IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING HEATING AND ILLUMINATING GAS
Year: 1874

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Charles William Wilkins Thomas, of Clarendon
House, Buckhurst Hill, in the County of Essex, for the Invention
of "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING HEATING AND
ILLUMINATING GAS."
Sealed the 30th June 1874, and dated the 7th April 1874.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Charles William Wilkins
Thomas at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 7th April 1874.
I, CHARLES WILLIAM WILKINS THOMAS, of Clarendon House,
Buckhurst Hill, in the County of Essex, do hereby declare the nature
of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING
HEATING AND ILLUMINATING GAS," to be as follows:-

page_text: The object of this Invention is to improve the apparatus for generating
and purifying gas described in the Specification of a Patent granted to
Alexander Melville Clark, dated December 16th 1871, No. 3416. By
means of this apparatus atmospheric air was carburetted by vaporized
petroleum and other hydrocarbons. It has however been found in
practice that the supply of oil requires to be regulated automatically
and that the automatic apparatus for regulating the heat of the burner
used to vaporize the oil, is unnecessary.
I now propose to apply to the spindle of the regulating cock of the
oil supply pipe a weighted lever which will have a tendency to keep the
cock closed. This lever I connect by a rod or otherwise to the
gasometer of the apparatus in such manner that as the gasometer falls
it will raise the weighted end of the lever, at the same time turning the
cock and admitting oil to the apparatus. This rod or coupling I make
adjustable so as to determine when and to what extent the fall of the
gasometer shall act upon the supply cock; or instead of the weighted
lever other arrangements for governing the supply by the rise and fall
of the gasometer may be adopted; thus a lever fitted to the spindle of
the cock may be connected to a weighted chain made fast at one end
to the gasometer and passing over a pulley. The rise and fall of the
gasometer will through the action of the weighted chain and lever give
the requisite motions to the supply cock.
Instead of the telescopic arrangement for contracting the supply of
gas to the burner as the gasometer rises under the accumulation of gas
within it I simply surround the central pipe which conducts gas from
the gasometer towards the burner with a fixed pendent pipe which will
lead the gas in uniform quantity directly to the burner.
As an improvement on the apparatus used for cooling the gas as it
leaves the gas generator and depriving of its denser vapors I surround
the filtering chamber with a condensing worm or coil of pipe which is
immersed in water contained in a case in which the filtering chamber is
enclosed. This worm enters the filtering chamber below a perforated
false bottom which supports a mass of porous material and leads the gas,
now in a cool state, to the filtering material, in passing through which
it will deposit any oil that it may have brought over. In the bottom of

page_text: the filtering chamber is an opening through which the oil as it drains
from the filtering material is discharged into a chamber below, from
whence it is drawn off from time to time to be resubmitted to the
vaporizing process.