CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN ROADS
Year: 1842

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, Sir JOHN
SCOTT LILLIE, Companion of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, now
residing in London, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Second day of November, in the sixth year of Her reign, did,
for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said Sir
John Scott Lillie, my exors, adñors, and assigns, Her especial licence, full:
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Sir John Scott Lillie, my
exors, admors and assigns, and such others as I, the said Sir John Scott Lillie,
my exors, admors or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others.
from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within that part of Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland called England, Her Dominion of Wales, and the Town of Berwick-
upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN ROADS;" in which
said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, that I, the said Sir John
Scott Lillie, shall cause a particular description of my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed under my hand and seal, to
be inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar

page_text: 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.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Sir John Scott Lillie, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described and
ascertained in and by the following Specification thereof, that is to say:-
My said improvements in roads consist in covering the surfaces of roads with
rails or fillets of wood or iron, or partly of wood and partly iron, placed at such
distances from each other as to form grooves in a transverse direction to the
line of traffic; these rails or fillets to be either embedded in concrete,
asphalte, or other cement, and thus attached to each surfaces; or they may be
nailed or otherwise fastened to boards or planks, which boards or planks are
to be also well secured to sleepers, sunk and grouted into the materials of
which such roads are formed, thus rendering the surfaces of existing roads
available as foundations.
Having now described the nature of my said Invention, and the manner in
which the same is to be performed, I wish it to be understood that I do not
limit myself to any particular form or dimensions in respect to the materials
to be used; but I am of opinion that the rails or fillets before mentioned when
of iron should not exceed one inch, and when of wood that they should not
exceed two inches in width, and that the grooves or intervals in both cases
should not exceed one inch, and that on steep inclines the iron rails or wood
faced with iron should have an acute angle or be sloped towards the upper
end, with grooves at cach side for carriage wheels, but not sufficiently wide to
almit horses' feet; and I wish it also to be understood that I do not claim any
particular angle or inclination for the fibre of the wood of these fillets. But
I am of opinion that when the fillet is composed of one piece the fibre should
be perpendicular, but if composed of two equal pieces joined together the fibre
of each should incline towards the centre, the better to resist the pressure.
And I hereby declare my said Invention to consist in constructing or covering
the surface of roads with bars or fillets of wood or iron, or of both materials,
arranged and supported as above described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Sir John Scott Lillie, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this First day of May, One thousand eight hundred
and forty-three
JOHN SCOTT (L.S.) LILLIE.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the First day of May, in the year of
our Lord 1843, the aforesaid Sir John Scott Lillie came before our said Lady
the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid,
and all and every thing 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.
Enrolled the Second day of May, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and forty-three.