CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANU- FACTURE OF SOAP
Year: 1838

page_text: DUNN'S
SPECIFICATION.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ARTHUR
DUNN, late of Stamford Hill, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, and
now Chemist to the Real Del Monte Mining Company, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Twenty-fourth day of August, in the second year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Arthur Dunn, Her especial license, that I, the said Arthur Dunn, my exors,
admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Arthur Dunn, my.exors,
admors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and at all times 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, and also in all Her Majesty's Colonies and
Plantations abroad, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANU-
FACTURE OF SOAP;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, obliging
me, the said Arthur Dunn, by an instrument in writing under my hand and
seal, particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to
be inrolled in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said recited Letters
Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully
and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Arthur Dunn, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention to consist,
first, with reference to soaps generally, in boiling or heating the ingredients of
which they are to be composed or manufactured in close or covered steam-

page_text: tight vessels, so that the saponifying process may be performed under steam pres-
sure and at temperatures exceeding the ordinary boiling points of the aforesaid
ingredients, when they are mixed together and exposed to heat in open vessels
in the ordinary process of soap boiling; and, secondly, with reference to those
soaps in particular of which silica is to form a component part. My Invention
consists in placing silica, or materials containing silica, in the high-pressure
boiler, with the other ingredients herein-after stated, or in dissolving silica with
caustic alkaline lees in a steam-tight vessel or digester at a high temperature
and under steam pressure, and thus producing a silicate which may be mixed
afterwards with the ingredients herein-before alluded to (when required to
make silica soap), as herein-after described.
And whereas the manner in which my said Invention is to be performed is as
follows: I take the ingredients for making soap, and in the usual proportion,
say, for instance, in order to make common yellow soap, seven hundredweight of
tallow, three hundredweight of palm oil, three hundredweight of resin, and about
one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty gallons of caustic soda lees,
specific gravity about 1·16, or containing 11.5 per cent. of real soda, and place
the whole in a steam boiler, such as shewn by the Drawing annexed. The boiler
should be furnished with a man-hole saftety-valve, and all the ordinary append-
ages of such an apparatus with a thermometer plunged in a mercury chamber.
There should be a feed pipe as at A, and a discharge pipe as at C, through
which the soap may be discharged into a pan or frame, as at D. The fire
being lighted, the pressure on the valve should be such as to allow the tem-
perature in the boiler to rise gradually to about three hundred and ten degrees
of Fahrenheit; when it has remained at this height for about one hour the
ingredients may be discharged from the boiler into the pan or frame and
allowed to cool down, when the process of saponification will be found to have
taken place. I will now proceed to describe the manner in which I dissolve the
silica when I am about to make silica soap with silica in that state, and which
I do previous to adding it to the other ingredients, whereby I am enabled to
determine the quantity of silica to be contained in the soap, or sufficiently so
for all practical purposes. This which constitutes my second head of improve-
ment consists simply in putting silica, whether in the state of ordinary black
flints broken to the size of half a cubic inch or thereabouts, or in combination
with other substances, with caustic alkaline lees in the proportion of about
one hundredweight of silica to one hundred gallons of lees of the specific
gravity of about 1·16 in a steam-tight boiler with apparatus such as herein-
before described, and heating the same to a temperature above the ordinary
boiling point of such lees (say, about three hundred and ten degrees of

page_text: Fahrenheit,) keeping the ingredients under steam pressure of about fifty or
seventy pounds on the square inch for about three or four hours, when it is
discharged and cooled down, and I obtain a silicate of soda or potash,
according to the alkali used in solution, the strength of which can be ascer-
tained by chemical analysis; and this solution, when silica soap is to be made,
may be added in any quantity to the other ingredients when in the pan or
frame, after they have undergone the saponifying process before described,
and before they cool down, dependent on the per-centage of silica required to
be used in the soap.
Now, whereas I claim as my Invention, first, performing the saponifying
process of soap making, by heating the ingredients of which the soap is to be
composed in a steam-tight boiler, as aforesaid, at the increased temperature
aforesaid, and under pressure as aforesaid; and, secondly, digesting silica in a
similar boiler at a high temperature and under pressure, as aforesaid, and then
mixing it with the other ingredients in the pan or frame, as aforesaid, whereby
I am enabled, in the first case, to cause the perfect combination of the
ingredients required for making soap in a much shorter time, with less
waste, and at a less expense than heretofore; and in the second case, to cause
silica to combine more readily with soap, and to ascertain more accurately the
quantity of silica to be contained in silica soap; and such my Invention being
to the best of my knowledge and belief entirely new, and never before used
in that part of Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
called England, Her Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
I do hereby declare this to be my Specification of the said Invention, where-
fore I do hereby claim to maintain exclusive right and privilege to my said
Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said Arthur Dunn, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Thirty-first day of December, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.
ember 1838, at Mexico,
Consul's
Seal.
A.
Before me,
JOHN PARKINSON,
Consul.
This is the Specification referred to in the affidavit of John Smith, sworn

page_text: JOHN SMITH, of Trinity Chambers, Water Lane, Tower Street, in the City
of London, Custom House Agent, maketh oath and saith, that he knows John
Parkinson, Esquire, and that lie is Her Majesty's Consul, residing at Mexico;
and this deponent further saith, be is acquainted with the character and manner
of handwriting of the said John Parkinson, and that the name or signature
"John Parkinson," set and subscribed to the Specification of Arthur Dunn
hereunto annexed and marked with the letter A, as of the person taking the
acknowledgment of the said Specification by the said Arthur Dunn, is of
the proper handwriting of the said John Parkinson, as this deponent verily
believes.