CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL STONE
Year: 1845

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, PRYCE
BUCKLEY WILLIAMES, of Llegodig, in the County of Montgomery, North Wales,
Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date
at Westminster, the Seventeenth day of March, in the eighth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Pryce Buckley Williames, Her especial license, full power, sole privilege
and authority, that I, the said Pryce Buckley Williames, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, and such others as I, the said Pryce Buckley
Williames, my executors, administrators, 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 mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
and in all Her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, and in the Islands
of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, and Man, my Invention of "CERTAIN
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL STONE;" in which said
Letters Patent is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Pryce Buckley
Williames, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, particularly
to describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to be enrolled
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
Pryce Buckley Williames, do hereby declare that the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is particu-
larly described and ascertained in and by the following description thereof,
reference being had to the Drawing hereunto annexed, and to the letters and
figures marked thereon (that is to say) :-
The principal object I have in view, in my Improvements in the Manufac-
ture of Artificial Stone, is the production of a material possessing the workable
qualities and appearance of marble. Various attempts have from time to time
been made to produce an article that could be used for various purposes for
which statuary and ornamental marbles are now employed; but the principal
objection to their employment for the former purpose (viz.), for statuary, is the
impracticability of cutting or working them with a chisel, owing to their
bardness or flinty nature. Other artificial marbles have been produced which,
from the softness of their nature, and consequent want of durability, have been
considered equally objectionable. The artificial stone produced according to
my improvements may be employed either for statuary purposes (when it is
required to be a pure white), or by veining and colouring it, by the introduction
of particular ingredients, as will be hereafter described, it may be rendered
more ornamental, and applicable for such articles as chimneypieces, slabs,
monuments, tables, and other similar purposes for which ornamental slabs are
or may be employed. The material ingredient or substance which I employ
as the base of my improved artificial stone or composition is sulphuret of
barytes, which must be finely pulverized, and intimately mixed with some flix,
also reduced to a fine impalpable powder. Fluxes of various descriptions, and in
different proportions, may be employed in combination with the sulphate of
barytes, according to the nature of the product required; but the flux which I
prefer and find to answer exceedingly well for general purposes is crown glass,
or its constituents, combined with a small portion of borax. In order to
produce a fair specimen of white marble, such as is required by statuaries, I
employ the following proportions, which I have found to give a very good
result: I take of sulphate of barytes four parts by weight, one part by weight
of crown glass, and add to this of dried borax about one fourth the weight of
the crown glass. The composition of crown glass will be found to vary in
some degree according to the peculiar process adopted by different manufac-
turers; and, as native sulphate of barytes sometimes contains small quantities
of extraneous or foreign matters, it will be evident that the above proportions
must occasionally be varied in some degree according to these various
circumstances. Previously, therefore, to entering upon the manufacture of the

