IMPROVEMENTS IN ROTARY ENGINES
Year: 1873

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PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Grafton Jones at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
25th August 1878.
I, JAMES GRAFTON JONES, of No. 12, Gloucester Terrace, Amherst
Road, in the County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ROTARY ENGINES," to be as
follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in rotary engines and
is applicable especially to the construction of engines for driving sewing
machines, and for other similar uses where high velocity and com-
paratively small power is required.
.
The engine consists of a casting of brass or other metal of a hollow
cylindrical form, and supported in a horizontal position on two feet
which are cast with it; the feet are hollow, and they form the inlet and
outlet passages for the steam, water, or other fluid by which the engine

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is to be worked. These passages open into the cylinder on either side
and at the lower part of it..
The cylinder is provided with a cover which is fixed in its place by
screws and an axis passes through the cylinder eccentrically. At one
end the axis is received into a recess in the movable cover and it passes
out through a stuffing box on the fixed end of the cylinder. There is
cast upon the axis a block of a cylindrical form, and this block is
received within the hollow cylinder, and its ends come into fluid-tight
contact with the fixed end and the cover of the cylinder. The periphery
of the block is also in contact at the bottom with the cylinder, but at the
top there is a space between the two in consequence of the eccentric
position of the axis. The block has two radial slots formed in it
diametrically opposite to each other, and into these slots sliding tongues
are fitted. The tongues are made with tubular stems which are received
into a circular hole which is drilled through the axis and passes from the
bottom of one slot to that of the other.
The tubular stems receive a coiled spring which presses the tongues
outwards and when the block is in its place causes them to bear upon
the interior of the cylinder and form a fluid-tight contact with it, so
that the steam, water, or other fluid under pressure with which the
engine is worked cannot pass from the inlet to the out passage without
rotating the drum and its axis.
In order to work a sewing machine with an engine of this description
the main axis of the machine and the axis of the engine are placed in a
straight line; there is a notch in the end of each of them, and these
notches receive a loose tongue which is connected with the engine shaft
by a pin. The engine above described is only in effective action for
somewhat more than one half of each rotation, it runs the remainder
by the momentum of the parts aided when necessary by a small fly
wheel.
By a modification I render the engine effective throughout the entire
rotation; I use a divided cylinder with a movable cover at each end.
Each part of the divided cylinder receives a separate block, and the
sliding tongues of the two blocks are set at right angles to each other.
There is a hole in the partition which divides the cylinder and it receives
a boss in the centre of one of the blocks. A slot is cut across the boss
and a corresponding projection formed on the centre of the other block

page_text: fits into it, so that the one block drives the other and they both aid in
driving the axis which forms part of one of them.
Engines of this construction may also be used as pumps. For such a
use I couple two engines with their axes in a straight line and cause
one engine to drive the other.