AN IMPROVED APPARATUS COMBINING THE FUNCTIONS OF A BUNG AND OF A SELF-ACTING VENT PEG
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Romain François Bigot at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
21st April 1870.
I, ROMAIN FRANÇOIS BIGOT, of Paris, Department of the Seine, in the
Empire of France, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "AN IMPROVED APPARATUS COMBINING THE FUNCTIONS OF A BUNG
AND OF A SELF-ACTING VENT PEG," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to obviate the inconveniences and
serious obstacles to the preservation of liquids and of their qualities
consequent upon the frequent removal of the bung of the cask containing
the liquid or the repeated piercing of the cask. It is well known that
to easily draw off a liquid from a cask in which it is on draught it is
necessary either to open the bung hole or to drill a small hole at the
upper part of the cask, which hole is afterwards stopped with a wooden
peg termed a vent peg. Now thus often to introduce into the cask more
air than is required and by disproportionate openings to permit the
escape of the aromas condensed within it is to expose the liquid to rapid
deterioration and to compromise all its good qualities. These incon-
veniences and others which might be cited have led many persons to seek

page_text: a remedy, and various vent pegs have been produced of more or less
efficacy. I believe, however, that no contrivance hitherto adopted has
attained the same degree of perfection scientifically, practically, and
economically as the apparatus the subject of this Invention. This
apparatus consists of a bung (see Figure 1 of the annexed Sheet of
Drawing) made of wood, india-rubber, gutta percha, cork, or any other
suitable material, and of a conical or cylindrical shape; this bung is
pierced in the centre (see L, Figure 2) by an opening of about half an
inch more or less. The upper part of this bung is hollowed in the
centre at K to receive a plate A of copper or other material having a
small opening in the centre at B of about ½, of an inch in diameter for
admission of air; this plate is fixed by means of two small pins C.
Beneath this plate is a pin or a cross piece I holding a spring or elastic
G communicating with a catch I fixed to a valve D of copper or other
material. This valve, which is placed beneath the bung in another part J,
also hollowed in order to protect it, is nailed or screwed at E, and held
on the other side by the spring or elastic F. This valve may also act
under the pressure of an outer spring or by any other method of closing
either by suction or compression. In fact my self-acting atmospheric
pressure bung vent peg once fixed in the bung hole and thus abandoned
to the simple pressure of the outer air finds in its own mechanism the
means and in some sort the intelligence to permit the entrance of air
into the cask only when necessary to permit the passage of as much as
may be required by an opening as small as possible and without giving
to the aromas either time or space for evaporation, and finally the
operation ended to close of itself. The great advantage of such a system
will be at once apparent to all; the casks need no longer be injured by
the drilling of holes, no anxiety be felt as to their being properly and
constantly closed, and the quality and preservation of the liquids they
contain is ensured.