IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF LUMINOUS AND HEATING GAS PROM HYDROCARBONACEOUS FLUIDS, AND IN THE METHODS OF USING AND APPLYING SUCH GAS FOR ILLUMINATING AND HEATING PURPOSES
Year: 1869

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Paul Rapsey Hodge at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
2nd August 1869.
I, PAUL RAPSEY HODGE, of 10, Adam Street, Adelphi, in the Parish
of St. Martins in the Fields, in the County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF LUMINOUS AND HEATING GAS PROM
HYDROCARBONACEOUS FLUIDS, AND IN THE METHODS OF USING AND APPLYING SUCH
GAS FOR ILLUMINATING AND HEATING PURPOSES," to be as follows:-
These improvements relate, firstly, in taking the gas as generated by
any of the established processes of generating gas from hydro-
carbonaceous fluids, and combine it with another dose of atmospherio
air or pure oxygen gas, and in using a compound jet to comingle
or combine these gases together for the purposes of illuminating or
heating.
Secondly. Instead of supplying atmospheric air by mechanical means
as described in Hengst and Watson's Patent, dated the Eighteenth day
of June 1868, Number 1980, I supply atmospheric air by means of an
inflated air chamber worked under pressure for the purpose of aërating

page_text: the hydrocarbonaceous fluid. The chamber may be made in the form of
an ordinary gas holder, or in the form of a bag or bellows constructed
with flexible sides, the top and partitions running in guide rods; such
receiver to be supplied with atmospheric air by an air pump or bellows.
If this gas is used for steamboats or railway purposes, for lighting up
the cabins of the former, and the compartments of the latter, or for
illuminating or heating public or private buildings, the flexible or other
air holder must be kept constantly inflated by the means before
mentioned, and a uniform weight or pressure maintained therein. If for
a railway train the pump or bellows may be worked from the axle of
the carriage, or from any convenient part of the running work of the
carriage, this movement can be constantly kept up while the carriages
are in motion, or be supplied by a guard with a hand pump or bellows,
or both combined. An air safety valve may be so placed on the receiver;
intervening between it and the gas burners of the carriages I construct
a regulator or governor so as to vary the pressure in proportion to the
velocity of the train, as the pressure of gas to burn uniformly must
conform to the velocity of the train; this regulator to be so constructed
as to be either controlled by the guard or by the velocity of the train.
This compartment to be provided with an ordinary aërating apparatus,
carboniser, and filtering chamber, so that when the gas passes therefrom
it will be purely gaseous and not vapourous or condensable. A governor
or regulator can also be placed between the filtering apparatus and the
supply of gas, such governor or regulator to be worked from any con-
venient part of the wheel or axle when in motion or from the pressure
of air in the air vessel or receiver, so that the gas may be at all times at
a pressure in quantity equal to the wants of the carriages in the train
and their velocity. It being necessary to vary the supply and pressure
accordingly.
. Another improvement in the use and application of such gas is in
generating it in any of the ways. mentioned, and applying it to the
generating of steam in a steam boiler either by using it in combination
with a compound jet or jets, or by burning it in a tubular boiler, each
vertical or horizontal tube to be so arranged as to answer the purposes
of a glass or chimney to a well constructed argand gas burner. Or I

page_text: Another improvement in the use of this gas so generated is in smelting,
melting, forging, heating, and reheating of metals by its introduction in
combination with atmospheric air in the manner described, namely, if
for smelting or melting metals to be introduced into the tuyere holes
of the furnaces either alone or in combination with an extra dose of
atmospheric air by means of compound jets, or if for a reverbatory
furnace, or a furnace for puddling or refining of metals, then I
introduce gas generated as before described into these furnaces, either
below and through the spaces between the grating and fuel or in jets
internally in the interior of the furnace, so as to impinge on and comingle
with the products of combustion from the fuel, or to be used as means
of heating without any other fuel. Or I use gas generated as before
described either alone or in combination with other fuel in smithy forges,
through compound jet pipes or tuyeres, and so arrange such compound
jets to mix more or less atmospheric air in combination with this kind of
gas, producing thereby more hydrogen and oxygen in combination, and
more heat evolved in consequence.
Another improvement in the use of this gas so generated is in con-
structing a furnace especially adapted to the brazing of coppersmith's
work, or the reheating and annealing of sheets of copper, that the metal
may have a clean heat from such flame either with or without another
dose of atmospheric air in combination so as to regulate the heating
qualities of the gas; or I use the within-named elements in heating and
melting glass, vitrifying procelain or china ware, or for annealing
furnaces adapted to glass or porcelain.
Another and important improvement in the manufacture of such gas
relates to the aërating or charging of the vapour of hydrocarbonaceous
spirit with air. Several methods have been devised by the use of drums
or centrifugal machines to combine and comingle the air with the vapour
of the spirit, but I find that more effective methods may be employed,
more especially where the aërating and evolving of such vapour is
required in large quantities. This I effect by using an apparatus inside
of another air-tight vessel, such apparatus to work through the cover of
the vessel in a stuffing box, and a reciprocating motion given to it up
and down through such stuffing box, the lower part which works in the
spirit, the apparatus to have a hollow chamber so contrived with an
inverted valve so that when the plunger is lifted or moved in an upward
direction the air will rush down into the hollow plunger, the valve at

page_text: the bottom will open and let the air (so drawn down) into a lower
chamber, so that when the plunger is depressed the atmospheric air so
previously taken in will be forced violently into the fluid, the hydro-
carbonaceous fluid, vapour, and gas will be evolved in consequence,
and will pass off in the ordinary way to the filtering and recarbonising
apparatus.
Another important improvement in the generation of such gas is by
pumping into the hydrocarbonaceous fluid atmospheric air by and through
numerous small jets, so as to keep it in rapid contact with the spirit and
thus evolve vapourous and gaseous matter more rapidly.