CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN OR A NEW METHOD OR METHODS OF OBTAINING AND APPLYING MOTIVE POWER, A MODIFICATION OF WHICH IS ALSO APPLICABLE FOR PUMPING OR FORCING LIQUIDS, GASES, AND FLUIDS, AS ALSO FOR MEASURING LIQUIDS, GASES, AND FLUIDS
Year: 1859

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Pilbrow at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 9th March
. 1859.
I, JAMES PILBROW, of Tottenham, in the County of Middlesex, Civil
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for " CERTAIN
IMPROVEMENTS IN OR A NEW METHOD OR METHODS OF OBTAINING AND APPLYING
MOTIVE POWER, A MODIFICATION OF WHICH IS ALSO APPLICABLE FOR PUMPING OR
FORCING LIQUIDS, GASES, AND FLUIDS, AS ALSO FOR MEASURING LIQUIDS, GASES, AND
FLUIDS," to be as follows:-
A flexible and elastic tube, such as the red mineralized india-rubber, is
placed between two rollers, or between one roller. and a flat surface, the two
rollers or the roller and flat surface being pressed together with a force (by
the agency of springs or otherwise) sufficient to close the tube at the point
where such rollers are placed. The diameter of bore and thickness of the
material of such tube being made in proportion to the effect it is intended to.
produce, one end of the tube being left open to the atmosphere, the other end.
being in connection with an air pump. Upon the air being exhausted from.
the tube it will collapse by the pressure of the superincumbent atmosphere ;.
thus will the rollers be placed out of equilibrium as respects the pressure or.
elastic force of the tube on either side of them, and hence will they move
towards, over, or along the collapsed part of the tube with a traction or
propelling force in proportion to the power necessary to collapse the tube,
or, in other words, as is due to the elastic force or power of the tube, to spring

page_text: open or resume its original shape. If then the tube be made, in proportion
to its size, of such a thickness that it would require fourteen pounds on every
square inch of its surface to collapse it, the air being exhausted from it, the
atmosphere would cause it to collapse, and upon being re-admitted, or the
interior and exterior of the tube being again placed in equilibrium, the tube
would expand to or regain its original circular form with a force equal to
what it required to compress it, and therefore the rollers would receive an
effect on one side of them to urge them forward to this amount. If such a
tube be laid along a line of railway or canal, and such rollers were attached
to a carriage or vessel, and the air exhausted from the tube in front of them
by an air pump worked by a steam engine, or other means, the rollers being
urged by the expanding tube to roll over the collapsed portion, it is evident
that the carriage or vessel would be propelled with a power due to the force
favorably exerted upon them.
If also such a tube be placed within and around a circular and airtight
chamber, and a wheel, having rollers similar to those before described, attached.
to its periphery, placed in position, the one end of the tube being free and open
within the chamber, and the other end passing out of it, and either open to
the atmosphere or connected with a condenser, and steam at sufficient pressure
be supplied to the chamber, the steam thus becoming a substitute for the air;
in the former description, as respects railway and canal propulsion, the rollers
would in like manner be propelled along the tube round the chamber,
carrying with them the wheel, which wheel having an axis passing through
the chamber by steam-tight stuffing boxes, it would give a rotary motion
to any machinery, and thus form a steam or other engine according to the
medium used.
This particular form or modification may be varied in several ways, or made
to act with water or gas, or air under pressure, the principle remaining the
same, and therefore within my Invention.
The same arrangements will also answer as a meter to measure water or
gases, as also by being forced round by external power (in place of its yielding
power) will form a pump.