AN IMPROVEMENT IN OBTAINING PULP FROM WOOD
Year: 1855

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Robert Martin, of High Street, Reading, in the
County of Berks, Artist, and John Cowdery Martin, late of No. 7,
Pullen's Row, Islington, and now of No. 4, Bedford Place, Ampthill
Square, in the County of Middlesex, Naval Architect, for the Invention
Sealed the 4th January 1856, and dated the 19th July 1855.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Robert Martin and John
Cowdery Martin at the Oflice of the Commissioners of Patents, with
their Petition, on the 19th July 1855.
We, ROBERT MARTIN, of High Street, Reading, in the County of Berks,
Artist, and JOHN COWDERY MARTIN, of No. 7, Pullen's Row, Islington, in the
County of Middlesex, Naval Architect, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "AN IMPROVEMENT IN OBTAINING PULP FROM WOOD" to be as
follows, viz
To consist in obtaining fibrous strings or threads of wood for conversion
into pulp to be used in the manufacture of paper, paper maché, cardboard,
millboard, and other purposes.
Our mode of obtaining the fibrous strings or threads of wood is first to wet,
soak, or saturate with water, planks or pieces of wood of any convenient size

page_text: or thickness, and to subject the surface of the wetted or saturated wood to a
toothed cylinder or other instrument having teeth resembling a saw, rasp, or
cutting surfaces, suited for rasping, tearing, or scraping the wood, and detaching
the fibrous strings or threads, the wood kept moistened during the operation,
unless previously thoroughly saturated, the moisture being necessary to the
production of the fibrous strings or threads.
For the purpose of whitening and softening the fibrous strings or threads of
wood obtained in the manner above explained, we soak, or to effect this more
rapidly, boil the same in a solution of chloride of lime, with or without the
addition of common soda, and a small quantity of any oleaginous substance
may be added with advantage.
The fibrous mass so treated is then beaten into pulp by an ordinary beating
machine or other suitable means, when it may be washed, if necessary, for the
purpose of freeing it from the solutions with which it has been treated, or
further bleached, if required, and applied to the manufacture of paper and
other purposes.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Robert Martin and John Cowdery Martin in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 19th January 1856.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, ROBERT
MARTIN, of High Street, Reading, in the County of Berks, Artist, and Jonn
COWDERY MARTIN, late of No. 7, Pullen's Row, Islington, and now of No. 4,
Bedford Place, Ampthill Square, in the County of Middlesex, Naval Architect,
severally send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Nineteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, in the nineteenth year of cr
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the
said Robert Martin and John Cowdery Martin, Her special license that we,
the said Robert Martin and John Cowdery Martin, our executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, or such others as wc, the said Robert Martin and John
Cowdery Martin, our exccutors, 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

page_text: IN OBTAINING PULP FROM WOOD," upon the condition, amongst others, that we,
the said Robert Martin and John Cowdery Martin, by an instrument in
writing under our hands and seals, 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 be 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 Robert Martin and John Cowdery
Martin, do hereby declare that the nature of our said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be perforined, to be particularly described and ascer-
tained in and by the following statement, that is to say:--
The nature of our said Invention of an Improvement in obtaining Pulp
from Wood consists in obtaining fibrous strings or threads of wood for con-
version into pulp, to be used in the manufacture of paper, papiere machi,
cardboard, millboard, and other purposes. Our mode of obtaining the fibrous
strings or threads of wood is first to wet, soak, or saturate with water, planks
or picces of wood of any convenient size or thickness, and then to subject the
surface of the wetted or saturated wood to a toothed cylinder or other instru-
ment having teeth resembling a saw, rasp, or cutting surfaces, suited for
rasping, tearing, or scraping the wood, and detaching the fibrous strings or
threads of wood, the wood being kept moistened during the operation, unless
previously thoroughly saturated or full of the natural sap and moisture, as
just after the tree has been cut down, a moist and softened state of the wood
being of great importance in the reduction of the wood to fibrous strings
or threads.
For the purpose of whitening and softening the fibrous strings or threads of
wood obtained in the manner above explained, we soak, or to effect this more
rapidly, boil the same in a solution of chloride of lime, with or without the
addition of common soda, and a small quantity of any oleaginous substance
may be added with advantage. The fibrous mass so treated is then beaten
into pulp by an ordinary beating machine or other suitable means, when it
may be washed, if necessary, for the purpose of freeing it from the solutions
with which it has been treated, or further bleached, if required, and applied to
the manufacture of paper and other purposes.
Having thus stated the nature of our said Invention, we will now describe
the manner in which the same is to be performed. For reducing the wood
into such fibrous strings or threads, we prefer using a machine or instrument
of a cylindrical form, driven by bands or in any convenient manner, the surface
of which present teeth or points resembling a saw or rasp; and in the case of

