A MACHINE WHICH WILL SHEW THE LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE AT SEA, SERVING ALSO FOR WEIGING ANY OBJECT, FOR MEASURING SPACE OR THE COURSE OF A SHIP, AND TIME, SHEWING AND KEEPING ACCOUNT UPON DIALS, AND UPON COSMOGRAPHICAL COLUMNS, WHICH ARE PART OF SUCH MACHINE, AND ALSO SHEWING THE LEEWAY OF A SHIP, PART OF WHICH MACHINE MAY ALSO BE APPLIED TO OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES
Year: 1807

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME; I, CHARLES
GRANT Viscount DE VAUX, of Elizabeth Street, Hans Square, in the Parish of
Saint Luke, Chelsea, and County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
Iis Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Ninth day of December;
in the forty-eighth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Charles Grant Viscount de Vaux, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Charles Grant
Viscount de Vaux, my exors, adññors, and assigns, during the term of years
therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention
of "A MACHINE WHICH WILL SHEW THE LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE AT SEA, SERVING
ALSO FOR WEIGING ANY OBJECT, FOR MEASURING SPACE OR THE COURSE OF A SHIP,
AND TIME, SHEWING AND KEEPING ACCOUNT UPON DIALS, AND UPON COSMOGRAPHICAL
COLUMNS, WHICH ARE PART OF SUCH MACHINE, AND ALSO SHEWING THE LEEWAY OF
A SHIP, PART OF WHICH MACHINE MAY ALSO BE APPLIED TO OTHER USEFUL PURPOSES;"
in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the
said Charles Grant Viscount de Vaux, by an instrument in writing under my
hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar month after.
the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation
bring thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Charles Grant Viscount de Vaux, do hereby declare that my said Invention
is described in and by the Drawings hereunto annexed, and the following
description thereof (that is to say):-
1st, the hydroscope itself, which is a double box, suspended one in the other,
and supported by an axis or horizontal pivot N, hollowed in the inside, which
keeps the two boxes perpendicular in all the motions of the ship. The inside
box Z contains a sort of clepsydra, or double sand glass, furnished with one or
two perpendicular scales 9, 9; by means of these scales, which cover the two
sand glasses O and P, the weight of the sand falling in due proportion on the
bottom one, acts upon a spiral spring fixed perpendicularly in the top of the
largest box, to which it is joined by some wires X, X, and a hook placed in
the center of each scale. By these means the weight of the sand fallen in a
certain time expresses (upon a dial t, in front of the top box, and divided into
sixty parts or minutes of degree) the quantity of miles run by the ship, accord-
ing to its velocity. But the continual variation of that velocity is expressed
also upon another dial L, placed on the side of the frame V, which supports
the double box, because a globe A, six inches diameter, and of an equal weight
with the same cube of water, is plunged in the sea, the medium of the ship.
This globe A has a communication to the inside of a room C in the ship
(where the hydroscope stands), by a cord or chain B, through a cylinder E; the
cord or chain, passing over a pully or crank F, enters in the tube or pivot N
of the boxes Y and Z. In this tube the chain joins a band or rod of brass m,
which passes through the brass collar K, in which the sand descends from the
glass to the glass P, vice versa. This band of brass m has a longitudinal
opening equal to the extent of the attraction of the globe upon another spiral
spring D, placed horizontally in the same tube, on the other side of the brass
collar K; so that the greatest velocity of a ship being supposed to be twelve
miles in an hour, the ship going at that rate, a globe of six inches diameter
cannot receive in the water a greater resistance than the weight of twelve
pounds, or one pound per mile, as the spiral spring shews upon its rod. The
rod of the spiral expressing twelve pounds, or twelve miles, not coming out
of the spring more than four tenths of an inch for that weight, or for that
resistance of the water upon the globe, than the longitudinal opening made in the
above band or rod m (which, as I have said, passes through the brass neck or
communication between the two glasses), does not let the sand pass or fall, but
according to the velocity of the ship, and stops it entirely if the ship is at rest.
But if this machine or hydroscope is used on land instead of the sea, or in a
ship, merely for a timekeeper, then the sand will always run at the same rate,

page_text: and express regularly the time upon the interior circle of the dial E, divided in
twenty-four parts, and it will be sufficient to wind it, that is to say, to turn the
box or clepsydra, every twenty-four hours.
2dly, by the same principles of this weighing clock, the same dial L, which
serves on the side of the hydroscope for weighing the resistance of the fluid, or
the run of a ship; if this dial is taken separately, with its spiral spring, it is
a convenient machine to use, instead of scales, for weighing any goods or com-
modities in a family house or in any shop. It requires no weights, nor any
other scales. It never entangles like the scales, and is as sure and convenient
as it is ornamental. On the other hand, this simple machine, the dial and
spring, will become an excellent perpetual log when the globe is used with it,
and with a wheelwork like a jack, put in motion by a spring or a weight, as
mentioned in the second part of my hydroscope (Plate I., Fig. 4). This
same jack or wheelwork can serve to measure the strength of the wind, in
which case the above clepsydra, Article First, or sand clock, would be used
separately as a good timekeeper.
3dly, the columns W, W, or frame annexed to the above parts of this Inven-
tion, being the one terrestrial and the other celestical, they serve to mark the
situation of the ship in latitude and longitude upon the first relatively to the
carth, and upon the second relative to the sky; consequently they offer an
useful and interesting journal during all the voyage, if care is taken to fix each
of the cylinders of these columns every day with a pin or screw, according to
the result of the above machine, to which these columns belong.
4thly, the third part of this Invention is the elastic cable and remorator, seen
Plate II., for stoping the ship or boat in a current at sea, in order to calcu-
late the alteration that such current can occasion on the course of the ship, as
these elastic cables or remorators can be used in a small scale, with a boat
as well as with the ship. It is always easy to know, by these means, what is
the strength and direction of a current, if any, and to calculate the course of
the ship accordingly.
5ly as it remains to deduce from the course of a ship another effect called
the leeway, this effect is accounted for in this Invention for the longitude by
the means of a little glass tube (Fig. 7, Plate I.), such as for a barometer.
This glass tube is fixed across the ship to a little opening or valve on each
side, very little under the level of the water. The center of that tube rises
perpendicularly along the frame of the hydroscope, where a scale, graduated,
expresses the degree of the leeway of the ship by the water rising in that
perpendicular glass tube in the proportion of that effect called the leeway, then
it is easy to join this account to the precedent.

page_text: In fine, as this combined machine can be put in motion by water, as well as
by sand or wheels, the same means I employ to measure the leeway of a ship
can serve to measure her direct velocity or course, if a little trap or valve is
adapted to the opening made on the sides of the ship for the small tube of the
leeway.
N.B. It is by the reunion of these means, on the same principles and on
the same plan (which is the object of this Patent), that I demonstrate how
the longitude and latitude of a ship can be found.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Grant Viscount de Vaux, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Seventh day of January, One
thousand eight hundred and eight.
CHARLES GRANT VISCOUNT DE VAUX. (L.S.)
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Seventh day of January,
in the year of our Lord 1808, the aforesaid Charles Grant Viscount de Vaux
came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the
Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified,
in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt
according to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Eighth day of January, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and eight.