A NEW METHOD OF DRYING ALL KINDS OF YARN, WHETHER LINEN, WOOLLEN, COTTON, OR SILK, OR COMPOSED OF ALL, OR ANY, OR EITHER OF THESE ARTICLES; AS ALSO ALL KINDS OF CLOTHS OR STUFFS, COMMONLY CALLED PIECE GOODS, COMPOSED OF ALL OR ANY OF THE ABOVE ARTICLES, AND ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES
Year: 1802

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALEXANDER
BRYCE, of Glasgow, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty King George the Third, by His Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
bearing date at Westminster, the Second day of January now last past, häth
given and granted unto me, the said Alexander Bryce, my executors, adminis
trators, and assigns, special licence, full power, sole privilege, and authority' to
make, use, exercise, and vend, within that part of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland called England, Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed;
during the term of years therein expressed, my Invention of A NEW METHOD
OF DRYING ALL KINDS OF YARN, WHETHER LINEN, WOOLLEN, COTTON, OR SILK, OR
COMPOSED OF ALL, OR ANY, OR EITHER OF THESE ARTICLES; AS ALSO ALL KINDS OF
CLOTHS OR STUFFS, COMMONLY CALLED PIECE GOODS, COMPOSED OF ALL OR ANY OF THE
ABOVE ARTICLES, AND ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES" in which said
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Alexander
Bryce; by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular
description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of
Chancery within four calendar months next after the date of the said recited
Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto had) morc
fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Alexander Bryce, in compliance with
the said proviso, 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 the following description, and the Drawings, sections,
or plans hereunto annexed, that is to say :-
When the goods to be dried are webs, or what are commonly called piece
goods, as linnen or cotton cloth, I make them to pass along, or with, or near
to, or in contact with the surface of the heated cylinders, prisms, boxes, blocks, or
plates of any kind or shape that may not be found inconvenient or inapplicable
to any purpose; but of all these, I prefer the cylindric and box forms for
drying such goods as I have mentioned. The cylinders (or polygonal prisms,
if any one prefer them,) may be made either solid or hollow, but in general,
hollow cylinders will be found more convenient than solid ones, being more
casily constructed, and also more easily heated. As occasion may require, the
cylinders, prisms, boxes, blocks, or plates, and which I call dryers, are best
made of metal of any kind, because they can be easily soldered up, and made
steam, water, or air tight, which is necessary, except at those particular places
where I wish to allow the steam, water, or air a passage or exit, and because
metals are better conductors of heat than wood, stone, earthenware, or other
materials that might be made use of. But I prefer tinned iron or tinned
copper to any other metal, because plates of them can be made very thin, yet
of sufficient strength, and because being tinned, they give no stain. Such
dryer or dryers may be placed with its or their sides either paralell, vertical, or
inclined at any angle to the horizon, but in almost every case the horizontal
position will be found the most convenient. These dryers, whether of the
cylindric, box, or any other form, may be heated in any way the operator may
prefer, but heating by means of steam or hot air, especially the former, will, in
general, be found more convenient than by any other; and therefore I prefer
hollow metallic cylinders or boxes, or both, for most purposes, to any other
form. The construction, position, arrangement, and method of working the
drying apparatus admits of an endless variety, and may be changed to answer
circumstances, as the kind of goods intended to be dried by it, the form and
size of the building in which it is to be worked, the moving power to be
employed, which may be animal strength, wind, water, steam or any other;
but any person will easily comprehend how the apparatus may be constructed
and accommodated to answer the particular circumstances of his business and
manufactory, by attending to what is here subjoined. If cylinders, polygonal
prisms, are made use of, they may be of any diameter; but a diameter from
one to three feet will, in general, be found more convenient than a smaller.

