LIST OF ENGLISH PATENTS GRANTED BETWEEN 27TH OF JANUARY AND 24TH OF FEBRUARY, 1844. Robert Jolinstone, of Baker-street, Middlesex, gent., for improvements in the construction of lamps for the combustion of naphtha, turpentine and other resinous oils. January 27; six months. Henry Vernon Physick, of Bath, civil engineer, for certain improvements applicable to machinery for driving piles. January 30; six months. William Edward Newton, of Chancery-lane, civil engineer, for improvements in the preparation of caoutchouc or India rubber, and in manufacturing various fabrics, of which caoutchouc forms a component part. (Being a communication.) January 30; six months. Ezra Washington Burrows, of Swinton-street, St. Pancras, civil engineer, for certain improvements in the construction of engines for producing and communicating motive power by the elastic force of steam, or by manual or animal labour. January 30; six months. George Miller Clark, of Albany-street, Regent'spark, tallow chandler, for improvements in night lights, and in apparatus used therewith. January 30; six months. William Lucas Sargant, of Birmingham, för improvements in the manufacture of barrels for firearms. (Being partly a communication.) January 30; six months. Baptiste Buret, of Leicester-square, merchant, and François Marius David, of the same place, manufacturer of gas apparatus, for improvements in the manufacture of gas. Jan. 30; six months. William Fletcher, of Moreton-house, Buckingham, clerk, for certain improvements in the construction of locks and latches applicable for doors and other purposes. January 30; six months. James Silcock, of Birmingham, engineer, for certain improvements in planes. January 31; six months. Robert Hodgson, of Princes-street, Claphamroad, Surrey, engineer, for improvements in propelling vessels, and in the machinery for working the same. February 2; six months. William Sangster, of Regent-street, Middlesex, umbrella and parasol manufacturer, for improvements in umbrellas and parasols. February 6; six months. Benjamin Aingworth, of Birmingham, gent., for certain improvements in manufacturing buttons for wearing apparel. February 6; six months. Thomas Southall, of Kidderminster, druggist, and Charles Crudgington, of the same place, banker, for improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel. February 8; six months. James Johnston, of Willow-park, Greenock, esq., for improvements in steam boilers. February 8; six months. Christopher Nickels, of the York-road, Lambeth, gent., for improvements in the manufacture of crape, or substitutes for crape. February 8; six months. Ezra Jenks Coates, of Bread-street, Cheapside, merchant, for improvements in apparatus for facilitating the reduction of fractures, dislocations of bones, and for maintaining their parts in their just positions. (Being a communication.) February 8; six months. Charles Wheatstone, of Conduit-street, Hanoversquare, gentleman, for improvements on the concertina and other musical instruments, in which the sounds are produced by the action of wind on vibratory springs. February 8; six months. John Cox, and George Cox, of Gorgie Mills, near Edinburgh, manufacturers of leather and gelatine, for improvements in the manufacture of leather and gelatine. February 8; six months. George Straker, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, shipowner, for a certain improvement, or certain improvements in ships' windlasses. February 8; six months. Edwin Sheppard, of Manchester, foreman in the works of Messrs. G. C. Pauling and Co., contractors and builders, for certain improvements in machinery or apparatus for planing, sawing, and cutting wood, and other substances. February 8; six months. William Edward Newton, of Chancery lane, civil engineer, for a new or improved system or apparatus for obtaining and applying motive power for propelling on railways or water, and for raising heavy bodies, applicable also to various other purposes where power is required. (Being a communication.) February 8; six months. Joseph Gibson, jun., of Birmingham, japanner, for improvements in ornamenting glass. February 10; six months. Henry Hawes Fox, of Northwoods, Gloucester, doctor of medicine, for an improved mode of constructing fire-proof floors, ceilings, and roofs. February 10; six months, William Geeves, of Little Portland-street, cork and cork gun wadding manufacturer, for improvements in prepared wood for lighting of kindling fires. February 12; six months. William Edward Newton, of Chancery-lane, civil engineer, for an improvement or improvements in furnaces. (Being a communication.) February 12; six months. Job Haines, of Tipton, Stafford, coal master, and Richard Haines, of the same place, coal master, for an improved method or methods of making or manufacturing links for the construction of flat chains, used for mining and other purposes. February 13; six months. Bennet Woodcroft, of Manchester, consulting engineer, for improvements in propelling vessels. February 13; six months. James Overend, of Liverpool, gentleman, for improvements in printing fabrics with metallic matters, and in finishing silks and other fabrics (Being a communication.) February 13; six months. Andrew Kurtz, of Liverpool, manufacturing chemist, for certain improvements in apparatus to be employed for drying, evaporating, distilling, torrefying, and calcining. February 12; six months. Elijah Galloway, of Union-place, City-road, civil engineer, for certain combinations of materials to be used as a substitute for canvas, and other surfaces employed as grounds for painting, and some of which combinations are applicable to other purposes. February 14; six months. Samuel Dobree, of Putney, Surrey, esquire, for certain improvements in the manufacture of fuel. (Being a communication.) February 17; six months. John Lionel Hood, of Old Broad-street, gentleman, for an improved composition, or mixture of