IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR SIGNALLING ON BOARD SHIP
Year: 1871

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Camillo Ambrogio Sperati, of Mitre Court, in
the City of London, Merchant, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS
IN APPARATUS FOR SIGNALLING ON BOARD SHIP."-A communication
from abroad by Augusto Guattari, of Naples, in the Kingdom of
Italy.
Sealed the 15th October 1871, and dated the 19th May 1871.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Camillo Ambrogio
Sperati at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 19th May 1871.
I, CAMILLO AMBROGIO SPERATI, of Mitre Court, in the City of
London, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS. IN APPARATUS FOR SIGNALLING ON BOARD SHIP," to be as
follows:-
This Invention consists in certain mechanical contrivances acting
through the elastic force of air for the purpose of indicating to other
vessels the direction in which a vessel is steering, as well as of communi-
cating with vessels by means of conventional signals.

page_text: The signals are made by means of a lamp or lamps hung at some
convenient part of the ship, and each provided with a tricolored glass
or glasses fitted to slide or rotate so as to exhibit one or other color, as
the case may be. The signal lamps are operated by means of two
small air cylinders, placed one at either side of the tiller, which by its
movements compresses the air in one or other cylinder and forces it
through a pipe communicating with mechanism by which the lamp
glasses are operated so as to display a red or green light, according as
the helm is moved to port or starboard. This result is effected by the
pressure of the air in the pipe distending a diaphragm by which the
said tube is closed, and the movement of which operates the glasses
through a rack rod gearing with a pinion fixed to the glass frame, or
which is otherwise connected thereto.
By means of another air reservoir and connecting pipe through which
the air is impelled by apparatus such as that above described, operated
by hand, combinations of differently colored lamps (operating in a
similar manner to those before described) may be used to signal and
correspond by night with other ships, while by daytime a system of
light variously colored drums would be substituted, or other form of
rotating colored signals similarly operated.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Camillo Ambrogio Sperati in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 18th November 1871.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CAMILLO
AMBROGIO SPERATI, of Mitre Court, in the City of London, Merchant, 2
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Nineteenth day of May, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, in the thirty-
fourth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give a
and grant unto me, the said Camillo Ambrogio Sperati, Her special
licence that I, the said Camillo Ambrogio Sperati, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Camillo
Ambrogio Sperati, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should
at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all 3

page_text: 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 "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR SIGNALLING ON BOARD SHIP,"
a communication to me from abroad by Augusto Guattari, of Naples,
in the Kingdom of Italy, upon the condition (amongst others) that I,
the said Camillo Ambrogio Sperati, 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 Camillo Ambrogio Sperati, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement, reference being had to the Sheet of
Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the letters and figures marked
thereon (that is to say) :-
:-
This Invention consists in certain mechanical contrivances acting
through the elastic force of air for the purpose of indicating to other
vessels the direction in which a vessel is steering, as well as of com-
municating with vessels by means of conventional signals.
The signals are made by means of a lamp or lamps hung at some
convenient part of the ship, and each provided with colored glasses,
fitted to slide or rotate so as to exhibit one or other color, as the case
may be. These signals are operated by means of two small air cylinders
placed one at either side of the tiller, which by its movements com-
presses the air in one or other cylinder, and forces it through a pipe
communicating with mechanism by which the lamp glasses are operated,
so as to display a red or green light according as the helm is moved to
port or starboard. This result is effected by the pressure of the air in
the pipe distending a diaphragm, by which the said tube is closed, and
the movement of which operates the glasses through a rack rod gearing
with a pinion fixed to the glass frame, or which is otherwise connected
thereto.
By means of another air reservoir and connecting pipe through which

page_text: DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS.
Figure 1 shows in plan the air cylinders or bags worked in connection
with the tiller or steering wheel for operating the signal lamps; Figure 2
is a sectional plan of a signal lamp; and Figure 3 is an enlarged view
of the diaphragm and parts in connection therewith for operating the
colored glasses in the lamp.
Metal
a, a', are compressible air bags resembling bellows, fitted in any
convenient situation beneath the deck or steering platform, for instance.
Each is fixed by one end, pressure being applied to the other through
sliding rods 6 attached thereto and working in suitable guides, said rods
being connected by a cord or chain to the tiller or to the steering wheel
as shown. The bellows may be placed horizontally or otherwise, and
the cord may be attached directly thereto instead of to rods b.
cylinders similarly fixed may be substituted for the bellows a, a¹, their
piston rods being provided with crossheads to which the rods b are
attached as shown in Figure 1. The bellows or cylinders must be air-
tight and are unprovided with valves, being merely required to compress
the air within them for the purpose of inflating a diaphragm or ex-
panding chamber at the other end of the tube which leads from each
air vessel to operate the corresponding signal in the lamp; c, c, are
chains or cords which may either be wound on a barrel on the shaft of
the steering wheel, on a portion of the tiller chain barrel, or connected
directly to the tiller itself. In either case the connections c must
be slack enough to allow the helm to be shifted in either direction,
(within certain limits) without compressing the air vessels, it being
only intended to operate the signal lamps when the helm is placed
almost hard over in one or other direction. When this takes place the
opposite air vessel is compressed, and the pressure of air in the tube
causes the signal lamp to show a red or a green light (as the case may
be), as hereafter described, a spring placed within the air vessels causing
them to again expand when the pressure is removed; d, d³, are the
tubes leading from the vessels a, a', respectively to the lamp, and e, e¹,
Figure 2, are the expanding chambers in which the tubes terminate.
Each chamber is closed air-tight, and has sides f of leather or other
flexible material, the ends g being flexible discs of thin metal (copper),

page_text: one of which is attached by its centre to the end of the tube d as clearly
shown in Figure 3; a rack rod / being fixed to the centre of the other disc
or diaphragm. Each rack rod gears with a pinion on a quadrant shaped
metal frame pivoted at the centre of the lamp casing, and supporting a
colored glass curved to the form of the lamp, that is, to a circle described
from the central pivot, the glass being also held at the upper part in a
similar frame pivoted at the top of the lamp; i and are the two lower
frames carrying a green and a red glass k and ¹ respectively. Both
frames work on a central pin fixed to the lamp casing, and they may be
provided with small friction rollers at their peripheries to make them
more easily movable. The glasses k, k¹, are shown in their normal
position at the sides of the lamp, which will then show a white light
through the ordinary uncolored glass or bull's eye. When the helm is
put hard aport or astarboard, the one or other glass is rotated by the
distension of the diaphragm e through the agency of the rack and pinion
until it is brought in front of the light, being again withdrawn by the
collapse of the said diaphragm when the pressure of air is removed.
By the employment of air vessels or cylinders similar to those a, a¹,
operated or compressed by hand, a similar lamp or lamps may be
operated to communicate intelligence by a pre-arranged code of colored
signals.
Having described the nature of the Invention and the manner of
performing the same, I declare that what I claim as the Invention to be
protected by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is, ope-
rating colored glasses in ships' signal lamps by means of pneumatic
apparatus, the whole constructed, arranged, and applied substantially
as herein-before described and shown in the Drawings annexed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Camillo Ambrogio Sperati, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Eighteenth day of November,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-
one