IMPROVEMENTS IN REFRIGERATING AND VENTILATING, AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR
Year: 1875

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Pate, of Burnley, in the County of
Lancaster, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN REFRIGERATING
AND VENTILATING, AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR."-A communication
from abroad by Levi Charles Cattell, of Cleveland, in the State of
Ohio, America.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Pate at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
16th October 1875.
I, WILLIAM PATE, of Burnley, in the County of Lancaster, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN REFRI-
GERATING AND VENTILATING, AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR," a communication
to me from abroad by Levi Charles Cattell, of Cleveland, in the State
of Ohio, America, to be as follows:-
Hitherto refrigerators have been made on the principle of having a
thick solid non-conducting mass surrounding the matter to be cooled or
kept cool.

page_text: Now my Invention consists partly in using air for this purpose in the
following manner-1st, I construct a chest (or refrigerator) having
hollow sides all round (as it were one chest inside another) with a thin
air space between). Convenient doors (hollow or otherwise) can be
made in the sides for the admission of articles of food and other matters
requiring to be kept cool. The air space in the walls of the refrigerator
opens at the bottom to the interior chamber, thus allowing the air inside
to freely enter the said air space. The air space also communicates
freely at the top with the outside air by means of slits in the outside
casing. Suspended or fixed in any suitable manner in the upper part
of the interior chamber is a shelf for holding a block of ice. Round
the shelf is a trough connected with the outside by a pipe for carrying
off the water formed by the melting of the ice. Over all I stretch a
woollen cloth so arranged as not impede the passage of air from the
slits on the outside connected with the narrow air space aforesaid. This
woollen cloth keeps out radiant heat, and yet freely admits air. The
air as it passes the ice is cooled, and surrounding the articles to bo
refrigerated cools them in turn. It then enters the narrow air space
aforesaid, and is slightly warmed by the exterior shell of the refrigerator
exposed to the outside air. It prevents however in the most thorough
manner any heat striking through from the outer shell to the inner one,
and so conveying heat to the interior of the refrigerator. In this way
a constant current of air is maintained, cooling and keeping cool the
articles to be refrigerated.
One of the great advantages of my apparatus is that I am enabled to
do away with the zinc lining that is so apt to poison food of an acid or
alkaline nature brought in contact with it.
On a more extended scale this system of causing air currents could
be applied for cooling or heating and ventilating buildings.
By using a heating surface instead of the lump of ice the current
could be reversed.
In dry hot countries rooms could be built on the principle of my
refrigerator and supplied with ice, or even a wet porous mass, which in
giving off evaporating moisture would lessen the temperature nearly as
much as ice would.
G

page_text: SPECIFICATION filed in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters
Patent, and of an Order of the Lord Chancellor, by the said
William Pate in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 6th May 1876.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
PATE, of Burnley, in the County of Lancaster, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Sixteenth day of October, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, in
the thirty-eighth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs
and successors, give and grant unto the said William Pate, Her
special licence, that I, the said William Pate, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said William
Pate, my 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 REFRIGERATING AND VENTILATING, AND IN
APPARATUS THEREFOR," (a communication from abroad by Levi Charles
Cattell, of Cleveland, in the State of Ohio, America,) upon the
condition (amongst others) that I, the said William Pate, my exc-
cutors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, 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 seven calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said William Pate, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement, reference being had to the accompanying Drawings
and to the figures and letters marked thereon:-
Hitherto refrigerators have been made on the principle of having a
thick solid non-conducting mass surrounding the matter to be cooled or
kept cool.

page_text: Now my Invention consists partly in using air for this purpose in the
following manner:-1st, I construct a chest (or refrigerator) having
hollow sides all round (as it were one chest inside another with a thin
air space between). Convenient doors (hollow or otherwise) can be
made in the sides for the admission of articles of food and other matters
requiring to be kept cool. The air space in the walls of the refrigerator
opens at the bottom to the interior chamber, thus allowing the air
inside to freely enter the said air space. The air space also com-
municates freely at the top with the outside air by means of slits in the
outside casing. Suspended or fixed in any suitable manner in the upper
part of the interior chamber is a shelf for holding a block of ice. Round
the shelf is a trough connected with the outside by a pipe for carrying
off the water formed by the melting of the ice. Over all I stretch a
woollen cloth, so arranged as not to impede the passage of air from the
slits on the outside connected with the narrow air space aforesaid. This
woollen cloth keeps out radiant heat, and yet freely admits air. The
air as it passes the ice is cooled, and surrounding the articles to be
refrigerated cools them in turn. It then enters the narrow air space
aforesaid, and is slightly warmed by the exterior shell of the refrigerator
exposed to the outside air. It prevents however in the most thorough
manner any heat striking through from the outer shell to the inner one,
and so conveying heat to the interior of the refrigerator. In this way a
constant current of air is maintained, cooling and keeping cool the
antiales to be unfricounted

page_text: EXPLANATION OF DRAWINGS.
A is the chest or refrigerator; B, B, inside wall; C, C, outside walls;
D, space between. The arrows show the circulation of air. E, E, are
two angle irons or other supports, upon which the ice cage F is placed;
G is the drain pipe carrying off the melted ice that runs down into the
floor of the ice cage F; I is the blanket top held in position by the
rope J, binding it against the groove M; N, door for introducing articles
of food &c. to be kept cool.
Having now described my Invention, and the best manner known to
me for carrying it into effect, I wish it to be understood that what I
believe to be new, and wish to claim as my Invention under the herein-
before in part recited Letters Patent is,―
1st. The mode herein described of keeping the contents of a refrigerator
cool by means of hollow walls and a circulation of air first through the
ice box or other cooling apparatus, then among the articles to be kept
cool, and then up the hollow sides of the refrigerator.
2nd. The general arrangement of apparatus substantially as described,
or any mere modification thereof.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Pate, have hereunto
sot my hand and coal this Thirteenth day of Anvil in this won