IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO APPARATUS FOR SOUNDING AND MEASURING DEPTHS OF WATER AT SEA, APPLICABLE ALSO TO MEASURING DEPTHS OF. LIQUIDS GENERALLY
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Walker Moseley and Thomas Shepherd
Trumble at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 15th July
1879.
WALKER MOSELEY and THOMAS SHEPHERD TRUMBLE, both of Liverpool, in the
County of Lancaster. "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO APPARATUS FOR
SOUNDING AND MEASURING DEPTHS OF WATER AT SEA, APPLICABLE ALSO TO
MEASURING DEPTHS OF. LIQUIDS GENERALLY."
This Invention relates to certain improvements in apparatus for obtaining
soundings at sea, and measuring depths of water from navigable vessels (when such
such vessels are moving) in a more perfect and economical manner than is done by
the instruments at present it use.
In carrying out our Invention we use the well known method of attaching a
glass or other tube to the sounding or measuring line. One end of the tube being
closed, namely, the upper end, and the lower end open. The tube is graduated to
or laid on a scale which corresponds to the depths of water to be sounded, as
hereafter described.
Our Invention consists in the method which we adopt to indicate or record on
this graduated scale the depth to which the tube has descended, and to register the
amount of compression of the air in the tube. By transposing the scale, the
amount of compression of the air will indicate the depth to which the tube may
have been sunk. One of the methods at present in use for indicating in and on the
tube the depth to which the tube has been sunk, is by chemically or otherwise
colouring or staining the interior of the tube, by and according to the depth to
which it has been immersed.
We obtain by our Invention equally good results with more legible registration.
By enclosing a glass tube in a metal case, one end of the glass tube being
hermetically sealed by a spring cushion in the case, and by using a float inserted
within the glass tube of such construction, that however great the compression of
the air within the glass tube may be, the float keeps a certain portion above the
water level. The float is so arranged, that as the apparatus is hauled in after
immersion the float does not fall with the water, but is bound to the side of the
tube, and when the tube is entirely withdrawn from the water, the capillary
attraction of the slight film of water causes the float to adhere to the side of the
tube. In practice we prefer to use a very light float, say of cork with a small
feather top. The main float is merely used to float this feather top and small float

page_text: up, which clings to the side of the tube when the tube is withdrawn from the
water, or the feather edge may be attached to the main float.
_ _The_main_feature which secures the result of indication is the making a feather
edge of the upper end of the float-of-such-a-length,-that-the-portion that floats
Labove the level of the water is longer than the diameter of the tube.
There are several other methods of carrying our Invention into practice, which
-we-would-define to be the use of a floating register, as against the use of a
staining, colouring, or like marking register.
In-application-we-attach_the_case containing the glass tube to a steel wire line
coiled on a drum, and arranged so that the steel wire line coiled-on-a-drum, and
arranged so that the steel wire line is payed out between two pads or other
equivalent, saturated with grease, such as mutton fat. At the end of the steel wire
line as in other like sounding apparatus we use a sinking weight.
This sinking
weight according to our Invention consists of a metal tube filled with quick silver,
so as to reduce the size as much as possible.
The advantages of constructing the sounding apparatus according to our
Invention are, that the glass tubes can be used over and over again, inasmuch
as the float indicator can be removed and placed at the bottom of the tube for
each fresh immersion.
Although we have described our Invention especially to navigational soundings,
it will be evident that it is applicable to measuring depths of liquids generally.