CERTAIN IM- PROVEMENTS APPLICABLE TO FIRE GRATES, STOVES, FURNACES, AND CHINNIES, BY WHICH A GREATER QUANTITY OF HEAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM A GIVEN QUANTITY OF FUEL, AND ROMS AND HALLS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION BE HEATED MORE SPEEDILY AND EFFECTUALLY THAN BY THE METHODS NOW IN USE, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME THEY ARE CALCULATED, IN A GREAT DEGREE, TO PREVENT THOSE LAMENTABLE ACCIDENTS WHICH SO PREQUENTLY ARISE FROM WOMAN'S AND CHILDREN'S CLOATHS CATCHING FIRE AND TO GIVE A DEGREE OF CLEANLINESS WHICH CANNOT BE ATTAINED WHERE GRATES AND STOVES OF THE COMMON CONSTRUCTIONS ARE EMPLOYED
Year: 1799

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
BURNS, of the City of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, Builder, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty King George the Third, by His Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster,
the Twenty-third day of November now last past, hath given and granted
unto me, the said James Burns, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
special licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, to make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick upon Tweed,
luring the term of years therein expressed, my Invention of "CERTAIN IM-
PROVEMENTS APPLICABLE TO FIRE GRATES, STOVES, FURNACES, AND CHINNIES, BY
WHICH A GREATER QUANTITY OF HEAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM A GIVEN QUANTITY OF
FUEL, AND ROMS AND HALLS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION BE HEATED MORE SPEEDILY AND
EFFECTUALLY THAN BY THE METHODS NOW IN USE, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME THEY ARE
CALCULATED, IN A GREAT DEGREE, TO PREVENT THOSE LAMENTABLE ACCIDENTS WHICH SO
PREQUENTLY ARISE FROM WOMAN'S AND CHILDREN'S CLOATHS CATCHING FIRE AND TO
GIVE A DEGREE OF CLEANLINESS WHICH CANNOT BE ATTAINED WHERE GRATES AND
STOVES OF THE COMMON CONSTRUCTIONS ARE EMPLOYED;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said James Burns, by
an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular de-
scription of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within
one calendar month next after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in
and by the same (relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at large
appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said James Burns, in compliance with the
said proviso, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described and
ascertained in the respective plan, clevation, and sections hereunto annexed, and
the following description thereof, that is to
say:
The intention of my said Invention is to prevent the heat generated and
thrown out into any room or apartment by combustion from being necessarily
wasted by the air of such room or apartment being made to maintain the com-
bustion of the fuel in the grate, as is usual in the stoves or grates on the
common construction, where all the air that goes to maintain the combustion is
furnished from the air in the room, the waste of which is supplied by the exterior
cold air, which comes pouring into the room, at the bottom of the doors or
by the sides of the windows, and thereby undoes a great part of the effect that
otherwise would be produced by the fire. To accomplish this intention, the air
that maintains the fire in the grates or stoves made with my improvements,
or in other grates or stoves to which my improvements may be applied, should
be brought through a tube (which I call the air tube) from the outside of the
house, or be made to pass from the outside of the house between two of the
joists, where the floors and ceilings are close enough to allow this, so as to be
brought to the bottom bars of the grate without having any communi-
cation with the interior air of the room, while at the same time the grates and
parts connected with them should be so constructed that, when the fire is not
wished to be supplied with cold air from the outside of the house, the passage
may be shut more or less perfectly by means of a valve, a small door, a cock,
or any similar contrivance. When convenience does not admit of the air tube
being carried to the outside of the house, if carried to a cellar, larder, staircase,
or any lumber room, the same end will be gained, with this further advantage,
that such cellar, larder, staircase, or lumber room will thereby be well ventilated
and prevented from acquiring or retaining any unhealthy or disagreeable smells.
From the foregoing short description of this part of my Invention it will be
easily seen that the end may be gained by many various modes of construction,
according to fancy or circumstances, but I shall give a description of one of my
grates, constructed with such improvements, in as plain and intelligible a manner
as possible. The principle, however, of supplying the fire with air from without
the room or apartment, so as to prevent the warm air of the room from being
drawn to the fire-place and hurried up the chimney, while at the same time all
the advantage of open grates may be enjoyed, is hereby specified as my Inven-
tion; for the form of the grates or stoves may be varied indefinitely. Figure 1
represents a grate of the improved construction, and Figure 2 is a section

page_text: of it. The air that maintains the combustion is supplied through the pipe or
tube A, (Figure 2 and Figure 4.) or from between the under ceiling and floor,
as before mentioned, from which it passes up by the back or side of a drawer
B, Figure 2, according as it is most convenient to bring it up by the one or the
other; the back, however, is preferred where convenience admits of it. The
front of this drawer in its place is seen in Figure 1, at C. The intention of
this drawer is to receive the ashes that fall from the bottom bars of the grate,
sections of which are represented at D, D, Figure 2. The ashes as they fall
from the bars strike against the sides of the internal cavity E, and then are
carried by their own gravity through the narrow part F, and fall into the drawer.
This part of the construction may be easily understood by conceiving it to be an
hollow vase, as it actually is, with a drawer in its pedestal or basement, and
having a grate over it on which the fire rests. The valve, door, cock, or other
contrivance by which the external air is admitted or excluded may be made in
many various ways, and may be either in the neck F of the vase, or in the air
tube, or in the drawer B, or C, or, which I prefer, in the cavity behing the drawer,
the pedestal or basement of the vase being made large enough to admit of such
cavity. Various constructions may be resorted to, but that represented in
Figure 3 (which is a ground plan of a proper chimney for such a grate, and
in which a bird's eye view of one half of the grate may be seen in its place,
while the other half represents an horizontal section of the basement or pedestal,
which is supposed to be open, shewing the drawer in its place with the cavity
behind it,) will be found to answer every purpose. The cavity G is separated
from the place in which the drawer is put by a partition (best made of plate or
cast iron) passing from H to H, in which there is an opening I, with a cover K.
To the cover K is attached a small bar L worked by another shorter bar M, to
which it is attached by any simple joint. The bar M is fastened into an upright
pivot, the top of which comes up through the pedestal at one of its corners, or
any other convenient spot, and is furnished with a button to be laid hold of by
the finger and thumb, or with a top fitted to a key, by the turning of which the
cover K is made to shut or open the aperture 1, and consequently to prevent
or facilitate the passage of the air from the hole at G, which represents the
internal mouth of the air tube, the other end of which is on the outside of the
house, or in any cellar or other apartment, as before described. When the air has
passed through the aperture I, it finds no difficulty in passing on to the bottom of
the grate, that back or side of the drawer next which the aperture is being made.
low to allow it to flow in freely. The grate and its internal cavity E may be of any
convenient form, but circular or eliptical will answer best, especially when another
improvement included in the present Patent is intended to be applied, and which

