IMPROVEMENTS IN DREDGING MACHINES
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Jean Baptiste Ernest Defontaine
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 25th July 1870.
I, JEAN BAPTISTE ERNEST DEFONTAINE, of No. 82, Boulevart
Sébastopol, Paris, in the Empire of France, Gentleman, do hereby declare.
the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN DREDGING MACHINES,"
to be as follows:-
The principal feature of novelty in this machine consists in the
employment of a dredging chain capable of moving in any direction and
in all its parts, whilst those at present employed can only occupy an
oblique position, whilst the chain of the apparatus now under consider-
ation can according to requirements and without changing the inclination
necessary for its proper functions, rise, descend, move backwards or
forwards, or be extended or contracted whether working perpen-
dicularly or obliquely. This facility of movement necessarily effects a
great saving of manual labour whether the apparatus be employed in
loading, unloading, dredging, or in the formation of canals.
The advantages of this movable system will be at once evident when
it is mentioned that by means of the movable chain any-matter raised
thereby may be deposited without any manual assistance on the spot
selected, either in making new banks to rivers or as dams for cutting off
the river during the formation of canals, in loading or unloading vessels

page_text: with substances readily transportable, for conveying grain, flour, or seeds
to granaries, for raising and depositing sand, gravel, pebbles, the products
of dredging, coal, fine earth, or loam, minerals in powder, or for ballasting
or removing ballast of vessels.
'
The apparatus may be arranged to run on rails by harbours, wharves,
or mounted on a carriage, on a vessel, or any other means of transport.
In the present instance I have described it as mounted on a vessel
with an engine of 8 horse power, arranged on the framework, this
engine also works the screw of the vessel. The dreging chain is set in
motion by a driving wheel and governing pulley transmitting motion to
the principal shaft on which a muffle with variable detent is fixed and
is destined to actuate two bevil wheels, one of these together with a
transmitting shaft, pinions, and bevil wheel govern in their turn a spur
wheel which sets in motion an hexagonal wheel bearing the dredging
chain. On the principal shaft are placed and slide a number of double-
action bevil wheels which by aid of another bevil wheel and two spur
wheels cause an endless screw to move, which latter governs a nut wheel
working on the screw and resting on a socket, and whilst working raises
or lowers the framework supporting the dredging chain; this frame-
work consists of two hollow cases in sheet iron, and two wooden spars
sliding in the cases for lengthening or shortening the frame, and con-
sequently the chain when desired. The frame and chain apparatus are
supported on iron carriages. Two bevil wheels actuate two spur wheels,
and impart motion to a wheel on whose axis are endless screws gearing
with oblique toothed wheels bearing spur wheels on their axes, which set
in motion an endless chain attached to the carriages, and an inclined
receptacle in connection with the carriages, receives the produce of the
dredging from the dredging chain and deposits it on a transporting chain
which conveys it to a sieve at the opposite end to the chain where it is
sifted, a jerking motion being communicated to the sieve by means of
two pullies and a shaft.
The apparatus is turned in any desired direction by aid of a shaft and
pinion gearing with a turn table, denticulated internally and borne on a