Year: 1853

page_text: Sealed the 18th October 1858, and dated the 12th August 1858.*.

page_text: pitch, rosins, fats, and other suitable matters along with sawdust,
waste tanners' bark, peat, charcoal, and other vegetable or bitumi-
nous inflammable substances usually employed in the manufacture
of composition fire-lighters used for the lighting of domestic and
other fires.
It has hitherto been customary to melt the resinous or other
like combining materials in coppers or pans, and after adding the
other required matters to stir up the viscid mass by manual labor,
which process is attended with many inconveniences and much
danger, particularly when large quantities have to be operated
upon. Now the apparatus we have adapted to this purpose affords
great facility combined with safety, and the production of a more
intimate intermixture of the materials than has hitherto been
readily obtained. And for the better understanding of our said
improvements we will now proceed to describe the Drawing
hereunto annexed, assisted by the letters of reference thereon.
Fig. 1, is a longitudinal section of our improved apparatus.
A, A, B, C, D, is a cylindrical vessel, which may be made of cast
iron. A, is the fore part closed by a circular door; A, B, the back
end, being made perfectly close, except the neck or short tube
A, B, made of sufficient length to carry a drum or rigger, and
within it is fitted the ventilating tube E, rising upwards at F, to
nearly the top of the cylinder, from whence it takes away any gas,
vapour, or steam generated therein. C, H, is a centre bar or
shaft carrying a number of blades a, a, a, a, set at opposite angles
to each other, and which act as stirrers of the materials to be
operated upon; and the shaft on being withdrawn empties the
cylinder of its contents. This shaft is supported centrally in the
cylinder by a circular plate I, affixed at the end of the shaft at
H, and at G, by the door for closing the front of the cylinder; at
J, J, a groove runs entirely round the cylinder to receive an
endless chain, which passing over a druin fixed on a proper shaft
above serves both to support as well as rotate the cylinder, while
the opposite end of the cylinder at A, B, works in the bearings K.
L, is the brickwork; M, the furnace; and N, the flame bed lead-
ing to the flues and chimney shaft.

page_text: $
When the resinous, bituminous, or other compositions are en- r
closed in this apparatus, and heat applied by means of the furnace,
it is inade to rotate by the means already described, by which
mode of operation every part becomes equally heated, stirred, and
incorporated, and therefore better prepared than by the ordinary
methods, for the intended purpose of being manufactured into fire-
lighters.
We would here observe that we prefer giving motion to the
cylinder in one direction, and to the shaft G, H, in a contrary
direction; but the apparatus may be variously employed without
affecting the principle of our Invention; and we do not limit
ourselves to the materials, precise form, or dimensions, or situ-
ation of the apparatus, or to the mode of rotating it on the shaft,
or of the shaft only, keeping the cylinder stationary. And we do
declare that what we claim as our Invention is,-
The peculiar construction of an apparatus for preparing the
materials employed in the manufacture of composition fire-lighters,
as described.