A NEW MODE OR METHOD OF APPLYING ATMOSPHERIC GAS, SPIRITUOUS VAPOUR OR GAS, AND IMPREGNATED COMBUSTIBLE VAPOUR OR GAS AS A HEATING MEDIUM FOR THE GENERATION OF STEAM OR OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1872

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Robert Walker, of 4, Westminster Chambers,
Victoria Street, Westminster, in the County of Middlesex, Con-
tractor, Agent, and Inventor, for the Invention of "A NEW MODE OR
METHOD OF APPLYING ATMOSPHERIC GAS, SPIRITUOUS VAPOUR OR GAS, AND
IMPREGNATED COMBUSTIBLE VAPOUR OR GAS AS A HEATING MEDIUM FOR THE
GENERATION OF STEAM OR OTHER PURPOSES."
Sealed the 15th April 1873, and dated the 19th October 1872.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Robert Walker at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
19th October 1872.
I, ROBERT WALKER, of 4, Westminster Chambers, Victoria Street,
Westminster, in the County of Middlesex, Contractor, Agent, and
Inventor, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "A NEW
MODE OR METHOD OF APPLYING ATMOSPHERIC GAS, SPIRITUOUS VAPOUR OR GAS,
AND IMPREGNATED COMBUSTIBLE VAPOUR OR GAS AS A HEATING MEDIUM FOR THE
GENERATION OF STEAM OR OTHER PURPOSES," to be as follows:-
:―
The method of manufacturing the air vapour or gas is by means of
pumps or other appliances, by which the air or atmosphere is forced
through a perforated or inlet pipe placed in a vessel called a receiver,
which may be round, square, or any other shape, which vessel is partially

page_text: charged or filled with naptha, petroleum, methylated spirit, or oil, or a
combination of these, which are to be heated or otherwise, as may be
requisite for increasing or lessening the strength and volume of the
vapour or gas. In this receiver is placed a certain plate or plates, in a
certain position relative to the perforated or inlet pipe, and to the lovel
of the liquid or liquids aforesaid. The air or atmosphere after impreg-
nation as before stated, passes from the receiver into one or more
expanding and contracting vessels or regulators, which are made of
vulcanized india-rubber, or any other such elastic substance, or any other
metal or material made to expand by force or otherwise, and contract by
weight or otherwise. By the contraction of these regulators or vessels
it is forced into the pipes, and thence regularly through the burners for
ionition

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Robert Walker in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 19th April 1873.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
WALKER, of 4, Westminster Chambers, Victoria Street, Westminster,
in the County of Middlesex, Contractor, Agent, and Inventor, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Nineteenth day of October, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, in the thirty-
fifth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said Robert Walker, Her special licence that
I, the said Robert Walker, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
or such others as I, the said Robert Walker, my executors, admini-
strators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from
time to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands,
and Isle of Man, an Invention for "A NEW MODE OR METHOD OF APPLYING
ATMOSPHERIC GAS, SPIRITUOUS VAPOUR or Gas, and IMPREGNATED COMBUSTIBLE
VAPOUR OR GAS AS A HEATING MEDIUM FOR THE GENERATION OF STEAM OR OTHER
PURPOSES," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Robert
Walker, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in
the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Robert Walker, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and
by the following statement:-
The method of manufacturing the air vapour or gas is by means of
pumps or other appliances, by which the air or atmosphere is forced
through a perforated or inlet pipe placed in a vessel called a receiver,
which may be round, square, or of any other convenient shape; this

