WATERCLOSET UPON A NEW CONSTRUCTION
Year: 1775

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALEXANDER.
CUMMING, of Bond Street, in the Parish of Saint George, Hanover Square,.
in the County of Middlesex, Watchmaker; send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain; bearing date at West-
minster, the Eleventh day of November, in the sixteenth year of His 'reign,
did give and grant unto me, the said Alexander Cumming, "His special licence,
full power, sole priviledge and authority, that I; the 'said Alexander Cumming,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the
term of years therein expressed; make; use; exercise; and vend, throughout that
part of His Majesty's Kingdom of Great Britain called England, the Dominion
of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my invented "WATERCLOSET
UPON A NEW CONSTRUCTION;" in which said recited Letters Patent is contained
proviso obliging me, the said Alexander Cumming, by 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 four calendar months
after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the said
Letters Patent, and the Statute in that behalf made, relation being there-
unto had, may more at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, and in
pursuance of the said Statute, I, the said Alexander Cumming, do hereby
declare that my said Invention is composed and made in manner following,
that is to say:-
The advantages of the said watercloset depend on the shape of the pan or
bason, the manner of admitting the water into it, and on having the stink
trap so constructed that its contents shall or may be totally emptied every time
the closet is used. The pan or bason is of the shape represented in or by the
Figure or Drawing hereunto or hereunder annexed, having all its horizontal
sections circular, or nearly so, in some cases contracted at the mouth, and
always having its deepest part under the middle of the seat, where there is an
aperture of about three and an half or four inches diameter for emptying the
water and soil, which aperture is opened and shut by means of a slider that
slips under it in such manner that, when shut, the whole weight of the pan or
bason and its contents rest upon it. The water is admitted into the pan or
bason through a slit about an inch and a quarter long, about one quarter of
an inch wide, and about four or five inches above the aperture which empties
the pan or bason. The water entering the pan or bason through this slit
with rapidity is circulated and accumulated within it, so as to wash or cleanse
it effectually by means of its acquired force and repeated revolutions. The
stink trap hitherto used for waterclosets is too well known to require a
description here; and although it may serve effectually to cut off all commu-
nication of smell from the drains, pipe, and cesspool, it becomes in itself a
magazine of foetid matter, which emits an offensive smell every time that it is
disturbed by using the watercloset. In this watercloset, the pipe which carries
off the soil and water is recurved about twelve or eighteen inches below the pan
or bason, so as constantly to retain a quantity of water sufficient to cut off all
communication of smell from below, and this stagnated water in the recurved
part of the pipe is totally emptied and succeeded by fresh every time the pan or
bason is emptied. When the pressure of water in the feeding pipe is so great
as to make it enter the pan or bason with a squirt, the pipe must be cut, and
that part of it which comes from the reservoir soldered into the circumference
of a round or cylindric box of about four or five inches diameter, and as many
in length, and in the middle of one of the ends of this box must be soldered
the other part of the feeding pipe, which goes to the pan or bason, by which
means, and the regulating cock above, the box may be made to enter the pan
or bason with a velocity equal to what would be communicated by any desired
smaller perpendicular pressure of water. The Figure or Drawing hereunder
or hereunto annexed shews the general disposition and construction of the

page_text: apparatus used to this watercloset, which may be varied as situation and
circumstances require, without losing any of the essential properties already
described.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and scal, this First
day of March, in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred
and seventy-six.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the First day of March, in the year
of our Lord 1776, the aforesaid Alexander Cumming came before our said
Lord the King in Ilis Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid,
and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in forin above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of
the Statute made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen
William and Mary of England, and so forth.
Inrolled the First day of March, in the year of our Lord One thousand
seven hundred and seventy-six.

page_text: AAAA The Frame
B The Pan or Bason
C The Shider
DDD The Soil pipe
E The Slit which admitts
water into the Pan
G&B The Box & Cock for regulating the
I.
0
velocity of water which comes to the Pan
The Cock which admits water into the Pan
.The Handle which works the Slider c and
the look I by means of the bent lever k.l.m
whose pivots move in the upright N. N.