CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM ENGINES
Year: 1808

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
SMITH the younger, of Caponfield Iron Works, near Bilston, in the County of
Stafford, Iron Master, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Third day of June, in
the forty-eighth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said Thomas
Smith, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole
privilege and authority, that I, the said Thomas Smith, my exors, admors,
and assigns, should and lawfully might make; use, exercise, and vend, within
England and Wales and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention
of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM ENGINES" for the term of fourteen years,
commencing from the date thereof, and in which said Letters Patent there
is contained a proviso (inter alia) that if I, the said Thomas Smith, should
not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and
in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within one calendar month next after the date of the
said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters' Patent, and the liberties and
powers thereby granted, should utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in
and by the same Letters Patent, relation being thereunto had, will more fully
appear.
NOW THEREFORE KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I,
the above-named Thomas Smith, do by this present instrument in writing under

page_text: my hand and seal, declare that my said Invention of Certain Improvements in
Steam Engines is particularly specified, described, and ascertained in and by the
Drawings or Figures No. 1 and No. 2 hereunto annexed, and the following
description thereof (that is to say):
First. The Drawing, Figure 1, represents a section of part of the engine,
and Figure 2 a section of a side view elevation of the engine. The letters
A, A, A, A, are the cylinders; B, the bottom for the cylinders; C, the lower
nozel containing the exhauster and steam valves; D, D, D, D, the passages by
which the steam is conducted into the three cylinders at the same time;
E, the upper nozel containing the steam valve, coloured yellow; F, F, F, the
piston rods; G; the cross bar to which the three piston rods are connected;
H, H, the slides between which the cross bar ascends and descends; I, I, I, the
rods which connect the cross bar to the engine beam; K, the engine beam;
L, the air pump; M, the condenser; N, the boiler; 0, 0, 0, the steam pipes;
P, the passage from the top nozel into the middle cylinder above the piston;
Q, the piston in the middle cylinder; R, R, the piston in the outside cylinders;
S, the steam or conducting pipe from the top nozel to the lower nozel; T, the
eduction pipe from the lower nozel to the condensor; U, U, the air punip and
condensor bottom; V, the air-pump bucket; W, the air-pump rod; X, the
branch for the top nozel, and Y, the air-pump valve.
Second. The three cylinders are placed in a parellel direction, as represented
by the letters A, A, A, in Figure 1, and cach cylinder is connected with the
lower nozel by means of the passages D, D, D, at the bottom of each cylinder.
The top of the middle cylinder is made air-tight, and connected with the upper
nozel E, and the top of the two outside cylinders are open to the atmosphere.
The engine being constructed on the above principles will act in the following
manner (namely):-The steam enters from the boiler N, through the steam
pipes 0, 0, 0, into the upper nozel E, and through the valve and the
passage P, into the middle cylinder A, upon the piston Q. The piston Q is
thereby forced down, and at the same time the pistons R, R, in each of the
outside cylinders are also forced down by means of the pressure of the atmo-
sphere, and the two rods F connected therewith, and the steam underneath the
pistons is at the same time condensed by the condenser M; when the piston Q,
in the middle cylinder hath compleated its descent the steam above the piston
in such middle cylinder returns through the passage P, down the steam
pipe S, through the upper valve in the lower nozel C, and through the
passages D, D, D, into each cylinder and underneath the pistons, and causes
the ascent of the pistons, and is then condensed in the condenser from under-
neath the three pistons.