page_text: vessel is partially charged or filled with naptha, petroleum, methylated
spirit, benzine, or other suitable spirit or oil, or hydrocarbon, or a
combination of them. These, whether employed separately or combined
are herein-after termed "impregnating liquid." When requisite or
desirable the "impregnating liquid" is to be hented for increasing the
strength and volume of the vapour or gas. In the receiver is placed a
certain plate or plates in a certain position relative to the perforated or
inlet pipe, and to the level of the liquid or liquids aforesaid. The air or
atmosphere after impregnation as before stated, passes from the receiver
into one or more expanding and contracting vessels or regulators, which
are made of vulcanized india-rubber, or of any other such clastic sub-
stance, or of any other metal or material made to expand by force or
otherwise, and to contract by weight or otherwise. By the contraction
of these regulators or vessels it is forced into the pipes, and thence
regularly through the burners for ignition. The burners convenient to
the purposes of the Invention are iron tubes perforated with holes in a
line or lines along their length, and these tubes are disposed under the
steam boiler or generator, or under or within the furnace, oven, vessel,
or chamber to be heated in straight or curved lines, or as ring burners,
according to circumstances, fittings or arrangements being sometimes
made for readily renewing and replacing them, and if desired sub-
stituting others when cleaning may be necessary.
In order more satisfactorily to explain the air impregnating and
impregnated air delivery contrivances above mentioned, I have appended
a Drawing as an illustration of my intentions, but any convenient
variation of the precise apparatus shewn or substitution therefor may be
employed, the intention being to impregnate common air, and to
forcibly eject it after impregnation. The several Figures are diagrams
only, and are not drawn to an uniform scale, as the dimensions of the
various apparatus and parts thereof will have to be varied in accordance
with the circumstances of application.
Figure 1 shows a pair of double acting air pumps or blowing
apparatus, worked directly by or from a pair of steam cylinders, but
which may be worked in any other convenient manner; the general
intention however being in the case of application to steam engines,
that the air pumps shall be self worked, that is to say, worked by the
engines themselves. a and are the steam cylinders and pistons;
c and d, the blowing cylinders and pistons; and e and f, the air inlet

page_text: and outlet valves respectively; g, delivering chamber and pipe; h, cock
for shutting off the delivery; and i, escape cock for use when h is closed,
the two being connected by levers not shewn, for closing one (either of
them) by the opening of the other, and which may be hand worked or
mechanically worked, from off the motion of the weighted piston of the
receiver represented in Figure 2. The receiver is shewn in vertical
section. The delivering pipe g from the blowing apparatus commu-
nicates with the inlet pipe of the receiver, which descends nearly to
the bottom, and there terminates in a rose or perforated end, in its
course passing through the baffles or perforated plates m, between two of
which I interpose a layer of felt or other convenient porous packing m*.
Or the inlet pipe may enter the walls of the receiver near the
bottom, without passing through the plates and packing. The receiver
is partly charged with the impregnating liquid, and from time to time
replenished to or about the standard level o by means of the charging
pipe p, the level being known by the glass gauge q.
The air pumped
or forced into the receiver becomes divided by the rose or perforated
inlet, and again by the baffle plates and packing as it rises through the
impregnating liquid, and is thereby impregnated and becomes an
"Atmospheric Gas, Spirituous Vapour, or Gas, and Impregnated Com-
bustible Vapour or Gas," such as is contemplated in the title of the
Invention. The gas or vapour so produced passes off by the discharge
pipes (fitted with a closing or regulating cock 8*) to the burners already
described, to be by them consumed or utilized as a heating medium
for the generation of steam or other purposes," the pressure being
maintained by the weighted piston t sliding within the upper part of the
receiver. u, u, are stops to hinder the said piston descending too low
down.
65
Figure 3 is a detached plan view of one of the baffles or plates m.
These plates and the receiver generally may be conveniently made of
wrought iron, tinned or otherwise, or of stout zinc.
A modification or modifications of the construction of the receiver
as above described, and as represented, may be made by constructing the
upper part with an expanding indian-rubber or elastic and self-con-
tracting chamber or cover, or with a bellows-like expanding and
weighted, or spring closing, or self-contracting chamber or cover.
Figure 4 is an elevation of a hand air pump which may be used in
place of the steam driven air pumps shewn in Figure 1, and which (or

page_text: some convenient equivalent) will be required to force air into or
through the receiver at first starting of the application and before the
power of the steam engine is got up to drive them.
Having now described the nature of my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be and may be performed, I claim as of
my said Invention.
Firstly. The combination of "air forcing," "air impregnating,"
"impregnated air delivering," and "impregnated air consuming (or
utilizing)," contrivances or apparatus herein-before set forth generally
(and irrespective of the precise or exact construction of the said con-
trivances or apparatus separately considered) as "A New Mode or Method
of Applying Atmospheric Gas, Spirituous Vapour or Gas, and Impregnated
Combustible Vapour or Gas as a Heating Medium for the Generation of
Steam or other Purposos," the said "Generation of Steam or other
Purposes" including particularly (without excluding other uses and
applications) the use and application of the Invention to the furnaces or
boilers of marine, locomotive, and stationary engines.
Secondly. The special arrangement, adaptation, and construction of
the contrivance or apparatus herein-before called a "receiver," embracing
the whole of the several parts represented in Figures 2 and 3, as theroin?
represented or indicated, and as herein described, together with such
modifications thereof as are herein described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Robert Walker, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Nineteenth day of April, in the year
of our Lord One thousand cight hundred and seventy-three.