CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN BANDS, STRAPS, AND CORDS FOR DRIVING MACHINERY, AND OTHER MECHANICAL PURPOSES
Year: 1842

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
HANCOCK, junior, of Amwell Street, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman,
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 Third day of December, in the sixth year of Her reign, did, for
Herself, her Heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said William
Hancock, junior, my exors, admors, and assigns, Her especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said William Hancock,
junior, my exors, admors, and assigns, and such others as I, the said William
Hancock, junior, my exors, admors, or assigns, should at any time agree with,
and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term of
years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within that part of Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland called England, Her Dominion of Wales, and the Town of Berwick-
upon-Tweed, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN BANDS, STRAPS, AND
CORDS FOR DRIVING MACHINERY, AND OTHER MECHANICAL PURPOSES;" in which
said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, that I, the said William
Hancock, junior, shall cause a particular description of the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, under my
hand and seal, to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of Chancery within
six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part

page_text: 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
William Hancock, junior, do hereby declare that the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully
described and ascertained in and by the following Specification thereof, that
is to say:
My Invention consists in making bands, straps, and cords for the driving of
machinery, and other mechanical purposes, of the several varieties following:-
First, to make a band or strap (meaning thereby a flat band or strap)
which will be so flexible as to bend in all directions without rupture, and at the
same time be stronger than any other flexible band or strap now in use, I
take two strips of animal hide, or leather, or woollen cloth, or any other
suitable material, and of any required breadth, and I lay between them thin
veneers of ash-wood, lance-wood, or any other species of wood possessing flexi-
bility and toughness, or sheets of canvas, or sheets of strong hempen sailcloth,
or sheets of vellum or parchment, and unite the whole firmly together by
means of a solution of india-rubber, or any other strong cement, and by means
also of an edge binding, either of metal rivets, or thread, or wire stitching.
Second, I make a flat band or strap, having more or less the properties
aforesaid, by substituting for the broad veneers and sheets, before directed to
be interposed between the outer folds of the band or strap, thin strands of
leather, or india-rubber, or vellum, or parchment, or whalebone, or cane, or
catgut (either round, as usual, or flattened by mechanical pressure, or cocoa
nut fibre, or whipcord, or any other similarly flexible and strong material
laid either in straight, or angular, or curvileneal lines, and at any suitable
distances from one another, and by uniting the whole firmly together in
manner aforesaid.
Third, I make flat bands and straps, possessing like properties to those
before described, by interposing between the two outer folds (of whatever
material the same may consist) strips of flat metal, or flat metal rings, or
perforated metal plates, laid in any direction, and either close to one another
or at suitable distances apart, and binding the whole together by means of
thread or wire carried through and through the band or strap, or by any
other equivalent means.
And, fourth, the better to adapt catgut bands and cords, as also whipcord, to
various mechanical purposes, for which from their ordinary round form they
are unfitted, I pass them through a flatting mill and reduce them to any
degree of flatness desired.

page_text: And having now described my said Invention, and the manner in which the
same is to be performed, I declare that I do not claim the use of any one of
the materials employed in the formation of any one of the four varieties of
bands, straps, and cords, before described, as being in and by itself new in its
application for the purposes aforesaid. But that what I claim in respect of
each of the said varieties is the general arrangement and combination of
parts of which the same consist.
In witness whereof. I have hereunto set my hond and cool thin Thing