MENTS IN STEAM ENGINES
Year: 1857

page_text: (This Invention received Provisional Protection, but notice to proceed with the
application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Avery at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 17th July 1857.-
A communication from Thomas Maskell, of Franklin, State of Louisiana,
United States of America.
I, JOHN AVERY, of 82, Essex Street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex,
Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE
MENTS IN STEAM ENGINES," a communication from Thomas Maskell, of Franklin,
State of Louisiana, United States of America, to be as follows, viz. :—
This Invention relates to improvements in the method or system in and by
which the free and latent heat and gases of escape or waste steam of high and
low pressure engines can and may be applied to the generation and increasing
of combustion and heat, and besides producing the results stated, these
improvements are also intended to create a hot air vacuum, into which the
escape steam rushes freely, thus avoiding back pressure as experienced in high-
pressure engines, and dispensing with the use of the condensor and air pump
as employed in low-pressure or condensing steam engines. The manner in
which I effect this, is by taking the steam that is to be wasted or condensed,
as it escapes from the usual escape valve, after having worked any kind of
steam engine, then leading it through a pipe of suitable diameter or capacity,
for allowing the steam to expand to more than twenty times its volume, this
pipe being fastened over said valve through the furnace under the boiler to

page_text: the centre of the fire-bed, where it is to terminate in a chamber or closed
capacity, having the shape of a spherical, spheroidal, lenticular, or flattened
bulb, or else of a rectangular flat case. This chamber or bulb ought to be
imbedded in the ignited mass, and its front end is completely closed, but, at the
hinder end, where the above said pipe enters, the bulb is perforated with a
number of small holes, through which the escape steam and gases are to
find vent into the fire. Also the part of the conducting pipe nearest to the
fire contains a suitable number of plates or diaphragms of wrought iron, and
the whole being brought to a red or white heat, the inner space will form a
hot vacuum into which the escape steam rushes from the escape valve, and
by passing through the red hot pipe and over the diaphragms or plates, it is
expanded and decomposed so as to produce hydrogen gas, which escapes by the
holes in the bulb aforesaid, together with any highly rarefied steam that may
have escaped decomposition in the pipe, but will be decomposed by contact
with the ignited mass in the furnace, and the oxygen of the atmosphere
rushing into the furnace. The gases thus rushing out of the bulb into the
fire join their free and latent heat to that of the fire by which they are burnt,
and also create an additional draught, and their escape is facilitated by the
draught of the furnace impinging against the front of the bulb passing over
it, and thus creating a partial vacuum around the pipe immediately behind
the bulb. The portion of the pipe containing the decomposing plates must
be arranged in such manner that it may be taken off from the remainder
when the plates have become oxydized, and must be replaced by new ones.
The pipe from the escape valve to where it enters the furnace under the
boilers should be protected to prevent the steam as it escapes from being
condensed before it reaches the heated decomposition pipe.