IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH MINING SAFETY AND OTHER LAMPS, PARTS OF WHICH INVENTION ARE APPLICABLE AS IRRADIATORS OR CONCENTRATORS OF LIGHT FOR OTHER PURPOSES." PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
Year: 1880

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Howard Busby Fox, of Oxton, in the County of Chester,
for an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND CONNECTED WITH MINING
SAFETY AND OTHER LAMPS, PARTS OF WHICH INVENTION ARE APPLICABLE AS
IRRADIATORS OR CONCENTRATORS OF LIGHT FOR OTHER PURPOSES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by tho said Howard Busby Fox at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 28th April 1880.
HOWARD BUSBY Fox, of Oxton, in the County of Chester.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN
AND CONNECTED WITH MINING SAFETY AND OTHER LAMPS, PARTS OF WHICH
INVENTION ARE APPLICABLE AS IRRADIATORS OR CONCENTRATORS OF LIGHT FOR
OTHER PURPOSES."
This Invention has for its principal object a safety or other lamp that cannot bo
opened without being first extinguished, and that will give a brighter light than
any other, and with greater safety.
I construct the lamp similar to ordinary safety lamps with these exceptions:-
I place a peculiar irradiating lens consisting of an annular chamber filled with water
round the lower part where the flame lies. This chamber has the faculty of apparently
intensifying and yet of diffusing the light while, if by any chance an explosion or
other accident breaks the lamp the water floods the wick and puts it out.
In the lamp, at any convenient point, I place a spring catch, so arranged that it
will give way and allow the lamp oasily to be closed, but will be rigid against all
attemps to open it until a rod or other mechanism carrying an extinguisher is
drawn out of the way of the catch sufficiently for the extinguisher to entirely cover
and extinguish the flame. The lamp then once shut cannot be opened till the
extinguisher extinguishes the lamp, there is no need therefore for locking the safety
lamp.
I sometimes make the lens a simple cylinder on the outside and a series of arcs
of circles or other curves entering inward on the inside. In other cases I construct
it like a ring of cylinders run together, the main point being to have two curved
glasses, or one curved and the other flat or angular, with the curves facing in
opposite directions, and water or other transparent fluid placed between.
Although 1 have described my Invention for miners' safety lamps only, it is
applicable to lamps for gunpowder mills and other places, and that part relating to
the water or fluid double glass or lens to all kinds of lamps and lights, such, for
instance, as gas lights, street lamps, lights for ships' cabins, railway carriages, and
the like, in each instance the double glass being shaped to suit on the outside,
and preferably formed of convex surfaces on the inside of the inner glass.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by
the said Howard Busby Fox in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 28th
October 1880.
HOWARD BUSBY Fox, of Oxton, in the County of Chester.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN
AND CONNECTED WITH MINING SAFETY AND OTHER LAMPS, PARTS OF WHICH
INVENTION ARE APPLICABLE AS IRRADIATORS OR CONCENTRATORS OF LIGHT FOR
OTHER PURPOSES."
This Invention has for its principal object a safety or other lamp that cannot be
opened without being first extinguished, and that will give a brighter light than
any other and with greater safety.
It is best described by aid of the accompanying Drawings, in which Fig. 1 is a
sectional elevation, and Fig. 2 a sectional plan on line x, y, of my improved lamp.
I construct the lamp similar to ordinary safety lamps with these exceptions:-I
place a peculiar irradiating lens consisting of an annular chamber A filled with water
or other transparent fluid with a high boiling point temperature round the lower
part where the flame lies. This chamber is formed of two glasses, one thin, of
nearly cylindrical shape, but the vertical section being preferably a curve as shown.
The outer wall is lobed with lobes preferably arranged vertically, as shown, but in
some cases, horizontally, or if desirable the lobes can take the form of segments of
spheres, ellipses, or other curved shapes. This chamber has the faculty of apparently
intensifying and yet of diffusing the light, while if by any chance an explosion or
other accident breaks the lamp, the water floods the wick and puts it out.
In the lamp, at any convenient point, I place a spring catch B so arranged that it
will give way and allow the lamp easily to be closed, but will be rigid against all
attempts to open it until a rod C (or other mechanism) carrying an extinguisher D
is drawn out of the way of the catch sufficiently for the extinguisher to entirely
cover and extinguish the flame. The lamp then once shut cannot be opened till
the extinguisher extinguishes the lamp, there is no need therefore for locking the
safety lamp.
E in the Drawing is the wick tube; F, slot in same, into which the usual
trimming rod or finger G can be inserted from time to time to raise the wick; His
an opening in the water cylinder, usually kept corked, to fill in or empty the water;
I, the ring abovo fitted to the glass, and to which the wire J is fixed; K, tho
usual rods binding the whole together; L, screwed bottom of lamp.
Of course the lamp can be made without glass or water, but with the gauze
down to the bottom, and in many mines this will be preferred by those who are
satisfied with the light given out through gauze, and who are afraid of glass, and in
some cases where the lamps are exposed to much rough work and careless treatment
the doing without glass will be highly advantageous, so I am desirous of claiming
both varieties. This arrangement, by which the lamp cannot be opened without
putting out the light, is also useful for lamps to be used in warehouses, powder
mills, and other places which, while there is no gas to ignite, are yet replete with
danger in presence of naked lights.
In arranging my lens apparatus for ordinary lamps for street use or for general
purposes I design the lobes so as to throw most light where it is most wanted. Thus
a lamp in the centre of four cross roads would be best designed if it had only four
lobes, each lobe exactly facing parallel to the axis of each street.
Another lamp, required to throw the light in one direction only, would have a
single lobe and a reflecting surface in all other directions, while a lamp required to
throw the light horizontally in one special plane would have a horizontal lobe
going all round the lamp.
Sometimes both walls of the chamber are lobed with lobes opposite each other,
the chamber then resembles a ring of cylinders run together where they touch.

page_text: My water lens or globe will indeed be useful in almost all kinds of lamps, street
lamps, ordinary gas lights, signal lamps, railway carriage or ship's cabin lamps, and
the like, and also as a concentrator or irradiator of light from other sources of light
than lamps, the lens being placed between the point to be illuminated and the
source of light, and increasing the available light by concentrating the rays in one
or more directions and increasing the apparent area of light giving surface.
Having now described my Invention, and the best mode known to me of carrying
it into effect, I wish it to be understood that what I believe to be new, and desire
to protect under the herein before in part recited Letters Patent is,-
First. The manufacture of miners' safety or other lamps with an extinguisher
so arranged that if an attempt be made to open the lamp while it is lighted the
extinguisher or apparatus connected therewith will come in contact with a stop
and prevent the opening till the extinguisher be brought down onto the flame,
extinguishing the same.
Second. The manufacture of glasses, lenses, or globes for lamps, and of irradiators
or condensers of light by forming them of two curved glass walls, or one curved
and one angular wall, with water or other equivalent transparent liquid between,
one at least of said walls being formed of lobes, substantially as described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Howard Busby Fox, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty seventh day of October, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and eighty.