IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR LIFTING, FORCING, OR CONDUCTING LIQUIDS, GASES, OR AIR."
Year: 1870

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to James Authony Emslie, of Tarbert, in the County
of Argyll, Gentleman, and James Thomas Emslic, of North Shields,
in the County of Northumberland, Engineer, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR LIFTING, FORCING, OR CONDUCTING
LIQUIDS, GASES, OR AIR."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Anthony Emslie
and James Thomas Emslie at the Office of the Commissioners of
Patents, with their Petition, on the 3rd May 1870.
We, JAMES ANTHONY EMSLIE, of Tarbert, in the County of Argyll,
Gentleman, and JAMES THOMAS EMSLIE, of North Shields, in the
County of Northumberland, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR LIFTING, FORCING,
OR CONDUCTING LIQUIDS, GASES, OR AIR," to be as follows:-

page_text: The improvements have reference to lifting, raising, forcing, or other-
wise moving liquids or air from any one or more situations or levels to
any other desired sites or altitudes, and consist in the employment for
such purposes of any convenient pneumatic apparatus attached to and
working in connection with suitable air and water pipes or tubes
furnished with convenient valves, by means of which liquids or liquid
substances, such as mud and so forth, may be readily sucked or forced
up without such liquids or liquid substances coming in contact with and
fouling the working parts of the machinery, as is generally the case with
pumps commonly in use; also, when desired and necessary, in furnishing
suitable lift boxes, tanks, or receivers placed at convenient altitudes
(about every thirty feet) for the purposes of temporarily receiving the
liquid or air therein, such boxes or tanks being in connection with the
tubes above described and worked alternately, for instance, in a shaft
about ninety feet deep; we employ four of such lift boxes with water
tubes connecting them, and put the first (or upper one) in communi-
cation by air tubes with the third, and the second with the fourth (or
lowest one), in such manner that the piston of the pneumatic apparatus,
which may be situated in any convenient spot, at each and every half
stroke causes the liquid to rise from two of the series of boxes to the
two respectively above them, thereby making each arrangement of water
tube and box the reservoir for the one immediately above it, thus doing
away with the separate reservoirs now in use.
Further the improvements consist in ventilating while pumping by
means of the apparatus above described or by the addition of one or
more tubes without the use of additional machinery or power. Among
the advantages of the improvements are the discharging about double
the quantity of water; or lifting an equal quantity from double the
depth, as compared with single-acting plunger or bucket pumps working
at any angle and not necessarily vertically; pumping by means of
suitable tubes and boxes corrosive and other fluids, gases, and so forth,
without impairing the working parts of the machinery.
The improvements may conveniently be carried into effect by
furnishing any suitable motive engine with a metal air cylinder or
chamber having the necessary air valves above and below the piston to
be worked therein. To the upper part of such cylinder may be inserted
the air tube in connection with the upper and third boxes, and to the
lower part of said cylinder may be inserted the air tube in connection

page_text: with the second and lowest boxes as above described, such boxes, air
tubes, and the water tubes connecting the lift boxes being made of metal
or other suitable material, the air tubes being respectively furnished with
prolongations beyond the lowest boxes fitted with bell mouths, thro'
and by which ventilation of the shaft may, when desired, take place, or
other tube or tubes may be specially used for ventilating purposes and
worked from the cylinder above described; the water discharge pipe
may conveniently be fixed in the top or uppermost lift box or receiver.
When from any circumstance an odd number of lift boxes is required
the lowest lift box may be divided or made into two compartments;
also by means of double boxes, double water and air tubes a continuous
flow of liquid may be obtained, and the whole apparatus have a double
action.