IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING INCREASED LIGHT IN THE COMBUSTION OF ILLUMINATING MATTERS
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Anton Georg Schaeffer at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
1st June 1867.
I, ANTON GEORG SCHAEFFER, of Gloucester Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
OBTAINING INCREASED LIGHT IN THE COMBUSTION OF ILLUMINATING MATTERS,"
to be as follows:-
My improvements in obtaining increased light in the combustion of
illuminating matters are based, firstly, on the fact that radial heat passing
from one point to another through gas or air varies in its intensity inversely
nearly as the square of the distance from each other of the points giving and
receiving heat; and, secondly, on the fact that the light obtained from such
combustion varies in some measure with the intensity of the heat produced in
the atoms of burning matter. It has been discovered, for example, that if
the perforations in the ring of an Argand burner are placed so far from each
other as to cause illuminating gas issuing from each orifice to produce when
ignited a separate flame instead of coalescing flames the intensity of the light
evolved from the combustion of a certain quantity of gas is diminished; and
further it is known that a mixture of illuminating gas and atmospheric air in
proportion adequate to effect complete combustion will afford on burning much
less light than would the same quantity of gas burnt undiluted in the ordinary
way. These effects I attribute to the separation from each other more or less

page_text: of the burning atoms or aggregations of atoms, and the consequent reduction
in the intensity of the beat imparted by radiation.
My improvements consist in effecting approximation of incandescent atoms
or clusters of atoms by the approximation or coalescence of two or more flames
containing these atoms, and in such manner as to obtain the most close possible
approximation of the heated atoms in one flame to the heated atoms in another
(but not so as to cause gases) to unite before ignition. It is evident that
many forms of apparatus may be employed for effecting this object, and I do
not therefore claim any one form in particular; nor do I claim in whole
coalescence of flames which is effected at present more or less in various forms
and ways; but what I claim as my Invention is in so far as my improvements
apply to gas burners, whether at present known and in use or not, and whether
having more or less of a coalescing effect or not, is the production or increase
of such coalescence of flames, whether such production or increase be obtained
at the expense of previous subdivision or by the employment of two or more
complete burners having each already a coalescing effect. And in so far as my
improvements apply to lamps and candles I claim the production or increase
of coalescence of flame however such flame may be produced, and whether
already having a coalescing effect or not.
It must be understood, however, that such burners or lamps only are
referred to, whether known and used or not, as from the construction admit of
the introduction of the principle of production or increase of coalescence, which
may possibly be in some cases impracticable without destroying the distinctive
character of such lamps or burners.