IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND MEANS Op CLEANSING SEWERS
Year: 1850

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
PAGE, of Middle Scotland Yard, in the County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the First day of June, One
thousand eight hundred and fifty, in the thirteenth year of Her reign, did, for
Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said Thomas Page,
my exors, admors, and assigns, Her especial license, full power, sole privilege
and authority, that I, the said Thomas Page, my exors, admors, and assigns, or
such others as I, the said Thomas Page, my exors, adññors, or assigns should
at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
during the term of years therein expressed, should" and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, my Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND MEANS Op
CLEANSING SEWERS;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that
I, the said Thomas Page, shall cause a particular description of 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, to be inrolled in Her
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and
by the same, reference 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
Thomas Page, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described and
ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, reference being had to
the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked thereon,
that is to say:-
My Invention consists in a method of constructing the outer ends of sewers
to facilitate the discharge of sewage or other foul liquid matter, and thereby
to cleanse the sewers by the agency of the tide or other waters against an
adverse head of water at such stage of the tide as may be most desirable for
such discharge, by causing an equal body of ordinary or clear water to take
its place, which latter may be discharged at any after time, without disad-
vantage, when the discharge of the sewage itself would be prejudicial. And the
nature of my Invention is more precisely shown in the following description,
and Drawing which accompanies the same. A is a reservoir, communicating
by the sluice B with the river or sea into which the sewage is to be
discharged, which sluice is to be so placed that the reservoir may be filled
with water at the level of bigh water. C is another reservoir, sufficiently
capacious to receive and contain the sewage which will flow into it from the
conducting sewer D, and formed at such a height that while the sewer
D may be freely drained, the sewage contained in it may be above
the ordinary level of low water. E, E, E, are tubes, culverts, or covered
channels, leading from this reservoir to the river or sea, and forming a
communication between them. The ends of these culverts next the river are
closed by sluices F, F, and the ends next the reservoir C, by other sluices
G, G, G. These culverts are also made to communicate with the first-named
reservoir A by means of sluices H, H, placed as close as practicable to those
communicating with the reservoir C.
Let us now suppose the whole of the sluices closed; the reservoir A, filled
with water by the flood tide or other means; the culverts E, E, filled with s
sewage; and the time, that state of ebb tide at which it is desirable the sewage
should be discharged, probably about an hour after high water. At this time the
sluices Hand F are simultaneously opened, affording a free communication
between the reservoir A and the culverts E, E, as also between these culverts
and the river. The sewage in the culverts E, E, will now be exposed at the s
end H to the pressure of the water in the reservoir A, and at the end F to
that of the river; the former necessarily being the greater (in proportion to
the fall of the level of the river since high water), the sewage in the culverts
will be forced out into the river with a velocity due to the excess of head in

page_text: the reservoir A over that in the river. As soon as the sewage has been thus
entirely discharged or driven out by the water from the reservoir, the sluices
H and F are closed, and nothing further is requisite to be done until the time
of low water, during which interval the sewage brought down by the culvert D
will have been accumulating in the reservoir C. At low water the sluices G
and F are simultaneously opened, affording a free communication between the
reservoir C and the culverts E, E, as also between the-culverts and the river.
The water in the culverts E, E, will now be exposed at one end to the
pressure arising from the sewage in the reservoir C, and at the other
to that of the water in the river; the former, however, being the greater
(the level of the sewage in the reservoir being, as already stated, above
that of low water), the water in the culverts will be caused to flow into the
river with a velocity due to the superior head of the sewage, which will thus
drive it out and take its place. As soon as this has been accomplished, and
the culverts are entirely filled with sewage, the sluices G and F are closed.
It will now be seen that the state of the apparatus is precisely that I first
described, with the exception that the reservoir A will be empty, namely, all
the sluices being closed, the reservoir C being empty, and the culverts E, E,
being filled with sewage. I have merely, therefore, to repeat the process
above described at every ensuing tide to effect, without any auxiliary
mechanical power beyond that from the varying level of the water in the
river, the discharge of the sewage at any state of tide which may be desirable,
although at such time the level of the sewage to be discharged may be many
feet below that of the river into which it is caused to flow.
In the foregoing
description the varying level of the water into which the sewage has to be
discharged is assumed to be occasioned by the tides, but my method is
obviously equally capable of application, in all situations where such vari-
ations occur, from whatever cause they may arise. The supply of water
for the upper reservoir A may also be derived from other sources than the
river or sea, as from neighbouring springs or streams, where such may exist.
I am aware that the descent of large bodies of water through a small fall
has been made by a mechanical arrangement to raise a lesser body of water
to a greater height, or that a small stream of water falling from a con-
siderable height has, by similar means, been made to raise to a less height
a larger quantity. I claim none of these, but only using a body of clean water
to discharge sewage or foul water against an adverse head, which water can
be afterwards discharged instead of the sewage, as soon as the water has
fallen sufficiently, and when the discharge of the sewage itself would be objec-
tionable. By sewage I mean to include any liquid which, in consequence of

page_text: foreign impurity, it may be desirable to discharge only under certain cir-
cumstances or at certain times. Further, in carrying out my Invention, I
do not confine myself to the peculiar form or arrangement for the several
parts, as the same may be varied; thus, for instance, the reservoirs may be
divided into several parts, or the tubes or culverts E, E, may be made to
merge into one channel, or the sluices may be made self-acting. I merely
claim the general combination or arrangement by which I am enabled to
discharge the sewage at any time of tide without any mechanical aid other
than that derived from the varying level of the water itself, in the manner
illustrated above.
AND BE
REMEMBERED, that on the Thirtieth day of November,
in the year of our Lord 1850, the aforesaid Thomas Page came before our
said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and everything therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according
to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.