page_text: •
shall be immediately described; but the improved fire grate already described may
be used either with or without the other improvement just alluded to, which is
a glass or a wirework fence or screen to prevent those dreadful accidents which
so frequently occur of ladies or children's cloaths being set on fire by sparks from
the grat.
Where this safeguard fence or screen is wished to be applied, the
inside of the chimney where the grate is to stand had best be a semi-cylinder
or nearly so (as represented in Figure 3), with a lining or cover A, A, A, best
made of metal, at such a distance from the semi-cylindrical wale N, N, N, N, as
to give sufficient room for allowing the safeguard or fence to be slid round into
it when the fire is wished to be left open, when fresh fuel is to be added, or
when the drawer with the ashes is to be removed. The fence is a framework
of metal, which when filled up with glass or with wirework forms a portion
of a cylinder answerable to the curvature of the space between the back of
the chimney and the lining above mentioned, made in one or more pieces,
and moving in a circular groove b, b, b, in or upon the hearth which serves to
conduct it into its place behind the grate when the fire-place is wanted to be
left open, as before-mentioned. The top of the front of the opening of the
chimney O, Figure 4, projects in a circular form, or is furnished with an added
projection made of metal, marble, or any other fit material; but in either case
the projection is furnished with a circular groove Z on its under surface of
the same radius with the one in or planted on the hearth for the purpose of
receiving the upper part of the framework of the fence or safeguard, which
framework may be filled up with glass either plain or bent, and either colour-
less or coleured, or stained or painted with figures or designs of any kind.
By this means complete safety is obtained against any such accidents as have
been alluded to, while at the same time the comfort arising from the view of a
chearful fire is not prevented by the interposition of any opaque body. But
for nurseries or the like, where convenience and safety is more the object than
elegance or luxury, the framework may be filled up with wirework. The
fence may be seen in its place in the Drawing at P. Though I have stated
that the framework of the fence or safeguard just described moves in a cir-
cular groove at top and bottom, I do not mean to say that no other con-
struction will answer; on the contrary, the process may be reversed, and
instead of such grooves at top and bottom for the fence to move in, the fence
itself may be furnished with a groove at its top, and one at its bottom, to
receive any projecting piece of metal or other substance of a proper curvature.
Or its bottom groove may receive the upper edge of the fender, which being
made to a proper curve, and properly adjusted and kept in its place, will
answer the same end; but whichever of these.ways be followed, or whatever

page_text: other method of construction, for it may easily be varied to answer circum-
stances, rollers or casters should be provided at the lower part of the fence to
make it move with greater case either to the front of the grate or into the
space between the back of the chimney and the lining above mentioned.
Where either the glass or the wirework fence or both of them are meant to
be applied to square or rectangular chimneys without the trouble of giving
them a semi-cylindrical form, the lining to receive the fence or fences may be
introduced at the sides or jaumbs of such chimneys, or the fence may be made
to rise by means of pullies into the wall above the opening, or slid sideways
into the walls at the sides of the opening:
:-
These improvements may be introduced either together or singly, and may
be applied to many of the grates now in common use. Besides the advantages
already pointed out as connected with them they possess also the following:
Any room or apartment may be heated by their means with a much smaller
quantity of fuel than by any other method yet in use, at the same time the
advantage of seeing the fire is not lost as in close stoves, for these grates have
side as well as bottom bars, which allow the radiant heat and light to be thrown
out into the room without any impediment, and in fact large rooms, halls, and
the like, which by the usual methods can hardly be warmed or made at all
comfortable in cold weather, may by means of these improvements be heated
as effectually as the smallest apartment, for when their full effect is wanted
to be produced, it is only necessary to keep the fence in its recess, that even
that portion of heat which would be kept back by the interposed glass or
wirework may be thrown out into the room and perform its office. They are
also an effectual cure for smoakey chimnics, which not only cause great waste
and destruction of good furniture, but many diseases to the inhabitants of
houses plagued with that evil. They cause a clean fire-side to be easily com-
manded at all times, as hardly any of the dust or ashes fall through the side
bars, almost the whole passing through the bottom bars down into the drawer,
and any fire lighted in such improved grates burns up and becomes lively in
a few minutes without the aid of bellows, and that watchful care which
common grates or stoves require. The principles of the improvements which
I have thus briefly described may be applied in many in various ways, either
to new grates or to those already in use.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Burns, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Seventh day of December, in the year of our Lord One
thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, and in the fortieth year of the
reign of His Majesty King George the Third.
JAMES BURNS. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Ninth day of December, in
the year above-mentioned, the aforesaid James Burns came before our Lord
the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid, and
all and everything there: contained, in form above written. And also the
Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute in
that case made and provided.
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