page_text: a cylinder having teeth of a saw-like appearance, the surface being formed in
angular grooves parallel to each other, either spirally round the cylinder, or in
any other convenient manner. To one side of every groove is fixed a strip
or piece of metal, from an inch and a half to two inches in width, having
teeth as of a saw, but with the cutting edges of the points all on the side to
be brought in contact with the surface of the wood to be operated upon, and
not alternately, as in an ordinary saw. In order to prevent the teeth of the
cylinder from choking with the fibre or tearings of the wood, a brush roller
revolves against it in opposite directions at greater speed.
The form of wood the surface of which is to be acted on, we prefer to be
that of planks or deals, of any convenient length, breadth, or thickness, as
free as possible from knots, or from which the knots have been removed by
boring or other means. The wood is passed to and fro against the surface of the
cylinder, the grain being kept in the direction in which the cylinder revolves,
or at an angle of not more than twenty degrees with it; or when the cylinder
is more than five feet diameter, it may be convenient to place the end of the
deal or plank, or deals or planks, if more than one is operated upon at the
same time (which would depend upon the width or size of the cylinder), against
the upper or lower part of the cylinder, so that the fibrous strings or tearings
may be worked off from the end.
The descriptions of wood most suitable to be operated upon are the white.
yellow, and red pines or firs; but ash, beech, English elm, American rock
elm, willow, chesnut, Honduras mahogany, and other woods may be employed
for the manufacture for paper when operated upon in the manner herein
described.
For softening and bleaching the fibrous strings, threads, or tearings of wood,
we use chloride of lime and common or caustic soda, in the proportions of
twenty-three pounds of chloride of lime and ten or twelve pounds of soda to
one hundred and twelve pounds of fibrous tearings. We immerse the whole in
about one hundred and sixty or one hundred and seventy gallons of water.
The mass may be occasionally agitated, and allowed to remain in the solution
for twenty-four hours, when it may be removed and beaten in a beating engine
with fresh water for a couple of hours; and the fibrous mass may again be
subjected to a solution similar to the former, but to which two or three pounds
of soda may then be added, and in which it may then remain for twenty-four
hours, being occasionally agitated, and it may afterwards be beaten into pulp,
and further bleached, if necessary. It may then be passed through an ordinary
strainer, and used either for mixing with other pulp or separately. The
softening may also be effected by the use of diluted sulphuric or muriatic acids,

page_text: and when these are used the proportions may be one hundred and seventy
gallons of water to ten pounds of acid to every one hundred and twelve
pounds of fibrous tearings, in which it may steep for about fourteen days,
when it may be beaten into pulp, strained or not, as thought fit, and used.
In the manufacture of the inferior or coarser descriptions of pulp or
paper, the fibrous tearings may be simply beaten by the beating machine
or other suitable means, so as to be reduced into a state of pulp.
Having now described the nature of our said Invention, and the manner in
which the same is to be performed, we wish it to be understood that we are
aware of its having been proposed, and that attempts have been made to use
wood in the manufacture of pulp for paper, but such proposals and attempts
have either failed altogether or met with only partial success; and we hereby
declare, therefore, that what we claim as the Invention whereof the exclusive
use is intended to be secured by the said Letters Patent is, the reducing of
wood in a moistened state into fibrous threads or strings, and applying such
fibrous threads or strings in and for the manufacture of pulp, as above
described.
In witness whereof, we, the said Robert Martin and John Cowdery
Martin, have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Nineteenth day
of January, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
fifty-six.
ROBERT MARTIN.
(L.S.)
JOHN COWDERY MARTIN. (L.S.)