IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR HEATING, DRYING, AND COOKING
Year: 1874

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George Lamb Scott and Illius
Augustus Timmis at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 26th October 1874.
WC, GEORGE LAMB SCOTT and ILLIUS AUGUSTUS TIMMIS, both of
Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, do hereby declare the nature
of the said Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR HEATING, DRYING, AND
COOKING," to be as follows:-
-
This Invention is applicable for all heating, cooking, and drying
purposes, wherein the heat is not required to excced 212° Fahrenheit,
and consists in the use or employment for such purpose of hermetically.
sealed tubes containing only a very small quantity of water in proportion
to the area of the tube, say, for example, about one-fiftieth, or even con-
siderably less. For instance, take any convenient length of ordinary
wrought iron, copper, or other hydraulic tubing having one end-hér-
metically closed by a plug or otherwise, and then introduce into this
túbe a very small quantity of water, equal only to (say) one-fiftieth of
its internal area, and then keeping this end downwards plug and weld or
otherwise hermetically close the other end, and this forms one of our

page_text: hermetically sealed hydraulic tubes. If this tube be now slightly inclined
from the horizontal position, so that the water lodges in the lower end,
and if the heat of a fire or gas or other flame be applied to this
end, so as to vaporize the water contained therein, this heated vapor
gradually ascends to the other end of the tube till the whole tube
attains a temperature of about two hundred and twelve degrees, and it
will retain this temperature so long as there is sufficient heat at the
lower end to vaporize the water. A peculiar feature of these tubes is
that however the internal heat at the lower end of the tube may be
intensified the tube itself never exceeds the temperature of boiling water,
and hence there is no possibility of fire or explosion, as the pressure in
the interior never approaches a dangerous point, and they may be used
for any heating, drying, or cooking purposes without the slightest danger.
As the tube never exceeds this temperature it does not burn away at the
cnd exposed to the fire or flame, and as the tube is hermetically sealed
no vapor escapecs, and if the fire or flame is removed the tube cools and
the water condenses again, and thus the water does not require to be
removed; the interior of the pipe also does not become corroded.
The length and diameter of the tubes, and the number of them
employed, and their method of arrangement, as well as the amount of
fuel, will of course be varied to suit different circumstances, the amount
of water being in all cases proportioned to the length and diameter of
the tubes, and the quantity of fuel or flame required being only just so
much as will suffice to vaporize the small amount of water at the lower
end of the tube, which may for convenience be made in a spherical or
bulbous form.
It will be evident that by a suitable arrangement of these tubes they
may be employed for any drying, heating, or cooking operations required
in manufactures or for domestic purposes, and also for heating public
and other buildings, rooms, conservatories, steam and sailing vessels,
railway carriages, and so forth, provided always that a greater heat than
two hundred and twelve degrees is not required, the amount of fuel
being reduced to an absolute minimum, and the expenditure of water
being practically nil.