AN IMPROVED METHOD OF PREPARING AND CLEARING PADDY OR ROUGH RICE
Year: 1830

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, MELVIL
WILSON, of Warnford Court, Throgmorton Street, in the City of London,
Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS His late Majesty King George the Fourth did, by his Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster,
the Sixth day of February, in the eleventh year of His reign, give and grant
unto me, the said Melvil. Wilson, His especial licence that I, the said Melvil
Wilson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, and such others as I, the
said Melvil Wilson, 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, exer-
cise, and vend, within England, Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
my Invention of "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF PREPARING AND CLEARING PADDY
OR ROUGH RICE," communicated to me by a certain Foreigner residing abroad;
in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that I, the said Melvil
Wilson, shall cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in the 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.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Melvil Wilson, do hereby describe the manner in which my said Inven-

page_text: tion is to be performed by the following description thereof (that is to
say):-
The annexed Drawing represents four seive mortars worked with four
pestles, by a shaft with four cranks, the internal shape or curvature of the
mortar A, B, C, is the usual one; D, E, C, is the solid bottom. F, G, H, &c.,
are ribs extending from the rim or top of the mortar to the solid bottom,
feaving lateral interstices or open spaces all round the mortar. The interior
of the mortar from the rim to the solid bottom is lined with wire cloth, tin, or
sheet iron, with mesh or openings of such size as will allow the flour to be
sifted through by the operation of the pestles, and yet the openings of the
wire cloth,. tin; or sheet iron to be sufficiently small to prevent the rice from:
passing out, thereby effectually separating the flour from the rice during the
operation of pounding, causing the rice to turn freely in the mortar, and
preventing the rice from being .heated. N shews a small door near the solid
Bottom to discharge the rice from the mortar when it is sufficiently done.
This description is given as one of the modes in which the mortar may be
constructed, and its principle explained, but the principle of the Invention is
that the mortar is-laterally a seive. This seive mortar dispenses with the use
of the large shaft and heavy pestles, and, instead, allows the use of light.pestles
on crank shafts, with more than double the motion of. the former, which could
not be done while the flour remained with the rice without clogging and
lieating before the rice was sufficiently pounded. The length of the crank
which I have used is five inches, which gives ten inches stroke to the pestle,
and the pestles strike from 120 to 130 times in a minute. The foot of the
pestle is three inches diameter, and slightly convex'; it is set to move one inch
and a half from the bottom of the mortars.. The mortars is about twenty-two
inches clear opening at the top, and twenty-seven inches wide in the centre,
and twenty-four inches deep. The bottom is about twelve inches diameter,
and solid, to resist the action of the pestle, and is lined with sheet iron.
The Patent is simply for the seive mortar, as being a new and useful improve-
ment to be used in the preparing or cleaning of rough rice or paddy, and, I
distinctly disclaim all exclusive privilege to the use of the pestles with cranks;
which are only. shewn and explained to exhibit the mode I have adopted, and
consider most advantageous in operating: with the seive mortar.
$
In witness whereof, I, the said Melvil Wilson, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Thirty-first day of July, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and thirty.
MELVIL WILSON... (L.B.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the thirty-first day of July, in the
year of our Lord 1830, the aforesaid Melvil Wilson came before our said Lord
the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid, and
all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the
Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Sixth day of August, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and thirty.