THE MANUFAC- TURE OF GAS, AND THE PREPARATION OF FUEL
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Tomlin and Charles Hook
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their Petition, on
the 27th November 1866.
We, JOHN TOMLIN, of 7, Wilson Street, Finsbury, in the County of Mid-
dlesex, and CHARLES HOOK, of 6, Trinity Grove, Maidenstone Hill, Green-
wich, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "THE MANUFAC-
TURE OF GAS, AND THE PREPARATION OF FUEL," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in manufacturing gas and fuel from materials com-
paratively valueless, and in combination with other articles of superior efficacy
for the purposes to which they are to be employed, so as to obtain products
at a cheaper rate than they have heretofore been obtained, efficacy being
considered the standard of comparison with respect to cost of production.
In order to explain our Invention as completely as possible we now proceed
to describe the best means we are acquainted with for carrying the same
into practical effect, as follows:-Into suitable retorts we place petroleum,
mineral naptha, rock oil, mineral or vegetable tar, the empyreumatic oil
and fatty principles evolved in the process of charring bones, crystal oil,
paraffine, cocoa-nut oil, also all and every other animal and vegetable oil and
liquid and semifluid product resulting from the destructive distillation of

page_text: animal and vegetable matter, or any one or more of these, all herein-after
described and set forth as liquid bydrocarbons, which we treat or combine
with spent tanner's bark, peat, or bog earth, fir cones or fir apples, damaged
cotton, cotton waste, husks or pods, maize or Indian corn, sugar cane, ashes
from peat, coal or wood, animal and vegetable charcoal, coal dust, refuse of
dye works or wool factories, burnt clay, and other mineral, vegetable, and
animal absorbent, the same being previously dessicated or dried in the sun, or
by such artificial means as may be the most convenient and inexpensive, and
upon applying the requisite amount of heat we generate gas.
In order to fabricate the "improved fuel" we mix or incorporate the before-
mentioned liquid hydrocarbons, or any one or more of the same with the said
absorbents, or any of them, and consolidate the said -mixture, and form it into
conveniently sized lumps or bricks for the purpose of their after employment
as fuel.
.
.
In manufacturing of gas also we claim to use bituminous shale, asphalte,
lignite, bituminous limestone, or such other solid mineral as will be compre-
hended under the denomination of solid hydrocarbon, and to be herein-after
described as such (coal in the ordinary acceptation of the term being excluded).
"We treat these solid bydrocarbons with the absorbents already enumerated in
a manner somewhat similar to that above specified as the method of treating
the liquid hydrocarbons, the simple modification being that the absorbents in
the case of the solid hydrocarbons are incorporated, whilst the latter are in a
state of rough pulverization.
We also form combinations by means of machinery or by manual dexterity
of the before-mentioned solid hydrocarbons, or of any one or more of the same,
with or without the admixture of one or more of the aforesaid liquid hydro-
carbons, and such proportions of the absorbents herein-before described as
will be found most convenient and efficacious in the construction of the fuel
before said.
In order to effect the object in view of obtaining gas for illumination in a
cheaper manner than heretofore, we will add that having placed the mixture
herein-before described into the retort, we find from experience that though
we employ the same kind of apparatus as is commonly employed in the manu-
facture of gas from coal, our process is attended with considerably less
expenditure of fuel, and hence a saving is hereby effected.
We disclaim all and every modification of apparatus beyond that ordinarily
employed in the generation of gas from coal.
We disclaim also any particular form or construction of retort, fire-place,
stove or furnace for the combustion of our fuel herein-before described; but

page_text: we claim all improvements that may hereafter be made under the before-
mentioned principles.
And we further claim to treat the before-mentioned hydrocarbons both solid
and liquid for the manufacture of gas in suitable apparatus, separately and
distinct from combination with any, and every other material whatever.