WORKING A FIRE ENGINE UPON A NEW PRINCIPLE, DIFFERENT TO ANY METHOD HERETOFORE USED, AND AT LESS THAN HALF THE EXPENCE OF COALS ANY METHOD NOW USED REQUIRES
Year: 1759

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, HENRY
WOOD, of High Hercall, in the County of Salop, Clerk, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Second, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the
Twenty-fifth day of May, in the thirty-second year of His reign, did give and
grant unto me, the said Henry Wood, His especial licence, that I, during the
term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend my Invention of "WORKING A FIRE ENGINE UPON A NEW PRINCIPLE,
DIFFERENT TO ANY METHOD HERETOFORE USED, AND AT LESS THAN HALF THE
EXPENCE OF COALS ANY METHOD NOW USED REQUIRES," within England, Wales,
and Town of Berwick upon Tweed; in which recited Letters Patent there is
contained a provisoe, obliging me, the said Henry Wood, by a writing under
my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of the said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in
His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four calendar months from the
date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation being
thereunto had, may more at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said provisoe, I, the said
Henry Wood, do hereby declare that my said Invention is to work a fire
engine on the principle of hot or rarified air, produced by the air passing
either through fire, or through red hot pipes, or through boiling water, or by
any other way heated or rarified.

page_text: And whereas hot air may be conveyed into the great cylinder of the engine
by different ways, either by the help of bellows or small cylinders, with proper
piston and valves, or the pressure of the atmosphere will drive in air through
any heating bodies as the great piston of the engine rises, and so fill the
cylinder with hot air, which must be condensed with cold to produce a vacuum,
and when condensed must be discharged out of the cylinder; and this
discharge may be effected different ways if the hot air be driven into the
cylinder with a force superior to the pressure of the atmosphere, that force will
drive out the condensed air through what is now called the suifting pipe; if the
force be only equal, then the condensed air must be pumped out by a pump, to
be worked by the motion of the engine or any other way therefore, my
Invention is to work the fire engine by any of the above-recited methods, or
by any other way not now in use, whereof hot or rarified air is the principle,
or hot air in conjunction with-steam, which must be unavoidable when air is
heated by passing through boiling water by the help of pipes.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Wood, have hereunto put my
hand and seal, the Twenty-third day of July, in the year of our
T
before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the above-
said Writing, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
aforesaid. And also the said Writing was stamped according to the form of the
Statute made and provided in the sixth year of the reign of King William and
Queen Mary, and so forth. And the words following were wrote upon
erazures upon the sixteenth and following lines of the above writing (to wit):
And whereas hot air may be conveyed into the great cylinder of the engine
by different ways, either by the help of bellows or small cylinders with proper
piston and valves, or the pressure of the atmosphere will drive in air through
any heating bodies as the great piston of the engine rises, and so fill the
cylinder with hot air, which must be condensed with cold, to produce a
vacuum, and when condensed must be discharged out of the cylinder, and this
discharge may be effected different ways: if the hot air be driven into the
cylinder with a force superior to the pressure of the atmosphere, that force will
drive out the condensed air through what is now called the snifting pipe; if the
force be only equal, then the condensed air must be pumped out by a pump,
to be worked by the motion of the engine, or any other way: therefore, my
Invention is to work the fire engine by any of the above-recited methods, or by

page_text: any other way not now in use, whereof hot or rarified air is the principle, or
hot air in conjunction with steam, which must be unavoidable when air is
heated by passing through boiling water by the help of pipes.