IMPROVEMENTS IN MEANS OR APPARATUS FOR INDICATING TIME."
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Hyde Bateman and George William
Hannam at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 3rd May
1879.
HYDE BATEMAN, of Walbrook, and GEORGE WILLIAM HANNAM, of Great Win-
chester Street Buildings, London Wall, both in the City of London. "IMPROVEMENTS
IN MEANS OR APPARATUS FOR INDICATING TIME."
This Invention consists of two tubes of equal internal diameter and a given
length, each terminating in a bulb or swelling of an equal or greater capacity than its
tube, and forming a base or stand. Into the other end of each tube, which is open,
is fitted an india rubber, cork, or other suitable plug or stopper, and the small or
open ends of the tubes are placed in juxta position. Through each plug is a bore
or holo, through which passes, airtight and vertically, an inner tube of glass or other
suitable material, which is open at each end, and extends to a line with the junction
of cach tube with its respective bulb. The inner tube is marked with indices, or
indices aro placed inside of it, extending from each end of the inner tube to the
surface of the plug; these indices are four in number, two of which are placed back
to back in each end of the inner tube, and each is respectively marked the reverse
of the other, thus, 12, 11, 10, and so on, 1, 2, 3, and so on. There are also two
other vertical holes or bores in plug, which are parallel with and situate between
the inner and outer tubes, and having each a horizontal hole running from the outer
side of the plug, and through each vertical hole towards the central bore, but not
into it. Into each of these is introduced a screw, which screws by being made to
advance or retire will open or close these vertical holes which they cross.
Now it will be seen that if this instrument be placed vertically on one of its
bulbs or swellings, and the upper chamber immediately above the plug be partly
filled with water or other suitable liquid, or a mixture of liquids, and one of the
screws be turned to open one of the communicating vertical holes, the water or
other liquid will drop through faster or slower, according to the regulation of the
screw, which acts as a tap or valve, showing its decrease in the upper chamber
against the index in the inner tube. When the one screw is properly adjusted to
the necessary flow of liquid, the other screw may be used in a similar way to set
the liquid at any given height in the larger tube without again interfering with the
one used as a regulator.

page_text: It will be seen that under these circumstances, if at any time the instrument is
reversed or placed upside down, before all the liquid has left the upper chamber the
amount of liquid in the then upper chamber will show against the index, which
stands at the reverse of the previous reading, exactly the same time or any required
reading and with constancy so long as the instrument is reversed any time before
the then upper chamber is quite empty, the pressure of the atmosphere being
regulated between each chamber by the open central tube.
The outer and inner tube may be made of a spiral form, thus giving a greater
length without increasing the height.