CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR PROPELLING VESSELS, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS ARE ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES
Year: 1825

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, JOHN
BROOMFIELD, of Islington, near Birmingham, Engineer, and JOSEPH LUCKCOCK
of Edgbaston, near Birmingham, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twentieth day of April, in the sixth year of His reign, did,
for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said John
Broomfield and Joseph Luckcock, His especial licence, that we, the said
John Broomfield and Joseph Luckcock, our cñors, admiors, and assigns, or
such others as we, the said John Broomfield and Joseph Luckcock, our exors,
admiors, and assigns, should at any timo agree with, and no others, 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, Wales, and
the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in His said Majesty's Colonies
and Plantations abroad, our Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR PROPELLING VESSELS, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS ARE ALSO
APPLICABLE TO OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES;" in which said Letters Patent there
is contained a proviso obliging us, the said John Broomfield and Joseph
Luckcock, by an instrument in writing under our hands and seals, or under
the hand and seal of one of us, particularly to describe and ascertain the
nature of our said Invention, and in what' manner the same is to be
performed, and to cause the same to be inrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately aftrè
the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same,
reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear..

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
John Broomfield and Joseph Luckcock, do hereby declare that the nature of
our said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed,
are particularly described and ascertained in and by the Drawing hereunto
annexed, and the following description thereof (that is to say):-
Our Invention of Certain Improvements in the Machinery or Apparatus
for Propelling Vessels, which Improvements are also applicable to other useful
Purposes, consists, in the first place, in the construction of certain systems
of wheels, by which moveable or rotary paddles are actuated with better
effect than by any of the modes of propelling vessels on water heretofore
employed. It requires but little mechanical skill to appreciate the great
waste of power in propelling a steam vessel by the ordinary paddle wheels.
When the wheels are immersed axle deep in the water, the paddles on the
fore part of the wheel are exerting their power in lifting the vessel out of the
water, and by their violent action upon the surface of the water shake and
impede the progress of the vessel considerably, while the paddles in the after
part of the wheel are uselessly expending their force in lifting the water, and
by the corresponding reaction of sinking the vessel. The modes of attaching
paddles to wheels or other machinery so as to obviate these objections form
a principal feature of this Patent, and are set out in the Drawings hereto
annexed, and the following description thereof. If the axle of a revolving
paddle be attached to a revolving wheel near its periphery and parallel to its
axis, the wheel will carry the paddle round in a circle concentric with the
centre of the carrier wheel, the axes of the paddle being parallel with the axis
of the wheel. Now if any mechanical contrivance of toothed or cogged wheels
be employed, one of them stationary in the centre, its axle being hollow and
surrounding the axle of the main revolving wheel being loose, another wheel
being affixed to the axle of the paddles with an intermediate wheel, the paddle
will turn upon its axis as it is carried round by the large wheel; and this is the
principle upon which our Invention is founded, and for which we claim the
exclusive use when applied to the purposes described in this Specification, not-
withstanding any variation that may be made in the mode of applying it,
and whether the movements of the paddles upon their axes are caused by the
action of cog wheels, by endless chains, or by any other mode. The progress
which the paddle shall make upon its axis as the carrier wheel revolves will
depend upon the comparative diameters of the two extremes; now if the cog
wheel upon the axle of the paddle be twice the diameter of the cog wheel
by which it is actuated, then the paddle would make half a revolution while
the carrier wheel performs an entire revolution. Hence, supposing the paddle

page_text: to be balanced upon an axle crossing its centre, and in a perpendicular
position at the lowest point of the carrier wheel's revolution, it will be situated
in a horizontal position when at top, and in a perpendicular position again
at the bottom of the wheel, having performed half a turn upon its axle, and
by these means the extreme edges of the paddle will be made to describe
convolute curve called the cardioid curve.
The first mode by which we propose to propel vessels on water is founded
upon the principle last described, and is exhibited at Fig. 1, which represents
a large wheel a, a, a, say of six feet diameter, revolving upon an axle b, and
carrying a series of five rotatory paddles d, d, d, d, d, upon the axles of
which are fixed the toothed wheels c of sixteen inches diameter. The wheel c,
which is fixed on the centre, may be considered as one foot in diameter,
and the intermediate wheels f of the same dimensions; and affixed to the
wheel is the smaller wheel g of eight inches diameter. Now if the large
wheel be made to revolve carrying the paddles round with it, the wheel e
being twice the diameter of the wheel g, the paddles will only make half
a revolution upon their respective axles, as above stated, during the time
that the large carrier wheel makes an entire revolution. Methods by
which the position of the paddles as here described may be effected in an
infinite variety of ways, and therefore it will be sufficient to describe only
one of the most simple. This is by means of a collar surrounding the axle b
of the paddles wheel with a pinion of any diameter, depending on the diameter
of the paddle wheel, which pinion will be turned by an endless screw which
serves as a regulator to the paddles, fixing them in any angle of position,
or which may be made a fixture on the side of the vessel, determining the
paddles to work at a particular angle which need not have any variation.
The relative position of the paddles with each other is determined in this way,
that one of them shall form a tangent to a circle on the wheel, and the others
shall all radiate towards the tangental point. This construction of wheel
may act entirely under water, for it will be seen that during the revolution
of the wheel the broad surfaces of the paddles will be more or less in active
resistance against the water as they approach to or recede from the tangental
point, were the edge of the paddles will be presented to the water, and offer
little or no comparative resistance. The same principle is maintained, though
the intermediate wheels are differently disposed, in Fig. 2, not confining our-
selves to any particular number of paddles. Fig. 3 exhibits a series of paddle
wheels as before described; these are calculated for the sides of vessels, or may
be applied vertically or horizontally under the bottom of canal or other flat-
bottomed boats. Fig. 4 exhibits a horizontal view, in which a double row

