AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF CONSUMING SMOKE
Year: 1822

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE
STRATTON, of Hampstead Road, in the County of Middlesex, Engineer, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland called England, bearing date at Westminster, the Second
day of March, One thousand eight hundred and twenty-two, in the third year
of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said George Stratton, my
exors, adiñors, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege
and authority, that I, the said George Stratton, my exors, adññors, and assigns,
should and lawfully might, during the term of years therein mentioned, make,
use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick
upon Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my
Invention of "AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF CONSUMING SMOKE;" in which said
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the said George Stratton,
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
immediately 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: My said Invention doth consist in an apparatus which causes the smoke of
fires to be consumed by preventing its escape from the fuel in any direction
except through the immediate body of fire which generates it, thereby exposing
it to such an intense heat as will consume it, and which apparatus may be
added or attached externally to almost any part of any shaped boiler.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING.
Before I begin to describe the Figures in detail, I should state, that my
said apparatus, consisting in part of a reservoir of water or other liquid, is
most peculiarly applicable to the fires of what are commonly called steam
engine boilers, the boiler itself answering for the reservoir. I have therefore
described it in the Drawing annexed as applied to a fire, where the boiler
serves for the reservoir, and to a fire where a separate reservoir is attached to
the boiler. Figure 1 is a section of what is commonly called a steam engine
boiler, having two fires, shewing the application of my Invention to one fire,
where the boiler itself serves for the reservoir of liquid, and to the other fire
where my said apparatus is attached externally to the boiler, with a separate
reservoir; the former of these fires I will first describe:-A A, is the boiler;
B, B, being the water in it; at C are the fire bars of one of the fires under
the boiler; D, D, D, is the fluc, which passes entirely round the boiler and
communicates with the chimney E immediately over the fire C, and passing
down through the boiler is a pipe F, made of the same materials as the boiler,
which I call the feeding pipe, because through this pipe the fuel is dropped
down upon the fire C; this pipe should be of a conical form to admit the free
passage of the fuel, the larger end of course being downward; the upper end of
the pipe F is furnished with a neck to receive a cap or cover G, which should
be made to close upon it as nearly air-tight as possible, or a trough or hopper
may be fixed on the pipe F, with a feeding valve or slide. In order to use
that part of my said apparatus herein-before described, a fire should be kindled
on the bars at C, and fuel dropped upon it until the whole of the feeding pipe
Fis filled, or as much as occasion may require; then the cap or cover G, or the
valve or slide of the trough or hopper should be closed; by this arragement the
fuel on the bars at C under the feeding pipe F and a short distance up the
pipe will be kept red hot, and the cap or cover G or the valve or slide of the
trough or hopper being closed, no vent offers itself for the passage of the smoke

page_text: that may be evolved but downwards through the red hot fuel, the temperature
of which destroys it. Having shewn the manner in which my said apparatus
may be applied to steam engine boilers, the boiler serving for the reservoir of
liquid, I will now describe the manner in which my said Invention may be
applied to a fire, the apparatus being wholly unconnected with the boiler, and
having a reservoir of its own; for this purpose I have added a second fire H
to the boiler in this Figure, to which fire fuel is applied by means of the
feeding pipe J, which has a reservoir of its own K for holding the liquid. It
should here be observed, that the feeding pipe must be surrounded with water
or other liquor, but that the only use thereof as regards the consumption of
smoke, for which express purpose my said Patent is obtained, is to prevent the
heat of the fuel below, and more especially in the feeding pipe, melting or
otherwise destroying it. But to return to the part of this Figure now under
description, J is the feeding pipe, or rather passage (for the exact shape of it
is not material, so that the fuel can pass freely through it); K, the reservoir,
is a hollow casing round it, (that is to say, round three parts or sides of it, into
which water or other liquid is introduced from the boiler by means of apertures
or openings from the one into the other, the boiler itself answering for the reser-
voir to that part or side of the feeding pipe J, which is not surrounded by the
reservoir K.; this reservoir K being supplied with liquid from the boiler by
means of the said apertures, and there being a free communication of the water
or liquid between the boiler and the reservoir, they should be made of the like
materials. If the heat from the flue D. should be found to cake the fuel
as it passes down that part of the passage J above the reservoir, where the
fuel is only separated from the flue by an iron plate, the reservoir may be
carried up higher, as shewn in Figure 2. The reservoir K may be made
entirely to surround the feeding pipe J, and receive its supply of water or other
liquid from the boiler by means of apertures, but if it is not supplied with the
water or other liquid from and has not a free communication with the boiler,
it (that is to say, the reservoir) must be provided with such means or conve
niences as are usual for replenishment, and for the escape of steam. The
fire H being in fact a front fire, fuel may also occasionally be supplied at the
door in the ordinary way, for any smoke which may be generated even in this
manner will be carried forward by the draft to the second fire C, and as it cannot
escape except through that fire it will be consumed or nearly so in its passage.
The ash-holes, fire bars, flues, and other parts connected with my said apparatus
being similar to those now in use, I do not think it necessary to specify them
more particularly. Figure 2 is another representation of Figure 1, with the
addition of the fuel being shewn on the bars at C and H, and in the feeding

page_text: pipes F and J; the reservoir K also in this Figure is shewn round the pipe J
at a much greater height than at Figure 1. In this Figure troughs or hoppers
are shewn on the feeding pipes by dotted lines. Figures 3 and 4 are plans of
my said Invention, as applied to steam engine boilers. Figure 5 is a trans-
verse horizontal section of my said Invention cut through a little above the
bottom of the boiler. Now my said apparatus may vary in its dimensions and
proportions to suit the situations in which it is to be applied. But an appa-
ratus applicable to fires, which causes the smoke from fires to be consumed by
preventing its, escape from the fuel in any direction except through the
immediate body of fire which generates it, thereby exposing it to such an
intense heat as will consume it, and capable of being added or attached
externally to almost any part of any shaped boiler, being to the best of my
knowledge and belief entirely new, and never before adopted for this purpose
in this kingdom, I hereby declare this to be my Specification of the same, believ-
ing this my said Specification in all respects fully and without reserve or disguise
to comply with the proviso in the said-herein before in part recited Letters
Patent contained, and intending hereby to maintain an exclusive right and
privilege to my said Invention.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Ninth