IMPROVE- MENTS IN GASELIERS, AND IN VENTILATING APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Louis Rudolph Bodmer, at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 21st
September 1861.
I, LOUIS RUDOLPH BODMER, of 2, Thavies Inn, Holborn, in the City of
London, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN GASELIERS, AND IN VENTILATING APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH," to
be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to prevent the heat, smoke, and other pro-
ducts of combustion resulting from the use of gaseliers from entering and
mixing with the air of rooms, and to carry them off, and thereby prevent
the injury arising from the ordinary mode of lighting by gas, to pictures,
books, decorations of rooms, and other objects, as well as to health.
These improvements are chiefly applicable to gaseliers with two and more
burners, and fixed to or suspended from the ceilings or roofs of rooms or
buildings. The burners may be placed vertically as in ordinary gas lights,
but I prefer to use the star-shaped gaseliers with horizontal burners. The
gas pipe to the end of which the star is fixed is placed within a second pipe
or tube of larger diameter, and this second tube is the ventilating tube which
carries off the products of combustion, sufficient space being left between the
two tubes for their rapid escape. The upper end of the ventilating tube may
pass through the roof into the open air, where it is covered with a suitable
cowl or hood to prevent back draught, or it may terminate between the
ceiling and the floor above it, and enter into a flue leading to the open air,

page_text: the chimney, or some suitable part of the building. The lower part of the
tube terminates a short distance above the star, when it enters into or opens
upon the aperture of a globe or other mantle of glass, spherical or bell-shaped,
or of the shape of an inverted funnel, the larger end of the mantle embracing
or covering in the jets of lighted gas. This mantle or cover may be supported
on brackets attached to the star, or it may be supported by chains or other-
wise, and it may be open at the lower end or covered up by a dish or bottom
perforated to admit air, or air may be admitted between the rims or edges
of the mantle and the bottom. This bottom is likewise made of glass. The
gas pipe and the ventilating tube may be telescope-jointed for the purpose
of lengthening and shortening. I also propose to make the cover and dish
so as to overlap each other, and to cause the air to pass between the overlaps,
whereby it will become heated on its way to the gas flame. When required
a circular disc of glass or of mica is placed horizontally above the star, reach-
ing to or beyond the burners to conduct the air to the flame. The gas during
its passage through the ventilating tube to the burners becomes likewise heated
to a certain degree. In clusters of perpendicular burners each burner
may have a separate globe or chimney covered with mica or otherwise and
the whole cluster covered by one mantle or globe. In gaseliers with long
arms in which the burners are a consideable distance from the centre or gas
pipe, I intend to cover each separate flame with a globe, and to carry the
products of combustion from each flame through a separate ventilating pipe
to the centre or main ventilating tube surrounding the gas pipe; I also propose
to form an air passage through the ceiling of rooms round the ventilating tube,
and leading to the off flue for the purpose of additional ventilation of such
rooms; owing to the entire absence of smoke and other impurities reflectors
can be fixed at any convenient place above the lights.