IMPROVEMENTS IN CHARGING, TUNNING. OR FERMENTING CASES AND VESSELS
Year: 1861

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Edmund Alfred Pontifex, of Shoe Lane, in the City
of London, Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN CHARGING,
TUNNING. OR FERMENTING CASES AND VESSELS."
Sealed the 12th September 1861, and dated the 14th March.1861.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Edmund Alfred Pontifex
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 14th March 1861.
I, EDMUND ALFRED PONTIFEX, of Shoe Lane, in the City of London, Engineer,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
CHARGING, TUNNING, OR FERMENTING CASKS AND VESSELS," to be as follows:-
The main object of my Invention is to allow of tunning or fermenting casks
and vessels used in the cleansing of beer and worts revolving for the purpose
of being cleaned without removing or breaking the joints of the charging
pipe or pipes, the necessity for which usually entails much labour and
inconvenience.
My Invention consists in charging, tunning, or fermenting casks and vessels
through a hollow axle on which they are suspended as hereafter explained,
I make the axle or one end of it upon which, each cask or vessel is usually
suspended hollow and connect it by a stuffing box, ground surface, or other
suitable means to a pipe and cock attached to the main leading from the
supply back and yeast trough or trough communicating with the latter, I
charge through the hollow axle and thus the casks may be made to revolve
without the necessity of removing any pipe, but the goose neck which leads,
into the yeast trough.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Edmund Alfred Pontifex in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 14th September 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME; I, EDMUND
ALFRED PONTIFEX, of Shoe Lane, in the City of London, Engineer, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fourteenth day of March, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, in the twenty-fourth year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto
me, the said Edmund Alfred Pontifex, Her special licence that I, the said
Edmund Alfred Pontifex, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such
others as I, the said Edmund Alfred Pontifex, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man,
an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN CHARGING, TUNNING, OR FERMENTING CASKS
AND VESSELS," upon the condition (amongst others) that I,, the said Edmund
Alfred Pontifex, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly
describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in
the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Edmund Alfred Pontifex, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, reference being had to the Drawings hereunto
annexed, that is to say :-
The object my Invention is to allow tunning or fermenting casks and
vessels used in the cleansing of beer and worts to revolve for the purpose
of being cleansed without removing or breaking the joints of the charging
pipe or pipes, the necessity for which usually entails much labour and
inconvenience.
My Invention consists in charging, tunning, or fermenting casks and vessels
through a hollow axle on which they are suspended as hereafter explained. I
make the axle or one end of it upon which each cask or vessel is usually

page_text: suspended hollow and connect it by a stuffing box, ground surface, or other
suitable means to a pipe and cock attached to the main leading from the
supply backs or squares and yeast trough or trough communicating with
the latter. I charge through the hollow axle and thus the casks may be
made to revolve without the necessity of removing any pipe but the goose
neck which leads into the yeast trough. I prefer to introduce a short
tube of india-rubber or other pliable material to connect the supply pipes
with the stuffing box or ground surface in order to provide against
disarrangement of the joint by shrinking or subsidence of the frame or floors
or otherwise.
In the annexed Drawings Figures 1 and 2 show respectively, in front and
end elevations, the arrangements I adopt for carrying my Invention into
effect when the casks are placed in a single row; Figures 3 and 4 show
them when the casks are worked in pairs. Similar letters refer to similar
parts in all the Figures.
A, A, are the tunning casks; B, B, goose necks leading into C and D
the yeast troughs; E, E, are stuffing boxes through which the supply pipe,
both from the squares and yeast troughs, passes into the casks; F, F, are
filling up cocks for regulating the supply to each cask; G, G, cocks shutting
off supply from the squares; H, H, are cocks opening supply from yeast
troughs; I, I, india-rubber connections; K, K, are handles for causing
the casks to revolve. When the casks are worked in pairs it is necessary to
place the handle on the hollow axle, and then a pair of spur wheels are
necessary as shown at Figures 3 and 4.
And having now described the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I claim:-Charging
tunning casks through a hollow axle as herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edmund Alfred Pontifex, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Thirteenth day of September, One thousand
eight hundred and sixty-one.
EDMUND A. PONTIFEX. (L.S.)