IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING MOTIVE POWER
Year: 1844

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ARTHUR
PARSEY, of No. 2, Spur Street, Leicester Square, in the County of Middlesex,
Artist and Scientific Draughtsman, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Seventeenth day of October, in the eighth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Arthur Parsey, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said Arthur Parsey, my executors, administrators, and assigns, and
such others as I, the said Arthur Parsey, my executors, administrators, or
assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time and at all
times during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark,
and Man, and in all Her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my
Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING MOTIVE POWER;" in which said
Letters Patent is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Arthur. Parsey,
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, particularly to describe
and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, and to cause the same to be inrolled in Her Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the
same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Arthur Parsey, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following description thereof, reference being had to
the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the letters and figures marked thereon
(that is to say):
These improvements in obtaining motive power consist in certain modifica-
tions of machinery, by means of which compressed air may be employed to
work without a vacuum, pistons, valves, levers,.rods, and other appendages, for
the purpose of producing mechanical force, and communicating that force as a
motive power for driving other machinery.
In the accompanying Drawing, Fig. 1 is a longitudinal section taken through
the middle of an engine upon wheels constructed according to my improved
plan, which is intended to be employed as a locomotive engine upon a railway.
A represents a strong iron vessel or receiver made perfectly air-tight at all its
joints, into which vessel I introduce atmospheric air by means of a forcing
pump, or otherwise, until the air within the vessel has become greatly com-
pressed, and thereby acquired a very considerable elastic force or power. I
propose in some cases to provide vessels previously filled with compressed air,
and to transfer the air from such vessel in its compressed state into the receiver A,
by which means the receiver may from time to time be replenished with com-
pressed air instead of injecting the air immediately into it by a force pump.
B is a cylinder formed as the working cylinder of a steam engine, containing a
piston C, which is intended to be worked up and down within the cylinder by
the elastic force of compressed air. D is a chamber placed contiguous to the
receiver, into which chamber the compressed air may be admitted by a pipe
and cock a before it passes to the working cylinder, in order to reduce its
density and determine its elastic force, which may be regulated to the power
required for working the engine by means of a spring valve 6 set to the desired
force, or by a governor, or other contrivance well known in the construction
of steam engines, and which need not therefore be further described. I would
remark, however, that in some cases the chamber D may be dispensed with,
and the compressed air allowed to act directly from the receiver to the working
cylinder. The compressed air from the receiver A, being admitted into the
chamber D, is thence allowed to pass by a pipe and cock c to the valve box d.
The reciprocal action of the sliding valve is effected by the usual means by
which slide valves are worked, in order that the compressed air may be
admitted into the working cylinder reciprocally above and below the piston, as
in the working of ordinary steam engines. The peculiar construction of the

page_text: slide valve and its box for admitting the compressed air into the cylinder, and
letting it off after it has acted upon the piston, is shewn upon an enlarged
scale in the several sectional representations of the valve box detached at
Figs. 5, 6, 7, and 8. The thickness or substance of the box is shewn at d, d,
in which e, the slide valve, is moved up and down by its rod f, Figs. 5 and 6,
supposed to be connected above to the ordinary reciprocating tappet apparatus
of the engine. The slide valve is formed by a rectangular frame g, 9, 9, 9,
seen in Fig. 6, with two plates h, h, shewn in Fig. 7, their faces being ground
accurately flat so as to fit close and air-tight against the inner sides of
the valve box d; and there are springs i, i, placed between these plates,
which force them outwards, and keep them in close contact with the inner sides
of the box. A vertical channel is formed in one of the side plates seen at k,
in Fig. 8, by which the compressed air from the pipe c passes both upwards
and downwards into the valve box. There are two openings, one above the
other, in the opposite side of the valve box at 7 and m, by which the com-
pressed air is admitted into the cylinder B. When the slide valve is depressed,
as in Fig. 5, the air passes through 1, and acts upon the upper surface of the
piston C, the lower opening m being then closed, but when the slide valve is
raised the upper opening becomes closed and the lower one m opened, by
which the air is admitted to the under surface of the piston. By means of the
reciprocating action of the slide valve the compressed air is enabled alternately
to raise and depress the piston, the air escaping after each stoke as in
high-pressure steam engines. The movements of the piston effected by
these means are communicated through the piston rod to the connecting
rod n, and thence to the crank p, by which the front running wheels of
the carriage are made to revolve, and hence the carriage impelled forward
upon the railway. One or more corresponding working pistons and cylinders,
with the appendages of the same construction, may be placed alongside of that
exhibited in the Drawing, Fig. 1, as represented in the end view, Fig. 3;
observing that the stroke of one of the pistons must be regulated so as to act
at the dead points of the other for the purpose of producing as near as may be
an uniform impelling force. In order to economize the compressed air, I pro-
pose, under some circumstances, instead of allowing it to blow off like the steam
of a high-pressure engine, to return the compressed air into the receiver A.
after it has acted upon the piston. This I effect by the arrangement shewn
in Figs. 2 and 3.
Fig. 2 is a longitudinal section of a locomotive engine; Fig. 3 is an end
view of the same. A is the vessel or receiver, as before, filled with compressed.
air by the means above stated; c is the pipe and cock by which the compressed