page_text: improved composition or artificial stone on an extensive scale, I would advise
that a few preliminary experiments should be made in trial pots, so as to
ascertain the quality of the materials that are intended to be employed. The
above-mentioned materials must be reduced to a fine impalpable powder, and
should be very intimately mixed together in the proper proportions while in a
pulverized state, and then a convenient quantity, according to the nature of
the article required, is placed in a covered vessel, trough, seggar, or pot, and
introduced into a furnace, where it is to be submitted to a very intense heat,
for the purpose of reducing the whole of the materials to a uniform mass by
fusing them altogether. Any furnace that is employed in the manufacture of
crown or flint glass can be equally employed in manufacturing my improved
composition or artificial stone; but I have shewn in the accompanying
Drawings a furnace and appendages constructed expressly for making my
improved artificial stone, although I do not intend to claim it as any part of
the Invention, it being merely a modification of an ordinary flint-glass
furnace furnished with such additional parts as I consider necessary for
properly carrying out my Invention.
Fig. 1 represents a vertical section taken through the middle of the furnace.
Fig. 2 is a horizontal section, taken in the line 1 ... 2 of Fig. 1.
a, a, a, a, is the shaft or chimney which encloses the furnace; b, b, the fire-
places, which are divided from each other by a centre wall c; d, d, d, d, are:
the pots which contain the composition. They are arranged in any convenient
manner on the floors or sieges of the furnace, and the whole is covered over by
the dome e, e, e, e, which is furnished with a number of openings f. ff. f, for
the purpose of getting access to the pots and the fire, as in the ordinary glass
furnace. These openings are closed by fire tiles, and when not required to be
opened are kept luted with fire clay. A number of vent holes g, 9, 9, 9, are
also made in the dome, for the purpose of allowing the exit of the products of
combustion from the fire, and being furnished with tiles, with which they may
be opened and closed at pleasure. The draft and heat of the furnace may be
regulated with ease, as in ordinary glass furnaces. If the pots containing the
composition are put into the furnace before the fire is clear, that is, while
unconsumed carbon is floating about, it is absolutely necessary, that the pots
should be covered over in order to exclude any carbonaceous matters which
would otherwise injuriously affect the composition as to color and quality, and
would convert the mass into a body that would not be workable with a chisel,.
and consequently render it useless, or nearly so, for the purposes required. It.
is advisable to heat the pots thoroughly before putting in the ingredients of
which the composition is composed, and also to allow the heat to act upon the
composition in the pots as freely as possible, according to the judgment of the

page_text: manufacturer; but every precaution must always be taken when making
statuary or other marbles to exclude carbonaceous matters from the compo-
sition, for the reasons before stated. When the ingredients or composition in
the pots are or is completely agglutinated or melted, so that it will run (and
which can be easily ascertained by the employment of trial rods), the compo-
sition must be poured out of the pots down the holes h in the bottom of the
siege, from whence it will run into a trough i, i, situated in a tunnel or
chamber j, j below. This tunnel or chamber is built of bricks, and is made
just large enough to receive the trough, and leave a clear space of a few inches
all round it. The trough is also composed principally of fire bricks, which
are built up upon an iron frame or plate m, m, mounted on rollers. The
bricks are to be neatly and firmly cemented together with very finely ground.
fire clay. Previous to commencing operations the trough, or rather the
bottom plate m, m, is run into the tunnel, and the hole closed up by means
of a fire tile, and the bricks forming the sides are built up on the foundation:
plate of the trough; and as the sides and ends are formed, the spaces between
the sides of the trough and the sides of the tunnel or chamber are filled with
sand, which should be rammed down well, as seen at n, n, Fig. 1; and when
the trough is completed, the outer end k, k, of the tunnel or chamber must be
built up so as to completely enclose the trough. When the fire is lighted,,
and has become cleared of floating unconsumed carbon, the heat is made to
pass down through the hole h into the tunnel by removing the fire tile which
covers the hole, and from the tunnel it passes through a side flue 1, 1, back-
into the large chimney or shaft a, a. By this means the trough in the tunnel.
is soon made very hot, and when the whole of the composition from the pots
is completely melted it is run into the trough, where it will form one uniform.
mass of great density, and the tunnel or chamber being previously heated to a
very high temperature, the mass will not be too suddenly cooled by its
removal from the pots. Immediately that all the composition is poured into
the trough the hole' h through which the composition is run off is stopped up
again with a fire tile, and consequently the draught and heat of the furnace is
prevented from entering the trough or tunnel, but is conducted into the main
shaft or chimney through one of the vent holes g, g, by removing the tile or
stopper which closed this latter while the heat was made to pass through the
tunnel. The composition then cools very gradually in the trough, and is
allowed to remain there some hours until quite cool. The end k, k, of the
tunnel or chamber is then removed, and after removing the sand which
surrounds the trough this latter is drawn out of the tunnel on the rollers, and
upon removing the bricks that have been built up on the frame, a solid block
of artificial marble will be obtained: small portions of the bricks or fire clay

