AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTION OR MANUFACTURE OF GAS FOR LIGHTING AND HEATING
Year: 1862

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Lewis Davis, of Gloucester Gardens, Hyde Park,
in the County of Middlesex, Esquire, and Frederick Major Parkes, of
Marylebone Road in the said County- Gentleman for the Invention of
Sealed the 22nd August 1862, and dated the 24th February 1862..
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Lewis Davis and
Frederick Major Parkes at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents
with their Petition, on the 24th February 1862.
We, LEWIS DAVIS, of Gloucester Gardens, Hyde Park, in the County of
Middlesex, Esquire, and FREDERICK MAJOR PARKES, of Marylebone Road,
in the said County, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTION OR MANUFACTURE OF GAS
FOR LIGHTING AND HEATING," to be as follows:-
Our Invention has for object an improvement in the production or
manufacture of gas for lighting and heating, and consists in the producing or
obtaining of gas for such purposes from petroleum. For this purpose we
take petroleum, preferring to use it in its crude state, that is, without previous

page_text: purification, and we subject it to considerable heat in retorts or like receptacles
until we obtain an aeriform or gaseous product, which we generally pass
through a condenser. We prefer to employ a vertical retort constructed
double, so that the petroleum may be subjected to a high temperature at two
rapidly succeeding intervals.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Lewis Davis and Frederick Major Parkes in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 23rd August 1862.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, wc, LEWIS
DAVIS, of Gloucester Gardens, Hyde Park, in the County of Middlesex,
Esquire, and FREDERICK MAJOR PARKES, formerly of Marylebone Road, in
the said County, and now of Upper Park Place, Plumstead Common, in the
County of Kent, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-fourth day of February, 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 Lewis Davis and Frederick Major Parkes, Her special licence
that we, the said Lewis Davis and Frederick Major Parkes, our executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as we, the said Lewis Davis
and Frederick Major Parkes, 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
"AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTION OR MANUFACTURE OF GAS FOR LIGHTING
AND HEATING," upon the condition (amongst others) that we, the said Lewis
Davis and Frederick Major Parkes, our executors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under our or their bands and seals, or under the
band and seal of one of us or them, 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 bé 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 we, the said Lewis Davis and Frederick Major
Parkes, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in

page_text: what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, that is to say:-
Our Invention has for object an improvement in the production or manu-
facture of gas for lighting and heating, and consists in producing or obtaining
gas from the substance known as petroleum or rock oil (and which bears many
other names), by, subjecting it (preferably in its crude state, that is to say,
without previous purification,) to considerable heat in a retort or like receptacle
until a gas is obtained from it. This gas we generally pass through a con-
denser. We sometimes employ a vertical retort constructed double, so that
the petroleum may be subjected to a high temperature at two rapidly
succeeding intervals. The gas so produced is capable of being stored in a
gaseous state for a greater or less time, and afterwards of being conveyed
and distributed in a gaseous state for lighting and heating purposes in the
same way as the common coal gas now is.
Having thus set forth the nature of our Invention, we proceed to describe
the best means for carrying the same into practical effect.
We take a shallow retort furnished with two pipes, one for feeding the
petroleum into the retort, and the other for carrying off its gaseous products
into the hydraulic main. The retort is placed in a furnace of the ordinary
construction used in gas works, and after having been heated is charged with
petroleum, whereupon gas will be evolved (the heat we prefer is from 1700°
to 2000° Fahrenheit). This gas passes through the hydraulic main into
ordinary condensers and purifiers supplied with lime and water or other
known agents for purifying gas, and thence into a gasholder. Instead of a
shallow retort, we sometimes use a tube closed at both ends, and bent or
rounded in the centre. This tube is set in the furnace in an inclined position,
and so that both the ends are on the same level while the bend is downwards,
the tube is wholly enclosed in the furnace except at the bend and ends which
are outside it, and a feed pipe is, connected to one of the ends, through which
the tube is fed with petroleum, which descends by its own gravity along the
limb of the tube towards the bend, and is exposed in passing to a heat of
from 1700° to 2000° Fahrenheit, whereby a gaseous product is given off.
This passes through the bend and rises into the other limb of the tube, where
it meets the same temperature as in the first limb, and travels in a gascous
state to the upper part or end of the limb, whence it passes into the bydraulic
main and purifiers. The gas is thus subjected to a high temperature at two
rapidly succeeding intervals. A similar, effect may be produced by using.
double vertical retort consisting of two chambers communicating by a bent
pipe. The petroleum is fed into one of the chambers, and the gas given off

page_text: from it passes through the communicating pipe into the second chamber, and
being while therein again subjected to the full furnace heat passes off in gas
into the hydraulic main.
We have described the aforesaid apparatus as suitable means of carrying
our Invention into effect, but we do not consider the same novel or original,
nor do we restrict ourselves to the use of these apparatuses in performing our
Invention, and we do not confine ourselves to the precise range of temperature
we have mentioned, though we believe it to be the best for the purposes of our
Invention.
Having now described the nature of our said Invention; and in what manner
the same may be performed, we declare that we claim the manufacture or
production of a gas from petroleum in a retort or similar receptacle by sub-
jecting it (the petroleum) to the action of heat, which gas shall be capable
of being stored and conveyed and distributed in a gaseous state for lighting
and heating purposes in the same way as the common coal gas now is.
In witness whereof, we, the said Lewis Davis and Frederick Major
Parkes, have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Twenty-first
day of August, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and sixty-two.
Witness,
THO. W. ELLIS,
LEWIS DAVIS.
(L.S.)
FREDERICK MAJOR PARKES. (L.S.)
Clerk to Mr. Hyman Davis, Sol'.,
28, Poultry.