IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING AND TRANSMITTING MOTIVE POWER
Year: 1857

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to ames Harris, of Hanwell, in the County of
Middlesex, Engineer, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING
AND TRANSMITTING MOTIVE POWER."
Sealed the 30th June 1857, and dated the 2nd January 1857.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Harris at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
2nd January 1857.
I, JAMES HARRIS, of Hanwell, in the County of Middlesex, Engineer, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
OBTAINING AND TRANSMITTING MOTIVE POWER," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in obtaining and transmitting motive power by the
combination of a steam engine or other prime mover, and of another engine
to be worked by compressed air or gas.
The steam engine or other prime mover is employed to compress air or other
gas and transmit it through suitable pipes and connections to an air engine.
My Invention would be chiefly useful to apply power in mines and other
underground workings where a steam engine could not be effectuaily used,
the air engine being fixed underground and the prime mover above.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said James Harris in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
2nd July 157.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I. JAMES
HARRIS, of Hanwell, in the County of Middlesex, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Second day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the twentieth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said James Harris, Her special licence that I, the said James Harris, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said James
Harris, 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 ingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING AND
TRANSMITTING MOTIVE POWER," upon the condition (amongst others) that I
the said James Harris, 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 James Harris, 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, that is to say-
My Invention consists in obtaining and transmitting motive power by the
combination of a steam engine or other prime mover, and of another engine
to be worked by compressed air or gas; the steam engine or other prime
mover is employed to compress air or other gas and transmit it through
suitable pipes and connections to an air engine.
The object of the Invention is to transmit or supply power for all purposes
where it may be impracticable, difficult, or dangerous to apply the power
direct by means of a steam engine, water wheel, or other prime mover.
The apparatus consists, firstly, of one or more cylinders désigned to act as
air-pumps, and fitted with pistons and valves, with or without an enlarged
vessel as receiver of the compressed air, as circumstances may require. These

page_text: air pumps are to be worked by steam power, water power, or any other prime
mover. Connected with the receiver of the compressed air is a small cylinder
with an air-tight piston, which, by forcing against.a spring, and being fitted
with the necessary connections, regulates the quantity of steam supplied to the
steam engine, or water to the wheel, as the case may be, according to the
speed required, thereby acting as an ordinary governor. The other part of the
apparatus, which is to be fixed where the power is required, and worked by
the air forced through pipes of flexible material, or of metal, or partly of both,
from the first described part of the apparatus, is to have an air vessel, one or
more cylinders fitted with air-tight pistons, and valves or cocks, and with con-
necting rods, cranks, and wheels, as in the ordinary table beam, or horizontal
steam engines with hammers attached to the piston rods for forge work, or
pile driving, or direct-action pumping, or other similar purposes; or the
apparatus shall consist of a cylinder or cylinders with revolving pistons, or of
revolving cylinders furnished with slide or other valves and sliding stops and
packings, as in what are known as rotary steain engines with regulators.
I am aware that compressed air or exhaust air engines are not new, com
pressed air engines having been used as locomotive engines, but with an
inconstant supply of air have proved failures; and exhaust or vacuum
engines have been worked on a small scale, as in models, and for working
pistons in large pipes on what are known as atmospheric railways. I do not.
therefore, propose to apply compressed air for those purposes, but to the
operations of underground works, as for winding out of sub-shafts, drawing up
inclines, pumping, boring, or working, blowing fans for ventilation, or other
work in coal, iron, copper, or other mines, for boring or sawing stone or slate, or
other similar materials, or winding or hoisting them out of quarries, or boring
or other work in tunnels; also for driving forge hammers and pile-driving
machines, for pumping from coffer dams, for hoistingmaterials orworking turn-
tables; for transmitting power to workshops, powder mills, and cranes at a dis-
tance, and for all purposes where power is required; but where, as herein-before
stated, it would be difficult or dangerous to apply the first moving power direct,
I I propose to work one or more air engines from one and the same supply pipe
and to work them at high or low pressure and if at high pressure to work
the air expansively, or otherwise.
I also propose to work the said engines by
means of a vacuum for the before-mentioned purposes, by simply reversing the
valves in the first cylinders or air pumps, and by attaching the pipe leading to
the air pumps to what would otherwise be the discharge pipe of the air engine,
the small cylinder piston and spring for regulatingthespeed of the first moving

page_text: power being in this case worked by air at the atmospheric pressure upon the
side of the piston opposite to the vacuum.
It is considered that the application of my improved system to general
purposes will have the effect of doing away with long lines of shafting,and in
many instances with boilers and steam pipes, which, with their smoke, heat,
and leaky joints, when multiplied in the same works or the same neighbor-
hood, are very objectionable. The system may also be applied to transmit
power to the houses of operatives for working various kinds of machinery.
On this principle one prime mover may be made to work five, ten, or even
twenty air engines at one or the same time wherever the power may be
required, and the pipes for transmitting the compressed air may be carried
along passages, under floors or roofs, or, if more direct, even behind the
cornices of apartments, without the slightest difficulty or danger. The prime
mover requires only to be worked at a speed sufficient to keep up the supply
of compressed air to the engines actually in use, and the fuel consumed in the
prime mover, if a steam engine, will be more or less in proportion to the work
performed by the small engines.
And having now described the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I claim obtaining and
transmitting motive power by the combination of a steam engine or other
prime mover, and of another engine or other engines to be worked either by
compressed air or gas supplied from the first prime mover through suitable
pipes and connections, or by atmospheric pressure in a vacuum engine or
engines from which the air is exhausted by the prime mover through such
pipes and connections.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Harris, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Second day of July, One thousand eight hundred
and fifty-seven.
JAMES HARRIS. (L.S.)