IMPROVEMENTS IN ILLUMINATION AND IN APPARATUS EMPLOYED FOR THAT PURPOSE
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Leerhoff Müller at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th September 1879.
HENRY LEERHOFF MÜLLER, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Mer-
chant. Partly a communication from abroad by Edward Davies, of Rotterdam, in
the Kingdom of Holland. "IMPROVEMENTS IN ILLUMINATION AND IN APPARATUS
EMPLOYED FOR THAT PURPOSE."
The said Invention relates to the method of illumination commonly called the
oxyhydrogen or Drummond light, in which the flame of a gaseous mixture consisting
essentially of oxygen with hydrogen or with hydrogen and carbon, is directed
upon carbonate of lime or other lime compound or mixture. The lime compound
under the action of the intense heat of the said flame becomes highly incandescent.
The said Invention consists of the improvements herein after described in pro-
ducing the flame by which the lime compound is heated, in improvements in the
lime compound, and in improvements in the blow pipe in which the gaseous mixture
is ignited and by which the flame is directed upon the lime compound.
In the ordinary method of producing the said flame the gases oxygen and
hydrogen, or oxygen and coal gas are mixed or delivered at or near the point of
ignition. According to the present Invention the hydrogen or coal gas of the
oxyhydrogen light is replaced wholly or in part, by means of air impregnated with
the vapour of gasoline or other volatile hydrocarbon. I prefer to effect the said
impregnation of air with a volatile hydrocarbon, according to the method described
and claimed in the Specification of Letters Patent, granted to Louis Simon, and
Richard Simon, dated the 20th day of December 1872, No. 3863, and of which
Letters Patent I am the proprietor. The said Invention is now known in commerce
as Müller's "Alpha" Patent portable gas making apparatus. By the use of air
impregnated with a volatile hydrocarbon in place of hydrogen or coal gas either
wholly or in part, an efficient and economical flame for the production of the
oxyhydrogen or Drummond light is obtained.
The Invention consists further in the employment of a mixture consisting es-
sentially of carbonate of lime and sulphate of lime, in place of the carbonate of
lime usally employed. The said mixture is not liable to the fracture and deterioration
to which the commonly employed cylinders of carbonate of lime are liable, and the
said mixture does not so readily volatilize under the influence of the strong heat to
which it is exposed as carbonate of lime does. The said mixture of carbonate and
[Prine 231

page_text: sulphate of lime is made into cylinders on opposite sides of which the oxyhydrogen
flame is directed, when two lights are required or when one light only is required
the flame may play on the curved surface of the cylinder. Or the mixture may
be made into a disc on one or both surfaces of which one or two flames may play.
The disc may be mounted on a horizontal axis and made slowly to rotate so as
gradually to bring fresh portions under the action of the flame.
The blow pipe may be made single or double, according as one or two lights are
required, and the gases may either be mixed at the point of ignition or before they
issue from the jet or jets. In the latter case valves are employed in the conducting
pipes so as to prevent the backward flow of either gas and thereby prevent the
possibility of explosion.