page_text: This, however, must depend in some measure on the space or room which
the apparatus is intended to occupy, and on the kind of stuffs to be dried,
and by these also the number of cylinders, prisms, must be in a great
measure regulated, for it will be sometimes found convenient to increase the
diameter of the cylindric or other dryers, and to diminish their number,
and at other times to increase the number, and diminish the diameter;
but in general it will be found most convenient to use cylinders; prisms
of both large and small diameters, for by placing the small ones near to or at
a. distance from one another, either above or below, or at the sides of the large
cylinders, the stuffs to be dried will thereby be brought near to or into contact
with a greater or lesser extent of heating surface, at the same time that the
external air will be permitted to circulate more freely among the whole, to aid
the drying by spontaneous evaporation, while, at the same time, room will be
given for placing conveniently the boxes, &c. heated with air, so that they may
either emit heat or discharge air at pleasure, upon a greater or less surface of
the stuff to be dried. If, for instance, the goods to be dried be webs or piece*
goods, the cylinders, prisms, or other dryers, had best be of such a length as to
admit of the broadest goods passing along them without the necessity of being
folded in from side to side, as one of the principal advantages arising from my'
Invention is that of admitting the goods to be brought near to or into contact
with the heating surface or surfaces in single ply, though, if circumstances
require it, the stuff to be dried may be folded in from side to side, or from
end. to end, or more than one ply or web may be conducted along at the
same time; but, instead of rolling them upon the cylinders, as has hitherto been
the practice, by which the goods could not be dried equally without much
trouble and delay, as the moisture from the end of the web or piece of goods
first rolled on the cylinder had to find its way through all the outward circum-
volutions before it could escape, while the latter, being kept by the interior
circumvolutions from receiving heat directly from the cylinder, continued wet
some time after the end first rolled on was dry, I generally make my cylinders
or dryers to revolve on their axes rims, or otherwise, carrying the web or picce
of goods along with them, in the same manner as a rope or band passes along
a pully, or a series of pullies; and a good idea of this part of my Invention
may be formed by conceiving the webb or piece of goods, or a number of webs
or pieces of goods, tacked, pinned, or sewed together by their ends, as a broad.
belt or band, and the cylinders or hollow prisms, as so many pullies propor-
tionally large, along or in contact with the surfaces of which (or surface, if
only one be employed,) the belt or band thus formed is to pass; and it must
be obvious that when the operator wishes, instead of admitting the stuff to be

page_text: dried to come into actual contact with the heater, it may, in the manner just
described, be conducted along cold cylinders, but so placed that it shall be
admitted to come near to, in some places to touch the heater-or heaters..
That what has been stated may be perfectly clear, and the mode of combining.
and working such apparatus be distinctly comprehended, see Figure First, in
which A, B, C, and D represent a section of a series of cylinders, and a, b, c, d, e,
the web or stuff to be dried, continued from a to-e, passing over and in contact;
with the cylinder A, then passing on to the cylinder B, and under and in contact,
with it, and in like manner over the cylinder. C; and under the cylinder D. In.
the same, way, the web or webs or pieces of goods may be, made to pass along:
or in-contact with any greater or lesser number of cylinders.; and it need hardly
be observed that one cylinder only may be employed instead of a number, if it,
be of a proportionate diameter, or, in other words, present-a-sufficient surface;
to perform the work it is required to do; nor is it necessary to remark that the
arrangement of .cylinders represented-in Figure 1st is not the only, or in every
case the best that might be adopted. It is given, as I have before: observed,
merely to convey a correct idea of the general principle that the mode of.com-
bining and arranging a number of cylinders or polygonal prisms admits of
great variations, must be obvious to every one, and that to describe: tliem all
would be as useless as it is impossible. I shall, however, present a few which
I have found very convenient, and which, by proper modifications, and due
attention being paid to the different parts of- the present Specification, maybe
made to answer any persons particular line of business which may require.
such an apparatus.
In Figure 2d, the web or webs or pieces of goods, or stuff to be dried,
either singly, in succession, or folded, or, tacked, pinned,..or sewed, or held
together in any way, as had been before mentioned, passes along or, in: contact
with the surface of seven cylinders, but any number, more or less, may be
employed insted of seven: The webb passes from a over the cylinder: A, under.
the cylinder B, over the cylinder C, under the cylinder D,.over the cylinder E,
under the cylinder F, and over the cylinder G, and away 'to.b,. the power
employed, whatever it may be, to draw through the web or webs; or goods of
any kind. In this case, the cylinders are all nearly of a size, and are. set
pretty near each other, that the web or webs may be brought into contact with
a large portion of their surface, and so be the more speedily-dried. To answer
the same purpose, the arrangement represented in Figure 3d may also be
followed, where A, B, and C are large metallic cylinders, and a, b; c, d, e, f,
are small ones, in some cases made of wood, revolving on their axis rims, or
otherwise, as their principal intention is to make the goods embrace and come

