IMPROVED MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING MOTIVE POWER foring
Year: 1857

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Middleship at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 31st December
1857.
I, WILLIAM MIDDLESHIP, of Grove Terrace, South Grove, Mile End, in the
County of Middlesex, Officer of Her Majesty's Customs, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR
OBTAINING MOTIVE POWER," to be as follows:-
"
18
My Invention of improved machinery or apparatus for obtaining motive
power" consists principally of a wheel of any suitable diameter, and mounted
on a spindle which turns in bearings; the rotation of this wheel is to be
effected and kept up by maintaining a weight of water always on one side of
the wheel, or if the wheel should be immersed in water the same object may
be effected by the inflation of chambers with air; the ascending power of the
air chambers being sufficient to communicate rotating power to the wheel, as
the air chambers will be inflated on one side only of the wheel. Whether
water or air be employed as the motive agent, the chambers, which must be
arranged round the periphery of the wheel, must be collapsible, so as to admit
of their alternately receiving the air or water, and allowing the same to be
expelled when required. I prefer to make the chambers in the form of a
wedge, but other forms may be employed if preferred.
D
As respects working the wheel by water power, on the right-hand side of the

page_text: wheel the collapsible chambers are filled with water, and as they communicate
by means of tubes with similar chambers on the opposite side of the wheel, it
will be understood that when the wheel begins to rotate, in consequence of the
weight of water on one side of it, the collapsible vessels which are capable of
compression are brought into contact with a pressing wheel mounted in
bearings below the water wheel. The pressing wheel is moved by the friction
of contact only, and the collapsible chambers being pressed between the two
wheels, the water is forced out of the lower ends up into the opposite chamber
above, thus rendering the weight on the right side of the wheel the same as before
the movement took place; the emptied chamber is prevented from filling again
until it arrives at the top and is ready to pass to the right side of the axis.
The motion is continued by each chamber being successively brought down
and compressed, and the water therefrom forced into the opposite chamber
above in regular succession. The reflow of the water from the upper into the
lower chamber, after passing the point of compression, is to be prevented by a
button turned by a pin, or any other suitable contrivance, which must be
brought into operation just as the chamber is emptied. The button or other
contrivance which closes the collapsible chambers may be removed by a similar
pin when the chamber reaches the upper part of the wheel to be refilled.
Assuming that the weight of ten pounds of water on the right side of the
wheel would be sufficient to force up one pound to the required opposite point,
any additional number of chambers for which there might be space left
would give an increased motive power..
The principle, when applied to air working a wheel under water, is to be
effected simply by reversing the position of the wheels and substituting air
as the motive power for compression downwards to the chamber at the bottom
of the wheel, so that by its buoyancy it may in its tendency to ascend to the
surface of the water pull round the wheel..