THE MANUFACTURE AND USEFUL APPLICATIONS OF CERTAIN BITUMINOUS PRODUCTS AND COMPOUNDS OF BITUMEN WITH OTHER MATTERS, AND TREATING AND APPLYING CERTAIN NATURAL BITUMEN OR BITUMENS FOR SUCH PURPOSES,
Year: 1859

page_text: .PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Michael Henry at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 1st
February 1859. A communication from Moissant and Company,..
residing at Havannah.
I, MICHAEL HENRY, of 84, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent Agent,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "THE MANUFACTURE
AND USEFUL APPLICATIONS OF CERTAIN BITUMINOUS PRODUCTS AND COMPOUNDS OF
BITUMEN WITH OTHER MATTERS, AND TREATING AND APPLYING CERTAIN NATURAL
BITUMEN OR BITUMENS FOR SUCH PURPOSES," communicated to me from Moissant
and Company, residing at Havannah, to be as follows:-
This Invention relates, firstly, to the treatment and application of certain
natural bitumen or bitumens found in the West Indies, of a description called
chapapote," and it also relates to the manufacture and useful applications of
the products thereof, and compounds of the same, with other matters.
By the combination of such bitumen with other substances certain com-
pounds are obtained applicable to manufacturing and useful purposes gene-
rally for which bituminous mastics or cements are applicable.
The chapapote may be combined with inert matters selected according to
the intended use or application of the compounds, freeing it by the application
of heat from such portions as would interfere with its due utilization in
order to produce compositions suitable as substitutes for ordinary bituminous
mastics.

page_text: In performing the process in certain cases, crude resin oil, or other
empyreumatic oil, which will not evaporate under 250° centig., is added to the
bitumen. In the process preferred, the bitumen is melted a little at a time
in a close furnace boiler, and when sufficiently fluid, the heat is reduced so as
to allow it to simmer, stirring it from time to time. Resin or other oil, if
required, is added to it, the temperature raised, and inert substances combined
with it in another boiler and furnace, and the compound poured into moulds
powdered with clay. The inert or earthy substances should be calcareous
matters pulverized and well dried, and combined with a proportion of clay.
The volatile matters given off may be collected, refrigerated, and condensed.
The following are formulæ of such mastics:-
No. 1. Elastic.
Chapapote
-
30 parts.
Resin &c. oil 10
Inert matters 60
وو
"
No. 2.-Resisting.
No. 3.-Hard.
35 parts.
40 parts.
5
0
"
27
60
60
"
"
About half part of tow waste, old rope, or similar fibrous material may be
added to the inert ingredients to obtain an elastic mastic.
By subjecting chapapote to distillation products are obtained applicable for
the manufacture of hydro-carburetted gases for lighting, for dissolving india-
'rubber and other resins, and manufacturing varnish, for preparing paraffine and
stearine, for greasing, lubricating, or "oiling" machinery and parts thereof,
fire-arms and other articles, for treating leather in order to render it flexible
and impervious, &c., &c., and the residua may be utilized as fuel.
For collecting the products of volatilization and condensation, an apparatus
may be used very similar to a gas apparatus, consisting of a furnace with
retorts, having tubes fitted near the head passing directly to and sloping off
towards inclined receivers below them, discharging into a column receiving
cold water from a perforated vessel at top to refrigerate and condense the
contents, which fall into a receiver below, separating according to their
lensities, and are drawn off accordingly. On the receiver is a tube to carry
off the non-condensable gases which may be consumed in the furnace or
employed for lighting.
On being withdrawn from the receiver the oils are washed in sulphuric
acid and in water, and (the last water being well separated,) sifted torrefied
clay is thrown on the oils, the whole stirred up, left to settle, drawn off and
gradually redistilled by surcharged steam. The oils are drawn off, say at two
different degrees, as at 65° and 37° of the centesimal alcoholometer, and the
residuum removed before solidifying; they may be treated with clay, and
redistilled if desired. The raw oils, and those given off by the first operation,

page_text: may be used for the manufacture of illuminating gas without requiring purifi-
cation. Oils drawn off at 82° may be used for lighting in lamps similar to
those in which Schiston's oil is burnt for dissolving india-rubber and resins
and the manufacture of varnish. The second quality alone, or combined with
half the quantity of fixed fatty oils or oleine (which it will readily dissolve),
may be used for lubricating, cleaning, rubbing up, or oiling parts of
machinery, arms, and metal articles, and the residue of rectification may be
used for the manufacture of cements or mastics, and when combined warm
with coarse fatty matters for lubricating axles, gearing, and other castings, and
likewise for fuel. Stearine, paraffine, and fatty and lubricating materials may
be extracted from chapapote.
The empyreumatic oils of Cuba asphaltes may be applied in the manufacture
of stearic candles; in a hot state they dissolve fatty bodies, leaving the
concrete compounds to cool and crystallize, and keeping the accompanying
oleates in solution. By the combination of the asphaltic oil with any fatty
body in a hot state, two products are obtained, one composed of the oil, and
the liquid portion of the fatty body forms a lubricating compound which
prevents oxydation of inetals when applied thereto, the other product con-
sisting of a concrete fatty salt, is produced by dissolving the fatty matter in
steam-beated vats, adding the oil, and allowing it to boil at a gentle heat,
and obtaining complete crystallization of the concrete salt within the mass by
cooling, for which purpose the vats may be surrounded by bad conductors.
Each apparatus may consist of three vats, arranged for the same charge of
fluid to act regularly and consecutively on their contents; in the first, the
pure oil coming in contact with a twice crystallized stearine, and carrying off
thence the feeble portions of oleine which it may have there dissolved, passes
into the second vessel, combined with singly crystallized stearine, and then
into the third, where it comes in contact with the fatty body itself. The
liquid within which crystallization has taken place is kept in closed reservoirs
till limpid and purified, while the solid portions may be pressed into cakes
and the liquid run out, and the residua of purification used in the following
process:-The cakes are freed from traces of bituminous oil by exposure to
air in a divided state or by nitric acid, or otherwise softened by steam cleared
by tartaric acid and moulded, or the concrete fatty acid may be removed by
saponification, using equal asphalt oil to the oleine supposed in the fatty body.