A METHOD OR METHODS OF TREATING OR PREPARING HEMP AND FLAX, AND OTHER SUBSTITUTES FOR HEMP AND FLAX, SO AS MATERIALLY TO AID THE OPERATION OF THE TOOLS CALLED HECKLES IN THE DIVISION OF THE FIBRE
Year: 1803

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ARCHIBALD
Earl of DUNDONALD, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Third,
in and by His Letters Patent under His Great Seal of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-eighth
day of June, in the forty-third year of His reign, for Himself, His heirs and
successors, did give and grant unto me, the said Archibald Earl of Dundonald,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, His especial license, full power,
sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Archibald Earl of Dundonald,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, and every of them, by myself and
themselves, or by my and their deputy or deputics, servants or agents, or such
others as I, the said Archibald Earl of Dundonald, my executors, adminis-
trators, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and at all times thereafter during the term of years therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within that part of
His said Majesty's United Kingdom called England, His Dominion of Wales,
and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in all His said Majesty's Colonies
and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "A METHOD OR METHODS OF TREATING
OR PREPARING HEMP AND FLAX, AND OTHER SUBSTITUTES FOR HEMP AND FLAX, SO
AS MATERIALLY TO AID THE OPERATION OF THE TOOLS CALLED HECKLES IN THE
DIVISION OF THE FIBRE;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a
proviso, obliging me, the said Archibald Earl of Dundonald, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, particularly to describe and ascertain

page_text: the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, and to cause the same to be inrolled in His said Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after
the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation
being thereunto bad, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Archibald Earl of Dundonald, do hereby describe and ascertain the nature of
my said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, as
follows, that is to say:-
My process for aiding the operation of the heckles in the division of the fibre
of flax and hemp, and substitutes for flax and hemp, is to be done according to
the methods hereafter to be described, being all upon the same principle,
namely, that of removing from flax and hemp, and substitutes for flax and
hemp, the bark and a considerable proportion of the mucilage or extractive
matter before the hemp or flax has been dressed on the tools called heckles,
or on or by any other tools or instruments capable of performing the same or
a similar division of the fibre. The hemp or flax intended to be operated on
is to be wetted or steeped in water, or boiled for a greater or less length
of time, as circumstances may require. It is then in a wet or damp state
to be beaten, bruised, crushed, rolled, or acted on by beaters, stampers,
rollers, or by any other mechanical means, so as to promote the solution and
discharge of the mucilage or extractive matter, consequently to loosen the
adhesion of the bark to the fibre.
This process is to be done with or without a run of water on the hemp or
flax while beating, crushing, or rolling. The water employed may either be
cold, warm, or boiling hot, with or without soap or alkaline salts, as circum-
stances may require. The difference between my process and the process
hitherto adopted by others consists in employing water to aid the solution of the
mucilage or extractive matter, and so to diminish the adhesion of the bark to
the fibre, whereas hitherto the beating of hemp and flax has been done in a
dry state. The wet beating or wet crushing process being finished, the hemp or
flax is to be dried and submitted to the process of dry beating, crushing, or
rolling, to flatten, soften, and in part to divide the fibre preparatory to heckling
or dressing. The process of passing hemp or flax, whether wet or dry, through
or over rollers, or by treating the hemp or flax by a machine similarly con-
structed to that of a mangle, is to be reckoned included under my said Patent.
The hemp or flax may either be passed through the rollers, wrapped round the
rollers, or lail under the rollers.
Besides the methods already described for assisting the division of the fibre

page_text: of hemp or flax, there is to be included under the said Patent the apparatus
of a roller or rollers turning round with the hemp or flax either in a wet or a
dry state wrapped round it or them, the hemp or flax to be beaten when
turning round by mallets or stampers. This method is very much to be preferred
to beating hemp or flax on a stationary block when twisted up into punnies,
as has hitherto been practised, as the twisting or entanglement of the hemp or
flax is thereby avoided, and the parallelism of the fibre is preserved. The last
process is that of wetting, scalding, boiling, or bucking the hemp or flax,
and laying it out for a proper time exposed to the weather, to free it from
the mucilage and bark, and when dry, to be beaten, crushed, or rolled.
In witness whereof, I, the said Archibald Earl of Dundonald, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, the Twenty-eighth day of December, in
the forty-fourth year of the reign of our said Sovereign Lord George
the Third, by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and three.