CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS RELATIVE TO CARRIAGES WHICH MAY BE APPLIED THERETO, OR IN IMPROVING OF THE ORGANIZATION, DRIVING, ACTUATING, ACCELERATING, OR MOVING OF VEHICLES OR CARRIAGES IN GENERAL
Year: 1822

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
DUMBELL, of Howley House, Watrington, in the County Palatine of Lancaster,
Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth did,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of that part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England, bearing date at
Westminster, the Sixteenth day of December, in the third year of His reign,
give and grant unto me, the said John Dumbell, my exors, adiñors, and
assigns, His especial license, full power, sole privilege and authority, that
I, the said John Dumbell, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, during the term
of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS RELATIVE TO CARRIAGES WHICH MAY BE
APPLIED THERETO, OR IN IMPROVING OF THE ORGANIZATION, DRIVING, ACTUATING,
ACCELERATING, OR MOVING OF VEHICLES OR CARRIAGES IN GENERAL;" in which
said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, that if I, the said John
Dumbell shall not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters
Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted, shall
utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and by the same, relation being
thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Dumbell, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described and
ascertained in the following description thereof, (that is to say):
--
As in my improvements I aim at copying and imitating the works of nature,
I beg leave to refer to her works as my great original rather than delude
myself or others by any drawings or models, which at best must be a more
'feeble delineation of what I would specify and describe, and the more so from
the great extent and variety with which the works of nature abound that aro
applicable to my purpose, for I substitute in the organization and moving of
carriages feet (or millepedes) for wheels, as far as this can conveniently or pro-
fitably be done; and herein I view art as nature's handmaid; and I would
make mighty things from small beginnings great, and as fishes first to shipping
did impart their tail the rudder and their head the prow, so I would from man
himself and from the creatures which move and creep upon the earth imitate
their powers of locomotion, and prefer a carriage or vehicle made to run, walk,
trot, or gallop, to wheel carriages or to the sledge or plough; and I accomo-
date the feet I use according to the ground I have to go over, the cloven feet
being wisely adapted by nature to some soils, the webb feet to other places,
the horse's hoof, &c. to other situations where a circular motion is required. A
boy rolling like a wheel along the roads and using his hands and feet as spokes
of a wheel is descriptive of my method, so also is the Manks penny with the legs
of a man upon it, and likewise the spokes in a coach wheel without fellies or
projecting beyond the fellies, or a given number of those spokes (ad libitum)
projecting through the follies, which spokes may be made more fit to pass over
the highways, &c. if shod with iron or other hard body, and which if required
may be made as horse shoes; or these shoes I attach to the felly of a coach
wheel at such distances as may be required, with or without friction wheels
between the respective shoes or alongside of them, and with or without springs
acting at the heel and toe, in order that the shoes may move on a pivot or hinge
resembling the action or motion of a man's foot, the weight being received on
the heel and passing to the toe, and then delivered from the toe of one foot to
the heel of the next foot. When required I make the spokes or legs with
joints in them resembling the hip, knees, and feet of men or other bodies, or
with what is called in mechanics, a universal joint.
Amongst the works of art the rowel of a spur turning on an axis and
touching the ground will serve to describe another method of applying my
improvements, which may be made to act per se like the wheel of a wheelbarrow
or affixed to as many of the wheels now used for a coach as may be deemed

page_text: expedient, that part of a spur which goes over a man's heel being made
sufficiently strong for the purpose and attached to the felly, a sufficient number
of such spurs being so fixed as will surround the periphery of the said coach
wheel. I also apply stilts, crutches, and the tread wheel in moving
vehicles, where the labour of men can be substituted for horses, a man
on stilts being able to make longer strides than without them, can con-
sequently move over a greater space in the same distance of time. In this
case I provide a seat for a man to rest upon like the seat on a rocking
horse, and crutches I apply like unto the method of punting or shafting vessels.
I apply the tread mill by erecting it as on a waggon, having wheels similar to
the wheels now in use, or with millepedes as aforesaid; and I attach it to a
coach or other vehicle either before the same where the coach horses now are
attached or behind the said vehicle; and I steer the said vehicle by means of
one horse or animal or more than one, standing where the horses of a mail
coach usually stand, or without horses in the way vessels are steered, the helm or
capstain being attached to a carriage wheel or millepedes for the sole purpose
of steerage, or to the two fore wheels of such coaches as are now in general use.
Where a slow motion and minor powers are required I place the tread wheel
on the same axis as the millepedes or the waggon or coach wheels; but whore
greater power is required I place one or more tread mills, not in the same
line with the axis of the millipedes or wheels it has to act upon, but at a right
angle, in order that the length of the tread wheel may not be limited to the
roadway, as if the pole of a coach was to extend between the leaders as well
as the wheel horses, and the axis or shaft of the tread wheel to occupy the
place or direction of the coach pole, and then be united to the shaft of the
mellepedes, &c. by mitre wheels or bevil gear, and with intermediate and
multiplying wheels at libitum. Where the tread mill is to be used per se, and
without being attached to such carriages as are now in use, as well as where a
greater power is required, I put a double tread mill or two distinct mills on
mellepedes or wheels as aforesaid, and cause the workmen or operators to work
as if it were face to face, which will leave a convenient space between the mills
both below and above them for packages and passengers, as well as for
merchandize and other materials; the right side of one set of operators on
the one mill advancing on the road in the same direction as the left side of the
other set of operators on the other mill, for although the mills will be turning
round in different directions, yet the one mill having an additional intermediate
connecting wheel with the millepedes, &c. which the other has not, both mills
will operate in unison with each other, and in respect to the carriage in one
uniform progressive manner; or, in other words, the one tread mill being

page_text: connected with the millepedes, waggon, or carriage by two connecting wheels,
and the other tread mill by three connecting wheels, and the said mills
being put and kept in motion as tread mills in general are, using, ad libitum,
in regard to them and to the other ramifications of the Letters Patent
granted unto me, one or more of the mechanical operations herein-before
described and set forth, or such well known methods of mechanical treatment
as may be best suited for each and every of the operations herein-before
mentioned.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Dumbell, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, the Seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty-three.