IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL AND GAS
Year: 1850

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
DICK, of the City of Edinburgh, Professor of Veterinary Medicine in the
Edinburgh Veterinary College, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-second day of
August, One thousand eight hundred and fifty, in the fourteenth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said William Dick, my exors, adñors, and assigns, Her especial license, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said William Dick, my exors,
admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said William Dick, my exors,
adiñors, 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 England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL AND GAS;" in which said Letters Patent
is contained a proviso, that I, the said William Dick, should cause a particular
description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to be

page_text: inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said in part 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 Dick, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described and
ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, that is to say :-
These improvements consist in the making of steel and gas in the same
retort at one and the same time. I employ the fire-clay gas retort now in
common use; when it is heated to the usual temperature required for the pro-
duction of gas, I introduce the iron intended to be comented, prefering to act
on bars of a length equal to that of the retort; and these bars are disposed
horizontally on the lower part of the retort, a thin layer of coke intervening
between them and the retort. The retort is then charged in the usual way as
for making gas, and the usual process of gas-making continued, the retort
being charged with fresh supplies of coal, or other materials capable of making
gas, at the usual intervals, and in the usual manner, the bars of iron remaining
in the retort for a longer or shorter period, according to their size or thick-
ness, and being turned over at intervals of two or three days, at the time
when the retort is being charged with fresh supplies of coal or other materials
capable of making gas, and allowed to remain in the retort till the process of
cementation be completed, the process of cementation being tested in the usual
way, by withdrawing one of the bars, suddenly cooling and breaking it, and the
process of cementation to be continued until the disappearance of the pith in
the centre indicates the completion of the process of cementation, when it will
be found that steel has been produced.
I do not claim the conversion of iron into steel by the action of carburetted
hydrogen gas on iron shut up along with the gas; but what I claim is the
process of making steel and gas in the same retort or furnace, at one and the
same time.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Dick, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Eighteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.
WILLIAM (L.S.) DICK.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Eighteenth day of February,
in the year of our Lord 1851, the aforesaid William Dick came before our
said Lady the Queen in Her 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 stamped according to
the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Enrolled the Twentieth day of February, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.