used, in the stove a solid
fuel.
The two instruments are for similar purposes, are on the same principle,
and pass from one into the other according to circumstances of economy,
of quantity of work to be done in a certain time.
It should, however, be mentioned here, that the "blast lamp" having no
smoke, and being clean and small and therefore very portable, can be used for
certain purposes and in many places where the blast stove for contrary reasons
would be inapplicable.
The blast stove is so constructed that the air out of any blowing machine,
such as the double bellows or any rotary blowing machine (instruments
well known), is passed under and through the fire, and as the tendency of
flames is to rise notwithstanding the blast of air just mentioned, the air and

page_text: flames are deflected to the earth by the shape of the roof of the stove, which
is curved or arched.
In the lamp about to be described the flame, naked to the air, is bent to the
earth or soil by the blow pipe, and no such roof as is described for the stove is
necessary for the lamp. The blast lamp is formed of a narrow metal box, the
wick or wicks start from the end of the box, and are not cut horizontally, as
is usual with ordinary lamps, but obliquely; the spirit or oil is supplied at
the other end. Near the wick end there is an arrangement for adjusting the
blow pipe in every necessary position to the flame. In a single-wicked lamp
these movements are six, viz., upwards, dipping, advancing, and their con-
traries. In a double-wicked lamp there are two more, viz., right and
left. A multi-wicked lamp need only be the repetition of a single or double
wicked one. The blow pipe starts from the mouth or any other blowing
apparatus by an elastic tubing to a part of the handle below where the hand
comes. The handle of the lamp then forms a portion of the blow pipe till
within a short distance of the bottom, where it is joined by a short piece of
elastic tubing to the remaining portion of the blow pipe which is fitted to the
adjusting arrangement above mentioned. The handle is therefore made to
answer two or three other purposes than that of handle. It forms not only a
portion of the blow pipe but that portion which may be termed the reservoir
of compressed air; it also arrests and retains within itself the moisture, when
the mouth is used for blowing, which would otherwise pass to the nozzle or
jet of the blow pipe and disturb the flame.
The following are some of the uses of the lamp, and it can easily be divined
where the stove would do better or not so well as the lamp:-To destroy
small weeds, moss, and other green matter in gravel walks, courtyards,
terraces, and other like places; to weed young crops much earlier than the
hoe; to improve lawns, meadows, and the like without removing the turf in
which the weeds are growing; to char posts and palings from time to time in
that part which may be termed as being between "wind and water," and the
most liable to decay; to put a sort of glaze or enamel on stone, brick, and the
like, to give them a hard surface, by which the absorption of damp would be
prevented or retarded; lastly, the lamp would be found far preferable, in
many positions, to the tallowed split reeds and the ordinary blow pipe used by
plumbers and gasfitters.