AN IMPROVEMENT ON LAMPS COMMONLY CALLED ARGAND'S LAMPS
Year: 1803

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE
PENTON, of New Street Square, in the City of London, Brass Founder, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Nineteenth day of
November, in the forty-fourth year of His reign, did give and grant unto me,
the said George Penton, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His
special licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said
George Penton, my executors, administrators, and assigns, during the term
of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
my Invention of "AN IMPROVEMENT ON LAMPS COMMONLY CALLED ARGAND'S
LAMPS;" in which Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me,
the said George Penton, under my hand and seal, to cause a particular
description of the nature of my said Invention, and the manner in which
the same is to be performed, to be enrolled in His Majesty's High Court of
Chancery within one calendar month next and immediately after the date
of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation
being thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
George Penton, do hereby declare that my said Invention of an Improve-
ment in Lamps commonly called Argand's Lamps, consists in a new method
of raising and lowering the cotton wick, an operation which is usually
performed by a rack and pinion, or wire, and is attended with this incon-
venience, that as the cotton burns away the rack or wire employed to raise

page_text: the wick remains above the flame. The means I have invented to remove
these defects are by applying a chain and pulley, variously contrived, instead
of the wire or rack and pinion. The references to the Drawing will shew a
method of effecting these objects.
Fig. 1 A, B, C, D, is a cylinder tube, containing a ring, to which the
cotton wick is fastened, and has a slit on one side to suffer the wick holder to
move up and down by means of the chains a, a. One end of each chain is
soldered or otherwise fastened to the ring of the wick holder at C, and the
other ends in the groove of the pully P, in such situation on it as when moved
round will raise or lower the wick the full length required. m is an arm of
metal, on which the pully P is fixed. It is fastened at b, and projected
from the cylinder so as to admit of the pulley and chain behind it to work
freely. On the axis of the pulley a button is fixed, by turning of which the
chains a, a, move over two pivots or rollers d, d, fixed near the top of the
tube, and on a pivot or roller E, projecting from a ring fixed in the inside
of a tube A, B, C, D, at the bottom. By this means the wick is raised or
lowered at pleasure by turning the button with the thumb and finger.
Fig. 2 view of the burner when compleat. Fig. 3, section of the same.
The same effect may be produced by means of a single chain, the weight of
the cotton holder to carry itself down. It may be proper to observe, that
catgut, thread, or any other flexible material may be used instead of the
chain.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Penton, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Nineteenth day of December, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and three.
GEORGE (.D.) FENTON.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Nineteenth day of
December, in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid George Penton came
before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specifica-
tion 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 Nineteenth day of December, in the year above