THE PRODUCTION OR MAKING OF A GREEN COLOUR, AND THE APPLICATION THEREOF TO VARIOUS USEFUL PURPOSES
Year: 1813

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALEXIS-
DELAHANTE, of Great Marlborough Street, in the Parish of St James's, West-
minster, do send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent 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 Third day of March, in
the fifty-third year of His reign, did give and grant unto me, the said Alexis
Delahante, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His special licence, full.
power, sole priviledge and authority, that I, the said Alexis Delahante, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, 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, a certain Invention
communicated to me by a learned foreigner residing in parts abroad, of "THE
PRODUCTION OR MAKING OF A GREEN COLOUR, AND THE APPLICATION THEREOF TO
VARIOUS USEFUL PURPOSES;" in which Letters Patent there is contained a proviso,
obliging me, the said Alexis Delahante, under my hand and seal, to cause a
particular description or explanation or communication of the said discovery
or Invention, and in what manner the same is to be used, to be enrolled in
His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six months next and imme-.
diately 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.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Alexis Delahante, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, ands

page_text: manner of performing the same, are fully described and ascertained in manner
following, that is to say:-
I mix the nitrate of copper with half its weight, or nearly that quantity or
proportion, of boracic acid, or the acid which is obtained by well-known
processes from borax or other borates, and I expose the mixture to the action
of fire in a crucible or vessel of due size to allow. for swelling or boiling up,
and as soon as the mass has acquired a red heat I do take the same from the
fire, and I do farther declare that the product or compound (consisting of
the oxide of copper, together with the acid of borax, and a portion of nitric
acid,) is the green colour required. Or otherwise, in the humid way, I take
the sulphate of copper, commonly called blue vitriol, and an equal or nearly
equal weight of the borate of soda, commonly called borax, and I dissolve each
of the said ingredients in seperatè vessels, in a sufficient quantity of water for
that purpose over a fire, and when both solutions are at or very near the
boiling heat I mix the same together; or otherwise the solutions and mixture
may be made cold and afterwards heated, but the process first described is
greatly to be preferred; and thereupon I suffer the mixture to cool and
deposit the colour, which will subside in the form of a sediment; and tho said
colour, after having been well washed or elutriated and well dried, and lastly
exposed to a red heat, will be ready for the market. And I do further declare
that I do make my said colour by combining the acid of borax with the oxide
of copper and a portion of acid by other methods, which are well known to
chemists by the general denomination of indirect methods, and by means of
salts containing copper and any other acid, not herein-before mentioned, and
that the distinctive character of my said Invention of a green colour is, that
the same is composed of the boracic acid and the oxide of copper along with
a portion of acid from the combination with which the copper is supplied, and
that the said colour or compound or combination can and may with facility,
and without farther instruction than are herein and hereby given, be made
by any person accustomed to chemical operations, and acquainted with the
elementary principles or knowledge thereof; and farther, that the said colour
or compound or combination may be produced along with other materials,
which will occasion varieties in the tint of the same, to the addition of which
other ingredients I have no other claim than so far as the said colour or com-
pound or combination of boracic acid and the oxide of copper with acid as
aforesaid, may form any part or the principal or necessary ingredient therein
or thereof; and farther, that altho" in the operations or processes herein described
or referred, there may be in strictness of fact a certain degree of oxidation
peculiar to the copper, and there may also be a certain proportion or part of

page_text: the other ingredients or chemical principles or component parts made use of
and contained in the vessels, which, notwithstanding the effects of what has
been called elective attraction, may enter into and continue in union with my
said colour or compound or combination, and constitute, part of the same,
according to the doctrines, theories, or inductions of the learned writers upon
chemical affinities, who have treated upon this subject and upon such or the
like operations; yet I have held it to be altogether unnecessary to enter into
discussions or explanations respecting points of such minuteness, difficulty,
and uncertainty, and have accordingly, in preference, confined myself to the
plain and simple expression and description of the effects and circumstances
upon which my said Invention is established, and may be performed without
requiring the knowledge and consideration of the said doctrines, theories,
inductions, or other matters or things herein last mentioned or referred to.
And, lastly, I do declare that my said colour may be ground, mixed, and used
with oil or varnish, or size or gum, or any other of the adhesive fluids commonly
used for painting, and also in the customary methods with vitrifiable matters
for enamel, glass, porcellain, pottery, and other paintings which require to be
fixed and completed in the furnace.
In witness whereof, I, the said Alexis Delahante, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this day, Thirty-first of August, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and thirteen.
ALLAIS DELAHANIE.
(L.S.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Thirty-first day of August,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Alexis Delahante came before our
Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid,
and all and every thing therein contained, in form above written. And also
the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute
in that case made and provided.