A CHYMICAL PROCESS FOR FREEING FISH OILS FROM THEIE IMPURITIES IN POINT OF SMELL, TASTE, AND COLOUR, AND IMPROVED STRAINERS POR OILS AND OTHER LIQUIDS, WITH OTHER INSTRUMENTS FOR ASCER- TAINING THEIR QUALITIES AND ASSISTING THEIR BURNING
Year: 1798

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME. A Specification
of a Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the Twelfth
of December, in the thirty-ninth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord
George the Third, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and
Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c., and in the year of our Lord
One thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight, granted to JOSHUA COLLIER,
of West Square, in the Parish of Saint George, Southwark, in the County
of Surrey, Broker, for "A CHYMICAL PROCESS FOR FREEING FISH OILS FROM
THEIE IMPURITIES IN POINT OF SMELL, TASTE, AND COLOUR, AND IMPROVED
STRAINERS POR OILS AND OTHER LIQUIDS, WITH OTHER INSTRUMENTS FOR ASCER-
TAINING THEIR QUALITIES AND ASSISTING THEIR BURNING;" in which Letters
Patent is contained a proviso, that if the said Joshua Collier shall not
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of his said Invention, and
in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing
under his hand and seal, and cause the same to be enrolled in Our High
Court of Chancery within one calendar month next and immediately after
the date of these Our Letters Patent, that then these Our Letters Patent,
and all liberties and advantages whatsoever hereby granted, shall utterly
cease, determine, and become void, anything herein-before contained to
the contrary thereof in anywise notwithstanding.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Joshua Collier, in compliance with
the said proviso in the said Patent contained, do hereby describe and ascer-
tain the nature of my said Invention, as follows, namely:
:-
The machines are illustrated by the Drawings hereto annexed, together with
their respective references. The chemical process is performed as follows, to
wit-I put a quantity of any species of fish oil, or mixture of different sorts
of fish oil, into any convenient vessel, which I heat to the temperature of one
hundred and ten or one hundred and twenty degress of Fahrenheit's scale; I
then add of caustic mineral alkali of the specific, gravity commonly described,
as 1.25, or one and twenty-five hundredths, or of such strength that a phial
containing one thousand grains of distilled water will contain one thousand
two hundred and fifty grains of these lees, a quantity equal to four parts to
the one hundred by weight of the quantity of oil; I then stir or agitate the
mixture, and leave it to stand a sufficient time for the salts and sediments to
subside; it is then drawn off into another vessel containing a sufficient quan-
tity of fresh burnt charcoal finely powdered, or of any other substance pos-
sessing antiseptic properties, in a powdered or divided state, with an addition
of a small proportion of diluted sulphuric acid, sufficient only to decompose
the small quantity of saponaceous matter still suspended in the oil, which will
appear by the oil becoming clear at the surface. The contents of this vessel
are also agitated, and the coal, saline, and acqueous particles left to subside,
after which the oil is passed through proper strainers, herein-after described,
and is thereby rendered perfectly transparent and fit for use. The principle of
my improved strainers or filtering machines, by which, as far as respects them,
I deem myself intitled to the exclusive privilege secured by the said Patent,
consists in the nieans applied to combine hydrostatic pressure, which increases
as the perpendicular height of the fluid with the mode of filtering per ascensum,
thereby procuring the new and peculiar advantage that the fluid and its
sediment take opposite directions, and also in whatever is new in the construc-
tion of
machines herein described. It cannot but be seen that a passage
my
for the air more free from objection than any hitherto adopted is here contrived
in those designed for domestic purposes, Figure 1; and also that the easy méans
of emptying their sediments, facilitates their operation, and renders their use
perfectly satisfactory to the most minute observer. A great advantage attend-
ing this Invention is, that the dimensions of the chamber in which the sediment
is received may be varied, while the filtering surface remains the same. To
adapt these machines, not only to the purposes of families, workhouses,
hospitals, public charities, the navy, or the merchant service, but also to all the
purposes of oilmen, of distillers, of the laboratory, the brewery, &c., chambers