page_text: of which the trough was constructed may perhaps be occasionally found to
adhere to the composition; but these extraneous matters must be removed.by
the application of an ordinary marble saw, used with caution.. I would here
observe, that upon charging the pots or vessels after they have been heated
through in the furnace, the pulverized ingredients should be put in in as light
a manner as possible, and as by fusion they gradually sink down and become
a uniform mass, additional quantities of these pulverised ingredients should
be added from time to time, until the vessels are nearly full. The whole mass.
should be then kept exposed to an intense heat, as before mentioned, for
several hours, and occasionally stirred with a proper instrument, if found.
desirable, for the purpose of producing uniformity of substance; after which it.
sliould be poured out to cool gradually in the troughs, as has been already:
mentioned, and by being allowed to cool very gradually in these heated
troughs it becomes annealed, and a compact solid substance, closely resembling.
marble, is the result. I would also observe, that when the pots are full of the
composition, they are very heavy to move about; the attendants, therefore,;
are furnished with long iron instruments, which I call "tilting irons," with;
which they are enabled to lift the pots, and pour out the composition with,
comparative facility. Tilting irons are instruments which are well known,
to persons conversant with the crown glass manufacture. Instead of casting
the composition into a solid block, I propose sometimes to make it into slabs,
and to effect this object I pour out the composition (when perfectly aggluti-,
nated) on to flat tables, and roll it out into slabs of any required thickness, in
a similar manner to the operation of plate glass making. When brought to
the proper or required thickness, the slabs should be removed to an annealing
furnace of the ordinary construction, where they may be annealed in the same
manner as plate glass is now done. The pots or vessels containing the pulverized
ingredients are made of the best fire clay, and care must also be taken that
all carbonaceous matters should be carefully excluded from the materials of
which these pots or vessels are composed, as such carbonaceous matters would
otherwise act prejudicially on the composition, and deteriorate it both as to
color and quality, as in the former case; and in order to facilitate the heating
of the pots or vessels in the furnace, and also to prevent them from adhering to.
the "sieges
or bottom of the furnace, I mount them on fire bricks, so placed as
to allow the heat to play or act on the under sides of the pots, as shewn in the
Figures; this, however, is not very material. If it is required to impart any
ornamental color to the composition, as may be necessary for chimneypieces,
slabs, tables, and other similar articles, I make use of such metallic oxides as
are not volatile, and are used for similar purposes by porcelain manufacturers.
"

page_text: In adding these colouring matters, I mix or grind them up with a small
quantity of borax in a dry and pulverized state, for the purpose of acting as an
additional flux upon the metallic oxide. The quantity of colouring matter may
be varied, according to the fancy of the manufacturer, and is, with the borax as
a flux, added while the pulverized ingredients of which the mass is composed
are in the furnace, and before a general fusion of the particles begins.
Having now described my Invention, and the manner of carrying the
same into effect, I wish it to be understood that although I have stated
the proportions in which I propose to mix the several ingredients for the
purpose of producing artificial stone, yet I do not by any means intend to
confine myself thereto, as they will necessarily vary according to circumstances,
and the natural state of the several ingredients, as before mentioned; and
although I have described and shewn a furnace and appendages which I
consider applicable to the manufacture of my improved artificial stone, I do
not intend to confine myself thereto, nor do I intend to claim it as consti-
tuting any part of my Invention. But that which I consider to be the principal
novel feature of my Invention, and therefore wish to claim as secured to me
under the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent, is the production of a
composition (which I denominate artificial stone) from sulphate of barytes,
mixed with other materials or ingredients (as before described), such as glass,
borax, and other fluxes, for the purpose of more easily fusing or agglutinating
the same into a solid mass.
In witness whereof, I, the said Pryce Buckley Williames, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Seventeenth day of September, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-five.
DENIOR.
AA
PRYCE BUCKLEY (L.S.) WILLIAMES.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Seventeenth day of
September, in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Pryce Buckley
Williames came before our Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknow-
ledged the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained,
in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped
according to the tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided.
Inrolled the same Seventeenth day of September, in the year above written.