page_text: in contact with as large a portion as possible of the surfaces of the large
cylinders, but I: in general make them hollow, and heat them like the large
ones. In this mode of arrangement, the course of the web or webs. or other
goods is under. the different large cylinders and over the small cylinders, in the
following order :-a, A, b; c, B, d; e, C, f; and, in the same way, the small
cylinders may be placed. below the large ones, or at their sides, or at any other
point or points around their circumference; but I find that it is most con-
venient in general to place them above the large cylinders. The stuff to be
dried may be introduced to, conducted along, and taken away from the drying
apparatus in a variety of ways. I shall state the method which, after a variety
of trials, I have found to be the most convenient, and generally useful. I coil
the stuff to be dried on a beam, which I call the giving beam, placed before
the apparatus, and I introduce the one end of it between two rollers, either.
plain, fluted, covered with cloth, or otherwise, as circumstances may require.
One of these rollers can be separated from the other, or made to pass against
it by weight, spring, screw, or any fit mechanical contrivance, so that when the
one is set in motion the other is moved by it. I place a pair of similar rollers
at the other end, in general, of the apparatus. These two pairs of rollers I
connect by a band, by a tooth and pinion shaft, or any other suitable contri-
vance, so that, when one roller in either set is made to move, the whole are put
in motion. The first pair take the stuff to be dried from the giving beam, and
introduce it to the drying apparatus; the second pair take it from the drying
apparatus. To one side of a slender rod, nearly as long as the dryers, I fix, by
small strings or otherwise, a few hooks; to the other end, a cord. The hooks
Ifix unto the end of the stuff before it come to the drying apparatus, having
previously threaded the cord through among the dryers, in the course which
the stuff to be dried is to pursue. I set the apparatus in niotion by the handle
affixed to one of the first or last pair of rollers, and I gently pull the cord in
order to bring away the cloth or stuff regularly as it leaves the giving beam, and
when the stuff following the rope-has arrived at or come through between the
last pair of rollers, I unhook the rod, and allowing the rollers to press against
each other by their weight-springs in the machine manages the business. itself,
the first pair of rollers taking the cloth from the giving beam, the second
taking it from the drying apparatus, and both keeping it so applied to the
apparatus that both stuff and apparatus move together. When the posterior end
of the stuff is about to approach the dryers; I fix to it a hooked rod and rope
similar to the former, which rod and rope follow the cloth along the dryers;
and when the posterior end of the cloth has arrived at the last rollers, I unhook
it and fix the hooks of my first rods to the hooks of the last, and reversing the

