IMPROVEMENTS IN THE DISTILLATION AND RECTIFICATION
Year: 1862

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to George Phillips, the elder, Chemist, and George
Phillips, the younger, Rectifier and Dealer in Spirits, both of 89, Holborn
Hill, in the Parish of Saint Andrew, Holborn, in the City of London, for
the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE DISTILLATION AND RECTIFICATION
"
Sealed the 25th July 1862, and dated the 30th January 1862.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said George Phillips, the elder,
and George Phillips, the younger, at the Office of the Commissioners
of Patents, with their Petition, on the 30th January 1862.
We, GEORGE PHILLIPS, the elder, Chemist, and GEORGE PHILLIPS, the
younger, Rectifier and Dealer in Spirits, both of 89, Holborn Hill, in the
Parish of Saint Andrew, Holborn, in the City of London, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE DISTILLATION AND
RECTIFICATION OF ALCOHOLS OR SPIRITS," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in passing the vapour of alcohols or spirits through
finely perforated sheets of metal, fine wire gauze, metal wire, shavings,
turnings or filings, and suitable textile fabrics, and their materials, such as
silk, wool, hemp, flax, cotton wool, woody fibre, and sponge closely packed,
by which means a purer alcohol is produced.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said George Phillips, the elder, and George Phillips, the younger,
in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 29th July 1862.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, GEORGE
PHILLIPS, the elder, Chemist, and GEORGE PHILLIPS, the younger, Rectifier
and Dealer in Spirits, both of 89, Holborn Hill, in the Parish of Saint
Andrew, Holborn, in the City of London, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Thirtieth day of January, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, in the twenty-fifth year
of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto
us, the said George Phillips, the elder, and George Phillips, the younger,
Her special licence that we, the said George Phillips, the elder, and George
Phillips, the younger, our executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as we, the said George Phillips, the elder, and George Phillips, the younger,
our executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with,
and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE DISTILLATION
AND RECTIFICATION OF ALCOHOLS OR SPIRITS," upon the condition (amongst others)
that we, the said George Phillips, the elder, and George Phillips, the younger,
our executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under our, or
one of our, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe
and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same
was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal
Patent Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent.
:
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said George Phillips, the younger, on behalf
of myself, and of the said George Phillips, the elder, do hereby declare the
nature of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement, that is to say :-
Our Invention consists in the filtration of the vapor of alcohol or spirit
by passing it through wire gauze, perforated sheets of metal, shavings, filings,
or pellets of metal, fibres of silk, cotton, hemp, flax, wool, asbestos, or their.
fabrics, arranged so as to have fine openings or passages through which the
vapor of alcohol can pass, but not its impurities.

page_text: Of the various materials that we have employed, we prefer brass or copper,
wire gauze, having openings of 20 to 300 of an inch in diameter, arranged
in any convenient form to suit the distilling apparatus, and this gauze may
be used in diaphragms, or packed in a mass, and the sheets may range
from one to four hundred, or more, according to the purifying power required.
In a square inch of wire gauze, having openings of 300 of an inch in diameter,
and a layer of four hundred sheets, the thickness of which would be about
1 inch, the alcoholic vapor in its passage to the condenser would pass
through nine millions of openings, the mean size of which is so small that the
impurities.are strained or filtered from the alcoholic vapor, which after being
purified, is condensed in the ordinary manner.
Having now described the nature of our Invention, we claim as new the
use of wire gauze and other suitable materials, either alone or combined, for
the purpose as herein-before described, arranged in any suitable way, so as to
present openings sufficiently fine to strain out the impurities of the alcoholic
vapor of which the wire gauze herein-before described is a good example of
what is required in the arrangement of any other suitable material.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Phillips, the younger, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-ninth day of July, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two.
G. PHILLIPS, J³. (L.S.)