page_text: of paddles are made to traverse by means of bevel gear and rods, the upper
line being the bottom of the boat. a, a, are the two crank spur wheels, one
of which is actuated by the steam engine; the teeth of these wheels take
into each other, and move together near the periphery of the crank wheels a;
tho shafts are inserted, to which the carrier bars c, c, are attached. On
the upper end of the shaft ba bevil pinion d is fixed, which takes into another
bevil pinion of the same size fixed on the end of the rod f, f, and by the
traversing of the crank axle b the pinion d is made to turn the rod f. On the
outside of the shaft ba hollow axle g is fitted to which the paddle h is attached,
and on the top of the axle g a bevel toothed wheel i is fixed, which takes into the
teeth of a bevil pinion of half its diameter on the rod f. Now as the crank
wheel a goes round, and by means of the pinion d causes the rod f to turn,
the pinion taking into the wheel i gives rotatory motion to the paddle h,
and causes it, as it moves through the water horizontally, to turn upon its
vertical axle in the same way as before described, presenting its edge when
advancing, and its broad surface in retiring, which is its propelling position.
Similar bevel wheels i are placed upon the axles of all the paddles, which
are actuated by pinions & upon the rotatory shaft f. In order to convert
a canal boat into a sea vessel we propose to produce a false keel by bringing
the two rows of paddles into the center of the boat in the following manner.
Suppose the paddles of a canal boat were adapted as in Fig. 4, we should
lift the wheels out of gear, and also the pinions, and place them so that the
paddles would stand with their edges fore and aft close to each other in
the middle of the vessel, and putting the wheels and pinions into gear again
we should there lock them fast so that they would form an artificial keel
when the vessel is propelled by sails instead of machinery; or the above
paddles may be worked by spur gear by a series of wheels connecting the
paddles with each other by means of intermediate wheels.
The second part of our Invention of Certain Improvements in the Machinery
or Apparatus for Propelling Vessels, which Improvements are also applicable
to other useful Purposes, consists in applying the propelling wheel before
described for the purpose of turning machinery by suspending it in a stream
either vertically or horizontally, and thereby acting as a water wheel; if
horizontally, by casing the axle from the top of the wheel to above the water it
will work under ice with the same facility as in an open stream, being entirely
submerged.
The third part of our Invention consists in a novel construction of rotatory
steam engines to be employed as the impelling power for driving the paddles
above described, or as a first mover to be applied to any other purpose. Fig. 6

page_text: is a section of such an engine with a double steam way, having a series of five
rotatory pistons attached to a rotatory wheel. a, a, a, is the outer case or
fixed cylinder in which the pistons and the wheel revolve; b, b, b, is the rota-
tory wheel; and c, c, c, c, c, are the pistons, to the axles of which are attached
on the outside of the engine a system of toothed wheels of equal diameter,
which by means of and connected with a fixed collar and intermediate wheels,
as before described, the pistons are made to preserve a parallel position
in every part of their revolution as they turn in the circular recesses formed
in the wheel; and d 1 and d 2 are the passages by which the steam passes
from a boiler into the engine. The pressure of the steam from a 1 exert-
ing itself against the side of the piston c 1 drives that and the wheel b
round in the direction of the arrows, and at the same time the steam
from d 2, exerting its force against the side of the piston c 4, in a similar
manner produces the rotatory action of the wheel. In the situation of the
pistons as shewn in this Figure the side of c 5 is working against the packed
surface of the cylinder at a 1, and the passage of steam is thereby prevented, at
the same time the arm 63 of the wheel is working against the opposite packed
surface of the cylinder a 8, which also is steam-tight, and as the wheel
proceeds the curved ends of the pistons in succession are working against
the packed surfaces of the cylinder at a 2 and a 4. The piston c 1 having
advanced in its rotation to the point marked e, the piston c 5 will have
arrived at the point marked f, where the steam will exert its force against
the side of c 5, and c 1 allow the volume of steam between them through
the passage g 1 to the condenser or the atmosphere. In the same way
the steam will act upon all the pistons in succession, driving them forward
to a certain point, and then allowing the steam to pass off to the condensor
or to the open air, while the following piston comes into action, and thus keep
up the rotation of the wheel to which they are connected, and this rotatory
action being communicated by a central shaft or other machinery gives the
motive power. Fig. 7 is another variation of the same principle applied to
the construction of a rotatory steam engine having only a single steam way,
and the piston moving in the cardiord curve described in Fig. 1, instead of
the parallel position of the steam engine, above described.
In witness whereof, we, the said John Broomfield and Joseph Luckcock,
have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Twentieth day of October,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-
five
JNO. BROOMFIELD. (L.S.) (L.S.) JOSEPH LUCKCOCK.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twentieth day of October,
in the year of our Lord 1825, the aforesaid John Broomfield and Joseph
Luckcock came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknow-
ledged the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained
and specified, in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was
stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Twentieth day of October, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.