CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR BOILING, BRICKING, OR SCOURING, FOR THE PURPOSE OF PREPARING AND ASSISTING THE PROCESS OF BLEACHING AND DYEING COTTON, LINEN, AND OTHER FABRICS AND FIBROUS SUBSTANCES
Year: 1840

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, SAMUEL
KNIGHT, of Woodhouse Mills, in the County of Lancaster, Bleacher, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Twenty-fifth day of March, in the third year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Samuel Knight, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said Samuel Knight, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
and such others as I, the said Samuel Knight, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, should agree with, and no other, from time to time and at all
times during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England and Wales and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN
MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR BOILING, BRICKING, OR SCOURING, FOR THE PURPOSE
OF PREPARING AND ASSISTING THE PROCESS OF BLEACHING AND DYEING COTTON,
LINEN, AND OTHER FABRICS AND FIBROUS SUBSTANCES;" in which Letters Patent
is contained a proviso that I, the said Samuel Knight, shall cause a par-
ticular description of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is
to be performed, to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of Chancery
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
in part recited Letters Patent, as in by the same, reference being hereunto
had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Samuel Knight, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described
and ascertained in and by the Drawings hereto annexed, and the following
explanation thereof (that is to say):-
My Improvements in Machinery or Apparatus for Boiling, Bricking, or
Scouring for the Purpose of Preparing and Assisting the Process of Bleaching
and Dyeing Cotton, Linen, and other Fabrics and Fibrous Substances, consist
in a certain novel arrangement and construction of apparatus adapted to the
said purpose, so contrived that the goods or other fibrous substances to be
operated upon may be packed in suitable vessels or chambers connected by
means of pipes furnished with suitable stopcocks with other vessels containing
the alkaline solution commonly employed in such processes, one of which
vessels or cisterns is to be filled with the alkaline solution, and heated until
the liquor forces its way through the connecting pipes and enters the vessels
or chambers containing the goods or fabrics to be operated upon, through
which it is exhausted and caused to pass rapidly by means of the other recep-
tacle of the alkaline solution being nearly empty and in a state of vacuum,
the fire under the full vessel being kept up, whilst that under the empty one
is allowed to lower in temperature. When the alkaline solution has passed
entirely through the goods, and the vessel which was first filled has become
nearly empty, the stopcocks are all to be reversed (that is, the open one close.l
and the closed ones opened), and the fire which was under the empty boiler
must be raised in order to force the alkaline liquor back again through the
goods, and so on alternately, repeated as often as the goods will be found to
require it.
But in order that these improvements may be perfectly understood, I
have attached to these Presents a Sheet of Drawings for the sake of illus-
tration only, and to the dimensions, forms, or precise arrangement of which
of course I do not confine myself, in which Fig. 1 is a longitudinal sec-
tion, taken vertically, of an apparatus designed for the above purpose, and
Fig. 2 is a slight modification of the same description of the Drawings. A
vessel containing the ordinary alkaline or other solution or pure water, as
commonly employed in the process of boiling, bricking, or scouring, is shewn
at A, A, furnished with a valve b at top to relieve the internal pressure, and
is placed in a furnace 6', ', which thus heats the liquor, which will pass up the
pipe C, through the pipe d, into the vessel or chamber e, e. This vessel contains
a quantity of goods or fabrics lying upon the grating f, through which the liquor
passes, and again up the pipe g into a similar vessel h, h, also containing a

page_text: quantity of goods to be operated upon, then up the pipe i, and through
the pipe j into the other vessel or cistern K, K, also furnished with a valve
at the top. It will be observed that during this passage of the alkaline solu-
tion or other liquor (in the direction of the black arrow), the cocks m, m, m,
have all been open, and the fire in the furnace 6 kept up. Now upon the
liquor having nearly all passed this way downwards through the goods or
fabrics, and the vessel K become filled, the cocks m, m, m, are all to be closed,
and the cocks n, n, n, to be opened, and the fire in the furnace O, O, in which
the vessel K is set, is to be got up, and that in the furnace blowered. Thus the
passage of the liquor will be instantly reversed, and the liquor passed upwards
again through the goods or fabrics (in the direction of the red arrow) until
the vessel A has again become filled, and then the operations are all to be
again reversed, the process thus continued, and the liquor to be thus passed
backwards and forwards through the cloth or goods as often as found desire-
able. A slight modification of this process is shewn at Fig. 2, where A, A, is
also a vessel containing the liquor, and set in the furnace b. In this instance
the passage of the liquor is effected through the pipes c and d, into and out
of the chamber e, e, containing the goods, by means of a pump or pumps f, f,
placed either between the vessels or elsewhere in connection with them (which
variation of the process I prefer to the foregoing); but this or any other slight
variation of the process may be readily made as found desirable.
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Knight, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-fourth day of September, in the year of
our Land One thousand oight hundred and forty