IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR PULVERIZING MINERALS, ORES, AND OTHER SUBSTANCES." PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
Year: 1880

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Francis William Michell, of Redruth, in the County
of Cornwall, Engineer, and Thomas Henry Tregoning, of the Parish of
Camborne, in the said County, Engineer, for an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS
IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR PULVERIZING MINERALS, ORES, AND OTHER
SUBSTANCES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Francis William Michell and
Thomas Henry Tregoning at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on
the 12th February 1880.
FRANCIS WILLIAM MICHELL, of Redruth, in the County of Cornwall, Engineer,
and THOMAS HENRY TREGONING, of the Parish of Camborne, in the said County,
Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR PULVERIZING
MINERALS, ORES, AND OTHER SUBSTANCES."
The machine is to be used for pulverizing or reducing to a required degree of
fineness tin, copper, lead, and other metallic minerals, and the ores thereof, and also
the slimes, leavings, and refuse of such minerals and ores, either before or after
such slimes, leavings, or refuse shall have been subjected to any other crushing,
roasting, or separating process.
The machine consists of a hopper or receiving vessel for all substances passing
through the crushing part of the machine. An inlet pipe conducted through a
hollow bearing connects the hopper with a cylinder or barrel by a watertight
flange; through this inlet pipe the substance to be crushed is conducted from the
hopper into the cylinder or barrel..
The cylinder or barrel is to contain the substance to be crushed which has been
inducted through the hollow bearing, and is to be partially filled with weights or
masses or lumps of some hard metal or material (for example, steel or iron). This
cylinder, on the application of power, revolves on two centres or hollow bearings.
The hopper having been first filled with substance for crushing is fed with a
sufficient supply of water, which in its passage through the inlet pipe to the
cylinder or barrel partly assists and partly forces with it the substance to be
crushed. On arriving within the cylinder containing the metal weights the
revolutions of the cylinder causes the weights to fall one over the other, and the
substance introduced into the cylinder will be gradually reduced or crushed to
the proper fineness, and will be kept in a state of suspension in the water, with
which it will finally pass out at the hollow outlet bearing.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by
the said Francis William Michell and Thomas Henry Tregoning in the Great
Seal Patent Office on the 12th August 1880.
FRANCIS WILLIAM MICHELL, of Redruth, in the County of Cornwall, Engineer,
and THOMAS HENRY TREGONING, of the Parish of Camborne, in the said County, 5
Engineer. IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR PULVERIZING
MINERALS, ORES, AND OTHER SUBSTANCES."
"
The machine is to be used for pulverizing or reducing to a required degree of
fineness tin, copper, lead, and other metallic minerals, and the ores thereof, and also
the slimes, leavings, and refuse of such minerals and ores, either before or after 1
such slimes, leavings, or refuse shall have been subjected to any other crushing,
roasting, or separating process.
The machine consists of a hopper or receiving vessel for all substances passing
through the crushing part of the machine. An inlet pipe conducted through a
hollow bearing connects the hopper with a cylinder or barrel; through this inlet 1
pipe the substance to be crushed is conducted from the hopper into the cylinder or
barrel.
The cylinder or barrel is to contain the substance to be crushed, which has been
inducted through a hollow bearing and is to be partially filled with weights or
masses or lumps of some hard metal or material (for example, steel or iron).
This cylinder or barrel on the application of power revolves on two centres or
hollow bearings.
The accompanying Drawing is a view in longitudinal section of machinery or
apparatus illustrating a convenient way of carrying our Invention into effect.
A is the hopper by which the materials to be crushed are fed into the machine ;
it may be made of wood or of any other convenient material; B is the inlet pipe
and X is the hollow bearing or trunnion through which the inlet pipe B passes;
C is the cylinder or barrel into which the substances to be crushed are conveyed
from the hopper; a, a, are the lumps of iron or other substances, such as small
pieces of scrap or other iron or hard substances, in the cylinder; they should not
be balls or rollers, because the object in this Invention is to obtain a great area of
rubbing or grinding surface by the action of a great number of grinding surfaces in,
upon, and between each other; D is the other hollow bearing at opposite end
of cylinder to the bearing X; E is toothed wheel keyed on to the hollow
In a barrel
bearing X, by which the power is communicated to cylinder or barrel.
of, say, 42 inches diameter we find that eight revolutions per minuto is a suitable
speed for reducing minerals.
F is frame work supporting the machine; b, b, shows the water line in
cylinder C.
The machine is made preferably of wrought or cast iron or steel, or combinations
of same, or with wood barrel strongly bound, and may have either metal, wood, or
stone bed.
The operation is as follows:-
The hopper A having been first filled with substance for crushing is by the
pipe c fed with a sufficient supply of water, which in its passage through the inlet
pipe B to the cylinder or barrel C partly assists and partly forces with it the
substance to be crushed. On arriving within the cylinder "C" containing the
metal weights the revolutions of the cylinder causes the weights to fall one over
the other, and in their passage over and by one another and over the interior
surface of the cylinder the substances introduced into the cylinder will be gradually
reduced or crushed to the proper fineness, and will be kept in a state of suspension
in the water, with which it will finally pass out at the outlet "D" to any convenient
receptacle, or it may dischargo by a pipe at the inlet end.

page_text: The same fluid that conveys the substances to be crushed is used for discharging
the crushed substances through the hollow bearing without the necessity of stopping
the machine or in any way interfering with its regular working, so that as long as
the machine is kept with a full hopper and proper water supply it continues doing
all its work. The hollow outlet bearing or trunnion D may, if desired, be fitted
with a loose interior outlet spout which does not partake of the revolution of the
apparatus.
Having now described the nature of our said Invention and in what manner the
same is to be performed, we declare that we are aware it has been proposed to use
balls and rollers of metal in quartz crushing machines, but they are not applicable
to this Invention as they do not present sufficient surface, and the grinding does
not chiefly take place between the weights and the side of the cylinder but by the
friction among the weights themselves, but in this present Invention tho weights
or pieces of crushing material having irregular forms, surfaces, and edges are
introduced in large numbers, and the grinding area is thus increased in proportion ;
we are also aware that hollow bearings as applied to such machines have also been
proposed, wo lay however no claim whatever to such when taken alone or separately,
but we claim as our improvements in machinery or apparatus for pulverizing
minerals, ores, and other substances,―
The construction and employment of machinery in which a cylinder containing
grinding lumps is mounted at each end in hollow bearings or trunnions, and intro-
ducing the substances to be crushed therein through the said hollow bearings mixed
with water, and discharging the substances when pulverized either through the
hollow bearing at the opposite end of the cylinder to which it entered or through a
pipe that may be placed in the inlet end of the cylinder, all substantially in manner
and for the purpose hereinbefore described and illustrated with reference to the
accompanying Drawing, together with any mere modifications thereof.
In witness whereof, we, the said Francis William Michell and Thomas Henry
Tregoning, have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Ninth day of August,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and eighty.
Signed, sealed, and delivered by the said
Francis William Michell and Thomas
Henry Tregoning in the presence of
GEO. J. BRAY,
Solr.,
Redruth.
FRAS. W. MICHELL.
T. H. TREGONING.
(L.)
(L.S.)