IMPROVEMENTS IN FIRE ENGINES AND HYDRAULIC MACHINES
Year: 1865

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Leon Paul Laroche at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 28th July
1865.
I, LEON PAUL LAROCHE, of 78, Rue Marbeuf, Paris, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN FIRE ENGINES AND
HYDRAULIC MACHINES," to be as follows:-
No. 1 represents a suction and force pump with a piston; fixed at the lower
part there are metallic plates or plates made of any other material; those
plates ought to be made very thin, and shaped like the blades of sharp-edged
and polished razors, they might be substituted by conic-pointed needles
made round, square, or triangular, or any other shape that might be thought
proper to the materials; it must be borne in mind, however, that the piston
must be made applicable to suction or aspiring pumps, as well as to elevation
or railway pumps, and to fire engines, inasmuch as the principle laid down
bears upon every description of hydraulic works, independent of their shapes
or applications.
No. 2 represents a piston of double action, because while one side is aspiring
or drawing the other side forces or presses on the water. Both the sides of
the piston are armed or supplied with plates, well edged, or sharpened points
as in the preceding case.
No. 3 represents a blow pipe, or a pair of bellows of a forge. The principle
adopted in Laroche's Invention may be applied to every description of aerial
machines, and in inflating balloons, in which case the interior part of the

page_text: canvas must be furnished with small conic cords or strings, made either of
silk or cotton. The canvas or material the balloon is made of must be about
40% stronger, in order to resist bearing. The blow pipe and inside parts
already set in motion by the working or motion must be provided with conic
sharp-pointed plates or needles as highly polished as in No. 1.
No. 4 represents a portable blow pipe of a forge, the interior surface of its
component parts when in motion while those bellows are being worked must
also be furnished with sharp-pointed conic plates or needles likewise polished
in the highest degree possible.
No. 5 represents the elevation or raising power of a pump by means of the
capularity or top apparatus with the piston without causing any friction. It
is placed at the inner part of the body or case of the pump within a tube of a
much larger diameter than the capilarity's elevation tube. The wheel of the rod
must be provided with ropes or pieces of wood, or of cork perforated by holes,
and quite irregularly cut, to prevent any correspondence of fitting; or perhaps
it might be better to supply it with a roller made of canvas, and a valve of
the largest size possible, and to let the water run while the rod is being raised,
and the valve will close itself when the rod is let down again, after which the
two valves situated at the upper part of the body of the pump will open
themselves, and in proportion as the capilarity apparatus presses down the
upper tube will supply itself with water, when this capilarity apparatus and
the two valves close themselves again, and the water is thus thrown out. The
great economy attached to the new principle is shown when forcing the water
to a considerable height.
No. 6 represents the plan or sketch facing the piston with its conic sharp-
edged needle plates well polished, round, square, and triangular, shewing in
one word all the shapes that have been adopted, to be thoroughly polished and
edged. Some small pumps might be made with well-armed pistons of simply
one single needle or sword, for the manufacturing of which I reservo my
right.
For powerful hydraulic engines supplying the streets of large towns and
cities, public buildings, etc. with water, as also for aerial machines requiring
forges, as well as for other buildings, and concentrated ventilators, tho
principle here laid down by Mr. Laroche will be found economical in its
tendency, and indispensable in its application, yielding a profit of forty per
cent. in outlay.
All the various experiments repeatedly made have only tended to sub-
stantiate the fact that by following up the principles here developed, all sorts
of bydraulic and aerial machines will not only be subject to less friction, and

page_text: save forty per cent. in water, but also that operations will be more expeditious,
less baffled, and scientific men themselves cannot resist the attraction pro-
duced by the inner works giving up the accusation of idle boast, and derive
essential advantages for themselves from this system and Invention.