IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR SAVING LIFE AT SEA."
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Henry Johnson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 4th July 1883. Communicated
to him from Paul Tristan Ramakers and François Xavier Nyer, persons
resident at Paris in the Republic of France
JOHN HENRY JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR SAVING LIFE AT SEA." A com-
munication to me from Paul Tristan Ramakers and François Xavier Nyer persons
resident at Paris in the Republic of France
The improved life saving apparatus constructed according to this Invention
combines the advantages of life buoys cork jackets and other ordinary life saving
contrivances with special advantages peculiar to itself.
.
The said apparatus consists of a float or buoyant sphere of cork or other
equivalent material containing an air chamber or chambers and combined with a
belt or girdle so. arranged as to be capable of supporting the person using the
apparatus in any position whether swimming or at rest with equal facility. The
buoyant sphere is provided with a watertight chamber for the reception of
aliments. The apparatus arranged according to this Invention while affording a
perfect support to the person using it also enables him to swim on his chest or on
his back and to assume any position he pleases in the water.
The watertight chamber hereinbefore referred to containing food is provided
with a water tight plug or stopper connected to the apparatus by a lanyard and
provided with a ring to facilitate its removal. The float or sphere is conveniently
composed of two hemispheres joined together and covered with a coat of paint or
impermeable filling encased in sail cloth leather or other suitable material capable
of resisting the corrosive action of salt water. This covering preferably of strong
canvas may be made in four segments connected by sams of tarred thread so as to
form four bands one of which is provided with eyelets and the other with a buckle
thus forming an additional fastening for the plug or stopper herein before referred
to being fastened over suitable flaps of canvas at the upper part of the float.
This float is connected by means of a ring at its lower part to a belt or girdle
which may be attached to the body of the person using the apparatus by straps
and buckles. This girdle which is preferably made of materials proof against the
action of Salt water is entirely surrounded by a cord passing through the ring at

page_text: the bottom of the float and firmly attached to the girdle for about one half of the
length of the said cord it being loose for the other half so as to be capable of
slipping in the ring at the bottom of the float to allow the person using the
apparatus to turn his body round or assume any desired position relatively to the
float as may be most convenient for the purposes of swimming, resting, or
obtaining food from the watertight chamber herein before described.
In case the plug or stopper of this chamber be accidentally lost so as to allow
the chamber to become filled with water the apparatus will still preserve its
buoyancy sufficiently to enable it to sustain a human being
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