A NEW MACHINE FOR MAKING RIVERS NAVIGABLE
Year: 1758

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, 1, THOMAS
BRIDGE, of Tewkesbury, in the County of Gloucester, Gentleman, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Second, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twelfth day of January, in the thirty-first year of His
reign, did give and grant unto me, the said Thomas Bridge, His especial
licence that I, the said Thomas Bridge, during the term of years therein
expressed, should and lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A NEW
MACHINE FOR MAKING RIVERS NAVIGABLE;" in which said Letters Patent there
is contained a provisoe, obliging me, the said Thomas Bridge, under my hand
and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of the said Invention,
and how the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within four kalendar months after the date of the said
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto had)
may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said provisoe, I, the said
Thomas Bridge, do hereby declare, that my said new machine for making
rivers navigable is described in the plan thereof hereunto annexed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Bridge, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fourth day of May, One thousand seven hundred
and fifty-eight.
AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the said Fourth day of April, in the
year above written, the aforesaid Thomas Bridge came before our said Lord
the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the above Instrument and Plan
annexed, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Instrument aforesaid was stampt, according to
the tenor of the Statute made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King
and Queen William & Mary of England, and so forth.
Inrolled the Eighth day of May, in the year aforesaid.

page_text: There is just such an other at the opposite end to be used us occasion requires
E is a Cradle hung to the Rope I' for drawing up Goods. The other end of this
Rope goes round the double groov'd wheel & which is fixed on the axis H. On
this axis is fixed another wheel I. which is single groov'd and is in diameter
to the former as 3 to 5, or so One end of the Rope K goes round this wheel, and
the other end is tied to the Bucket I below the floor in the bottom of this bricket
is a valve M opening upward,.
A rill of water, running under the floor N falls through an opening at 0.
into the Bucket I which when it is full descends to P. by its weight and brings
up the Cradle E loaded with goods, when the bucket has descended to Pits valve
strikes against a pin which raises the valve and so lets the water run out of the
Bucket whilst the Cradle is unloading: and when the Bucket is empty, the
unloaded Cradle descends for more goods and brings up the Bucket to be filled
again, which then brings up the loaded Cradle as before.
Lest the Bucket should lose its water before the Cradle is emptied, there is a
catch R which hinders the going back of the wheel G and so stops the descent of
the Cradle till the catch be pulled out of the wheel by the Rope R.
There is a Windlass S to be turned by the handle I to assist in bringing up the
Cradle when it may happen to be too heavy for the Bucket Is .