page_text: motion of the machine, make my last rope bring back my first, so that its hooked
rod shall be ready to receive or to conduct the next beam full of cloth. The
stuff when dried may be taken away from the last rollers by the hand, or
allowed to fall into baskets, boxes, or made to coil on a beam moved by one of
the last pair of rollers, or otherwise. The cylinders or other driers are more
.conveniently heated, as I have before observed, by steam or hot air than by
any other means. Any person may follow his own mind in this; but when I
intend to heat my dryers by steam, I gain my end very well by connecting
them by means of pipes, tubes, or the like with a pot, kettle, or boiler, in which
water is kept heated up to the vaporific point. The manner in which, and the
place where, these pipes may be conducted, with the cylinders, prisms, boxes, or
other heaters, may be varied to fit different circumstances, as the shape, position,
motion, and arrangement of the dryers; but as I commonly find it most con-
venient to place part at least of my dryers horizontal, and to heat them in
general with steam, I usually introduce the nosles or ends of my steam pipes
into the extremities of the gudgeons at one end of my heaters, which gudgeons
must of course be hollow, and I make the joining as steam-tight as I can, by
chambering, stuffing, and caping the ends of the gudgeons, or otherwise the
water formed in the cylinders prisms, by the condensed steam may be let out
or conducted away in any manner that according to circumstances may be
found most convenient; but as I have found that the letting it off into the open
air by perforations, either in the ends or elsewhere of the cylinders, is not only
attended with a loss of steam, which blows out through the appertures, but that
the hot water which should be saved rises in steam, damping the stuff' to be
dried, and rusting the apparatus, I usually lift it up from the bottom of the
heaters by means of gutters, tubes, or pipes, which might be made spiral or or
otherwise, and I make the ends of said gutters, tubes, or pipes terminate at or
in the hollow pipe or gudgeons in the end of the cylinder, &c. opposite to that
at which the steam entered; and the nosles or ends of these gudgeons I make
to enter into the mouths of pipes or tubes, rendered steam-tight as before, and
the other end of these tubes is received into or soldered into the general
receiving waste tube that conducts the whole of the condensed water back to
the boiler; by which I find that there is a saving of fuel, that the appartment is
less heated, that the air is less loaded with..moisture, that the goods are less
damped by steam, and the apparatus less exposed to rust; nevertheless, a small
hole, to which a plug or stop-cock pipe is accurately fitted, will be found very
convenient, placed somewhere generally in the ends of the dryers, heated, by
steam, through which the air or water that may be in them may be allowed
to flow off before working. While working I usually keep these appertures

page_text: accurately shut. I also at times fit up the steam pipes with stop-cocks, by
which can regulate the quantity of steam to be admitted; or I .exclude
it altogether from some of the cylinders; by which means I can graduate the
drying of the stuff's passing along, or near to, or in contact with, the dryers
5 to any degree I please. When I heat my dryers by hot air I either
admit into them air that has passed through the fire, or air that is only
heated; I prefer the latter, for it is difficult to exclude the smoke, and even
the flame, from entering the dryers along with the burned air; but I find that
I can manage air that is only heated very easily, and I cither avail myself of its
heat along, which readily passes through the metal of the dryers into the stuff
to be dried, or, which I find to be much better, I allow it to issue from the
hollow dryers through numerous small holes or apertures against the surface of
the cloth or stuff to be dried; so that varying the shape, position, and arrange-
ment of my air-heated dryers, I can at pleasure direct the currents of the
heated air against any particular part of the stuff to be dried. In general I do
not find it necessary to make these air-heated dryers move, but that. may
be done if occasion require. If they be not intended to move, they may be
placed either above or below or at the sides of the stuff to be dried before it
arrive at the revolving dryers, or when it has arrived at them, or where it is in
its transit from one of them to another, or after it has left them altogether,.
as at g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, or otherwise; but in general I find they answer best
when placed as at k, m. In drying particular stuffs, such as cotton, wool,
silk, hair, and in general all kinds of materials that cannot easily be con-
ducted along the revolving dryers, and especially when it is proper to dry such
materials in bulk, I find it convenient to fit up my air-heated dryers with
brims raised or otherwise made to project from them so as to contain the stuff
to be dried placed opposite or near to the appertures through which the heated
air issues; and I occasionally stir up or teazle out the substance to be dried,
not only to permit the heated air to pass through it with greater facility, but
to come into contact with it in any points by this exposure of many new
surfaces in a shorter space of time. With respect to the furnace, the flues, or
the wooden frame, nothing need be sayd, for the manner of doing them cannot
possibly present any difficulty to a common bricklayer or carpenter.
My Invention above specified is applicable to the drying (either compleatle
or to any wished for degree between the extremes of wet and what is generally
called dry), of flax, hemp, wool, hair, cotton, silk, or of mixtures of all, or
several, or any of the above raw materials; and also to the drying, as above, of
yarn or thread made of flax, hemp, wool, hair, cotton, silk, or of mixtures of all,

page_text: Taken and acknowledged by the said Alexander Bryce, at Edinburgh,
the Twenty-fourth day of April, One thousand eight hundred and two, before
Rich Bannatine, one of the Magistrates of Edin', & Justice of Peace for
the City and County of Edinburgh.
Inrolled the Thirtieth day of Anvil in the voor above written