CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND APPARATUS FOR WORKING IN MINES, WHICH ARE APPLICABLE TO RAISING, LOWERING, AND TRANSPORTING OF HEAVY BODIES, AND ALSO AFFORDING ASSISTANCE IN PROMOTING A MORE PERFECT VENTILATION OF THE MINE
Year: 1842

page_text: TO ALL
RESP
PETER BOOTH, of the City of Cork, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty, by Her Royal Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster,
the Ninth day of July, in the sixth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her
heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said John Peter Booth,
Her especial license, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said
John Peter Booth, my executors, administrators, and assigns, and such others
as I, the said John Peter Booth, my executors, administrators, or assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all
times during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY
AND APPARATUS FOR WORKING IN MINES, WHICH ARE APPLICABLE TO RAISING,
LOWERING, AND TRANSPORTING OF HEAVY BODIES, AND ALSO AFFORDING ASSISTANCE
IN PROMOTING A MORE PERFECT VENTILATION OF THE MINE;" in which said
Letters Patent is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said John Peter Booth,
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, particularly to describe
and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, and to cause the same to be enrolled in Her Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the
same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Peter Booth, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following description thereof, reference being
had to the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the letters and figures marked
thereon, that is to say:--
My improvements in machinery and apparatus for working in mines, which
are applicable to raising, lowering, and transporting of heavy bodies, and also in
affording assistance in promoting a more perfect ventilation of the mine, con-
sist, firstly, in the means of raising and lowering heavy bodies in the shafts of
mines and other situations, by which any ill consequences from the accidental
breaking of the suspension rope or chain will be prevented, and the weight
arrested in its descent; secondly, the adaptation or application of the mechanical
power for raising heavy bodies from a mine or other situation, through the
agency of a revolving screw shaft, or a consecutive arrangement of revolving
inclined planes, the surfaces of which are made to act against the peripheries
of rollers or other projections extending from the car or carriage in which the
heavy body intended to be raised is placed; and thirdly, the employment of
power derived from the revolving shaft to the purpose of working a rotary fan
or air pump apparatus for injecting pure air into or abstracting.foul air from
mines during the operation of working them, in order to assist the ventilation.
In the accompanying Drawings, Fig. 1 represents the section of a shaft of a
mine, taken vertically, with two cars or boxes A and B, the former ascending,
the latter descending; to the sides of the shaft there are affixed, by brackets
or other fastenings, vertical bars of iron a, a, a, a, and on the face of each of
these bars a rack or series of ratchet teeth are formed; the car or box A or B
is confined to the perpendicular bar a, by sockets b, b, affixed to the
upper and
lower parts of the box, which sockets clip the perpendicular bar, as shewn in
the detached horizontal section, drawn upon an enlarged scale at Fig. 2. It
will thus be perceived that the boxes A and B slide up and down the shaft of
the mine upon these notched or rack bars a, a; the cars or boxes, within
which are the platforms, are suspended by a rope or chain c, c, c, attached by
a brace d to the upper part of the box, and the rope or chain is passed over
guide pullies d, do, above to a drum wheel, the rotation of which drum raises
or lowers the car in the usual way; upon the upper socket 6 the fulcrum of a
lever e is fixed, the longer arm of which lever is held up by a chain attached
to it and to the suspension rope or chain c, and to this lever is also attached a
chain which suspends the platform within the box. In the event of the
si spension rope breaking, as shewn at B, the longer arm of the levere will

page_text: fall, and the shorter arm or point of the lever.be thereby projected into the rack
of the perpendicular (bar, which will consequently. cause ither descent of the car
or box to be arrested; and held firmly in that situation: In order to bring this
lever e instantaneously into operation.on the suspension rope breaking, a small
auxiliary rope g is attached to the shorter larm of the lover, which rope is
continued by the side of. the suspension trope to the drawing drum; hence, the
moment that the suspension rope breaks, the small rope g holds up the shorter
arm of the lever, and brings.its end into the rack of the perpendicular bar, by
which the car or box, with its platforms, are supported. As the portion-of-the
broken rope or chain connected to the car may be of considerable weight, it
will be necessary to provide a guard above to prevent its falling injuriously
upon the platform in the car or box; for this purpose, I construct a jointed
frame, intended to constitute a roof, which is shewn at 'h, h, h, in the detached
Figures 2, 3, and 4; this roof is formed of rods, connected together -by-a
frame having a hinge joint in the middle, and which is supported by perpen-
dicular standards-i, i, i, i on the top of the box; these standards have-slots,- in
which the ends of the frame are inserted, and when the weight of the-falling
broken rope comes down upon the roof, its angular figure is expanded-and-the
ends of the frame projected outwards against the sides of the shaft: Fig. 5 is a
vertical section of the shaft of a mine, in which two-perpendicular rods or
screw shafts a, a, a, a, are mounted and held by staples or bearings b; b; the
worm upon these screw shafts, may be of any required obliquity, or..a consecu-
tive-arrangement of inclined planes may be affixed to the shaft in place of the
continuous screw or worm thread. A and B are the boxes or cars to contain
the heavy bodies intended to be raised or lowered; to each of these cars two
or more antifriction wheels c, c, and d, are attached, turning on axles, in
brackets affixed to the upper and lower parts of the boxes; these. wheels run
in the groove or recess of the screw, and as the screw shaft revolves necessarily
raise or lower the box. On the sides of the pit or shaft. of the mine parallel
guide rails e, e, are fixed, against which certain wheels.or antifriction rollers f,f,
attached to the box or car, are intended to work, for the purpose of keeping
the rollers c, c, and d, continually in the thread or recess of the screw shaft, as
shewn in the horizontal section upon an enlarged scale at Fig. 6. Hence, by
giving rotary motion to the screw shafts, in any convenient way, the boxes or
cars will be raised or lowered in the pit. For the purpose of allowing the
bearings or supports b, b, to embrace the shafts, small portions of the thread
of the screw are cut away, and also a groove made round the screw shaft to
receive the strap of the bearing, as represented in the enlarged detached views
of a portion of the screw shaft at Figures 7, 8, and 9; by this arrangement

page_text: one at least of the rollers will always be in contact with the revolving screw
thread or inclined planes, and thereby prevent any interruption to the progress
of the car which might otherwise occur as the wheels successively pass over the
open parts of the thread. At the lower end of one of the perpendicular screw
shafts, in Fig. 5, a bevel wheel g is affixed, which takes into a corresponding
wheel h, upon the axle of a pulley carrying a band i, i, which communicates
with and drives the rotary fan of the blowing apparatus k, or it might be
applied to any other machinery capable of forcing air for ventilating the lower
part of the mine..
Lastly, I desire it to be understood that the particular features of novelty
which I claim, under the above in part recited Letters Patent, are the appa-
ratus for arresting the descent of the car or box in the event of the sus-
pension rope or chain breaking, as above described; the employment of the
screw shafts or rotary inclined planes for working the carriage, and the mode
of supporting them, and of enabling some of the rollers of the car to keep.
continually in contact with the surface of the screw, whilst others are passing
over the open parts of the thread, by the means above described, and the
derivation of the power for working the ventilating apparatus from the rotation
of the screw shaft.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Peter Booth, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Second day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and forty-three..