IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM ENGINES AND MACHINERY FOR PROPELLING VESSELS AND OTHER BODIES IN WATER, AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1858

page_text: 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 George Carter at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 18th March
1858.
I, GEORGE CARTER, Gentleman, of Mottingham, in the County of Kent,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN STEAM ENGINES AND MACHINERY FOR PROPELLING VESSELS AND OTHER BODIES
IN WATER, AND OTHER PURPOSES," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in improvements in known machinery to force air or
water or air mixed with water, or to exhaust air or to force water through
pipes, &c., as shown by the Drawing annexed.
No. 1 & No. 1 are elevations of a pair of air pumps bolted on to an iron
bottom plate, No. 2. Each pump consists of four cylinders; the space between
the outer cylinder A and the second double cylinder B is filled with mercury.
into which the inner double cylinder C & D descends forming an air-tight or
gasometer joint at a pressure equal to the column of mercury employed and
the height of the cylinders. No. 3 is a plan of the same, similar letters and
figures indicating the same parts. No. 4 are valves opening downwards into
the air passages under the centre of the second cylinder B. No. 5 are valves
also opening downwards in the bottom of the double gasometer cylinder D,

page_text: and in action descends dipping into the mercury between the cylinders A & B,
and by means of the main beam No. 6 the pumps are actuated.
By changing the valves (in a manner well known to engineers) air may be
either exhausted for ventilation or forced through pipes to serve furnaces (or
for Carter's patent air propelled ships, barges, boats, &c., Patent No. 1178,
date May 17th, 1856). Or water may be alternately lifted and forced to n
higher level equal to the supporting column of mercury (at the rate of 1 inch
of the latter to one foot of the former.) No. 7 is a plan of the bottom of a
cylinder, the dotted circle showing the dipping cylinders taken off. No. 7 is
also an elevation of the bottom. plate showing the air passages No. 4, leading
from valves No. 4 & 5. No. 8 is a cross head for man power. No. 9 is a
vibrating steam cylinder.
I also propose using the double gasometer cylinders above described at
one or both ends of the beam No. 6 (as single-action steam engines to work the
air pumps) either with air pump and condenser or without, or any of the
elastic gasses for the same purpose, the pressure being, as before stated,
governed by the column of mercury. The inlets and outlets for steam or gasses
are those adopted by practical engineers. This apparatus may be constructed
of iron, wood, glass, or any other suitable material not acted on by mercury.
I do not claim as my Invention gasometer air pumps as used for blast
furnaces, but what I do claim for Carter's air propelled boats and other
purposes is the combination of double cylinders and columns of mercury, or
water mixed with saline or other substances to increase its density, or other
fluids of greater specific gravity than water, to give a requisite column of
pressure against steam or the gasses between the cylinders to exhaust or force
air or pump water, and other purposes to which it can be readily applied.