page_text: of various capacities must be provided for the sediment and precipitated matter.
With respect to the oil trade, the space required is very great, especially for
spermacete or Brazil bottoms. In the various processes of the laboratory
no limits can be fixed, but all dimensions will be occasionally required. In
distilleries and breweries they may be smaller in proportion, and in those
designed for water, and for domestic use, a very small chamber will be sufficient.
When water is to be sweetened or freed from any putrid or noxious particles
it may, from whatever cause, contain, it passes in its way to the filtering
chamber through an iron box or cylinder, letters L, M, N, O, in Fig. 1,
containing charcoal finely powered, or any other antisceptic substance insoluble
in water, which charcoal, or other substances, are forced closely into the box by
any mechanical power, after which the water is made to pass through it by the
bydrostatic pressure through a tube of any sufficent height. This box has two
apertures to receive and deliver the fluid, and these are opened or closed by
cocks or screws at P and Q, or any other method used for such purposes, and
being affixed to the machine by other screws or screws and collars may be easily
detached from the same. Thus, whenever the charcoal begins to lose its
antiseptic properties the box is removed and heated till it is red hot, by which
means the foreign matter escapes through the small apertures, after which the
box is left to cool, and the charcoal becomes sweet, pure, and equally fit for
use as at first, though the process be ever so often repeated.
Fig. 2 is a machine or contrivance for straining oil from the bottoms in the
manner described in the references.
I further claim, by virtue of this Patent, the exclusive privileges arising
from the Invention of filtering machines in the form or forms of stills, in
which charcoal may be repeatedly burned after any fluid substances have
passed through it, for the purpose of freeing them either from putrid or
noxious particles, or of discharging their colouring matter, which filtering
stills are so contrived that the fluid may pass through in any quantity without
displacing the charcoal, as in Fig. 3. The part of the fluid remaining
interspersed among the charcoal may be driven over by a proper degree
of heat, and be employed for many inferior purposes of the arts and manu-
factures.
Lastly, the heat may be raised so as to purify the charcoal, as has been
before described, in the machines for filtering water or other fluids for
lomestic purposes. The flue of the stills is so constructed that water may be
employed to cool them without the loss of time requisite for their gradually
parting with their heat to the surrounding atmosphere, so as to be fit for a sub-
equent operation. My instruments for ascertaining the comparative qualitics

page_text: of oils depend in part on the principle of their specific gravities, spermaceti
For this purpose I
oil contrasted with other fish oils being as 875 to 920.
use a glass vessel of any convenient shape, furnished with a bubble also of glass;:
and a thermometer. If the oil is pure this bubble sinks, when the mercury
rises to a certain standard, by the application of the hand or any other heat to
the vessel containing the oil. If the spermaceti oil is impure, the bubble will
still float, though it is of the temperature required, and the degree of impure
or foreign matter will be shewn by the scale of the thermometer at which the
bubble sinks. To determine what tendency oils used for burning have to
congeal in cold weather, I put equal quantities of nitre and sal ammóniac,
finely powdered and mixed, into a phial of thin glass, or any other convenient
vessel, containing rather more than sufficient water to dissolve them, or I put
any other freezing mixture into such vessel; I then immerse a thermometer
therein, and let a single drop of the oil under experiment fall on the outside of
the vessel, where it immediately congeals; as the cold produced by the mixture
gradually ceases, it is easy to observe by the thermometer at what point of
temperature the oil becomes fluid and runs down the sides of the glass.
In witness whereof, I have hercto put my hand and seal this Twelfth day
of January, in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and
ninety-nine.
Fig. 1. A, the cistern into which the water or other fluid to be filtered is
put; B, B, B, a tube opening into the bottom of the cistern A, and bent
along the bottom of the machine, conveying the fluid into:C, C, the filtering
chamber, which is covered with leather bound down round its circular rim, and
through which leather the water is percolated; D, D, the bason, rising above the
level of the chamber and receiving the filtered liquor; E, the spout, by which it
runs off into a pitcher or other vessel; F, another spout, furnished with a
cock to draw off the foul water from the chamber when necessary; G, G, G,
the air tube, which begins above the level of the chamber, is covered with a
button, which saves the leather from being cut, and has a small lateral aperture
for the air to be carried off. This pipe passes along the bottom and up
the side, and rising above the level of the water in the cistern, is there
closed, except a small lateral aperture through which the air escapes. I, a
guard or rim with cross bars, put over the leather to keep it from being forced
up by the-water. It is fastened down "by means of two notches on opposite
sides of the guard, by which it locks into two staples rivetted into the bottom of
the bason. I, the lid, sliding down to cover the water from dust, and suspended
at pleasure by means of K, K, two springs on each tube for that purpose.

page_text: L, M, N, O, a cylindrical box containing charcoal, which is connected with
the above by means of the tube P, and a continuation of the tube B. L, M,
the water tube B, continued below the charcoal apparatus, so that the fluid
may pass through the same into the cylinder at Q, from whence it enters the
chamber at P, so as to be filtered through the leather, as before described.
R, R, collars, which may be unscrewed at pleasure, so as to detach the
charcoal apparatus when the charcoal requires to be purified by heat; S, S,
two cocks to direct the fluid through the charcoal cylinder, or immediately into
the filtering chamber.
Figure 2. A, a tube or cistern containing the oil to be filtered, and supplying
a tube of sufficient height for the hydrostatic pressure to operate. B, B, a
main tube of wood, tin, leather, or cloth, to which any number of C, C, C, C, C, C
bags, of the size and shape of corn sacks, or any convenient size and shape,
may be connected; these are bound to D, D, D, D, D, D, strait double iron
bars, furnished with a hinge at one end and a screw at the other, by opening
which the bags may be emptied; E, E, a trough underneath, made to receive
the filtered oil.
Figure 3. A, a funnel cask or cistern, into which the fluid is put, which passes
down B, a tube fitted into the same, through which it enters C, an iron still, full
of finely powdered and sifted charcoal, through the head of which the fluid
passes into any receiver; D, a fire-place of any construction to drive over the
fluid remaining interspersed among the charcoal, and also to purify the char-
coal by an increase of temperature when required; E, a cock to let water
into the flues to cool the apparatus for a subsequent operation.