page_text: air is admitted into the valve box d, and by the slide valve let off into the
cylinder B to act alternately upon the upper and lower surfaces of the piston
C, as before explained. To the apparatus that works the slide valve repre-
sented in Fig. 2, one end of a lever q is attached, which is connected at the
other end to a vertical rod r, whereon the slides of the valves s', s, are fixed
that open and close the eduction passages. On the working piston rising to
the top of the cylinder the arrangement of the valves will cause the lower
eduction aperture at se to be opened, when the air in the cylinder, instead of
blowing off, will pass by a pipe t to a peculiar construction of pump placed
within the compressed air receiver A. This pump is formed by a cylindrical
block E, fixed upon a standard, and has a tube or passage through it with a
valve at top opening upwards. Upon the block E a cylindrical sliding cap F
is placed, with a valve in its top opening upwards. This cap, which I prefer to
be of equal capacity with the cylinder, or nearly so, is made to fit air-tight by
packing round the upper edge of the block, and is raised and depressed by a
sliding rod n passing through a stuffing box, and attached at top to a lever G.
This lever may be worked by hand or by any other means, and the cap F being
raised at the moment that the lower eduction passages is opened, the valve on
its top will close, and the air pass from the cylinder under the piston C, through
the pipe t, and the passage in the block E, into the space produced in the cap F
as it rises. On the descent of the piston C in the cylinder B the transfer of
the condensed air from the cylinder into the cap F takes place, and causes the
cap to be occupied with the air, but when the piston C again rises the cap F
will be made to descend, and the lower eduction passages in the cylinder
being closed, the air cannot return, but is forced through the opening valve
out of the cap F into the receiver A. Another block II, of precisely the same
character as that at E, is also fixed within the condensed air receiver A, baving
a similar cylindrical cap sliding upon it, which cap I is intended to receive the
succeeding volume of condensed air from the cylinder B on the upper side of
the piston C. From the upper eduction aperture s¹ a pipe v extends, which
passes through the block H for the purpose of carrying the discharged air
from the working cylinder into the cap I. Hence it will be perceived that, in
accordance with the action of the piston C in the working cylinder B, the caps
F and I will be made to reciprocate, and thereby draw off the volumes of
condensed air above and below the piston, and force the volumes of air in their
condensed state into the receiver A, to be passed again through the pipe c and
valve box d into the cylinder, and employed for keeping up the continued
action of the piston. The lever G may be elongated in front, and connected
in the usual way of connecting a beam with the working piston, as shewn in

page_text: Figs. 2 and 8; and to this lever may also be attached the rod w, for working
the slide valves in the way shewn, as well as for working the caps above
described. The lever G, it has before been said, may be actuated by hand or
other means, for raising and depressing the caps F and I; but it may be
5 desirable for this purpose to employ a small steam engine, as shewn at K,
placed at the back part of the carriage in Fig. 2. In that case the hinder part
of the lever G must be elongated, and the piston of the small steam engine
attached to it, by which the vibrating action of the lever G shall be effected.
Fig. 4 represents in section a portion of one of the pipes t or v, by which
the condensed air is conducted back from the cylinder to the receiver. In
this pipe I place a series of valves z, z, z, each acting as a stop to prevent the
air passing from the receiver to the cylinder, and which may be placed at equal
or unequal distances apart, but I prefer to place them at unequal distances, so
that the capacity of the chamber may increase from the receiver toward the
cylinder. I will observe that several small receivers may be combined, instead
of one large receiver, from whence the chamber D may be charged with con-
densed air, or from whence the air may pass directly to the working cylinder
or cylinders. This improved engine may also be employed to produce a
stationary power for working other machinery,
I claim as my Invention,-
First, the mode of working engines and machinery by means of condensed
air previously generated, as described and illustrated in reference to Fig. 1;
however, the engines or their parts may be varied in their constructive details
so long as the same system of action is preserved and the same elements are
employed to produce it.
Secondly, the placing of pumps and other apparatus within the receiver of
condensed air, for the purpose of prolonging and economizing the working
power of the condensed air.
Thirdly, the chamber or vessel (D, Fig. 1) for regulating the working
force of the condensed air drawn from the main receiver or receivers. And
Fourthly, the pipe with a series of valves within it, which may also be
attached to pumps and other apparatus.
In witness whereof, I, the said Arthur Parsey, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and forty-five.
ARTHUR (L.S.) PARSEY.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Seventeenth day of April,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Arthur Parsey came our Lady the
Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification 'aforesaid, and all
and every thing therein contained, in form above written. And also the
Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute
in that case made and provided.