metals, applicable to the manufacture of sheathing for ships and other vessels, bolts, nails, or other fastenings. (Being a communication.) February 17; six months. John Kibble, of Glasgow, gentleman, for improvements in transmitting power in working machinery where endless belts, chains, or straps are or may be used. February 17; six months. William Losh, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, esquire, for improvements in the manufacture of metal chains for mining and other purposes. February 17; six months. Alexander Alliott, of Lenton, bleacher, for improvements in fulling, stretching, drying, and dressing goods manufactured of wool, cotton, silk, and other fibrous materials. February 19; six months. Caleb Bedells, of Leicester, manufacturer, for improvements in the manufacture of elastic fabrics. February 19; six months. Christopher Nickels and Benjamin Nickels, of York-road, Lambeth, manufacturers, for improvements in the manufacture of elastic fabrics, and in rendering elastic fabrics less elastic. February 19; six months. Alfred Jeffery, of Brunton works, Limehouse, for improvements in treating wood, and certain other substances required to be exposed to water. February 19; six months. Alexander Parkes, of Birmingham, artist, for improvements in the manufacture of certain alloys or combinations of metals, and in depositing certain metals. February 21; six months. William Sheldon, of Birmingham, Japan painter, for improvements in the manufacture of buttons and in japanner's ware, and articles in substitution of papier-maché. February 21; six months. Ezra Jenks Coates, of Bread-street, Cheapside, merchant, for improvements in the forging of bolts, spikes, and nails. February 21; six months. Henry Charles Howells, of Hay, gentleman, for improvements in the fastenings of parts of bedsteads and other frames. (Being a communication.) February 21; six months. Thomas Liddell, of Newcastle, engineer, for improvements in apparatus for preventing explosion in steam boilers. February 21; six months. Robert Rettie, of Gourock, Scotland, civil engineer, for improvements in gridirons, frying-pans, and other cooking utensils and heating apparatus. February 24; six months. Francis Studley, of Shrewsbury, gentleman, for an improved mill, or apparatus for grinding grain, with or without sifter or dresser, also for cobbling, bruising, crushing, cutting, splitting, or dividing seed, pulse, berry, or other articles. February 24; six months. Alexander Alliott, of Lenton, Nottingham, bleacher, for improvements in scouring, bleaching, and dyeing. February 24; six months. Thomas Masterman, of the Dolphin Brewery, Broad-street, Ratcliff, common brewer, for a certain method of mechanism for the speedy cooling of liquids, being within certain degrees of temperature, and which method, or mechanism, he terms a "Refrigerator." February 24; two months. William Rouse, of Great Barton, Bury Saint Edmunds, wheelwright, for certain improvements in carriages, and in parts of carriages applicable to various purposes. February 24; six months. Peter Rothwell Jackson, of Strawberry Hill, Manchester, engineer, for certain improvements in the construction and manufacture of wheels, cylinders, hoops, and rollers, and in the machinery or apparatus connected therewith, and also improvements in steam valves. February 24; six months. Henry Brown, of Selkirk, for improvements in carding silk, cotton, and other fibres. February 24; six months. Benjamin Bailey, of Leicester, framesmith, for improvements in machinery for manufacturing looped fabrics. February 24; six months. Caleb Bedells, of the borough of Leicester, manufacturer, for improvements in the manufacture of bonnets, collars, capes, caps, shawls, coats, gaiters, scarfs, stockings, gloves and mits. February 24; six months. Gaspare Conti, of James-street, Buckingham-gate, gent., for improvements in hydraulic machinery to be used as a motive power. February 24; six months. John Aitken, of Surrey-square, for improvements in atmospheric railways. February 24; six months. Archibald Trail, of Great Russell-street, Bloomsbury, for an improvement in the manufacture of sails, for ships and other vessels. February 24; six months. James Smith, of Queen's-square, Westminster, esq., for improvements in slubbing, spinning, twisting and doubling cotton and other fibrous substances. February 24; six months. LIST OF PATENTS GRANTED FOR SCOT LAND FROM THE 22ND OF JANUARY, TO THE 22ND OF FEBBUARY, 1844. Thomas Aspinwall, of Bishopsgate-churchyard, London, esquire, for an improved cannon, formed Thomas Southall, of Kidderminster, Worcestershire, druggist, and Charles Crudgington, of the same place, banker, for improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel. January 25. Alexander Spears, of Glasgow, merchant, for certain improvements on, or appertaining to glass bottles, proper for wines and other liquids. (Being a communication from abroad.) January 31. William Edward Newton, of Chancery-lane, civil engineer, for a new or improved system of machinery, or apparatus for obtaining and applying motive power for propelling on railways or water, and for raising heavy bodies, applicable also to various other purposes, where power is required. (Being a communication from abroad.) February 5. Philip Walther, of Angel-court, Throgmortonstreet, London, merchant, for certain improvements in the construction of steam-engines. (Being a communication from abroad.) February 5. John Kibble, of Glasgow, gentleman, for improvements in transmitting power in working machinery where endless belts, chains, or straps are, or may be used. February 12. Hugh Inglis, of Kilmarnock, Ayr, mechanic, for improvements upon locomotive steam-engines, whereby a saving of fuel will be effected, which improvements are applicable to steam-vessels and other purposes, and to the increasing the adhesion of the wheels of railway engines, carriages, and tenders, upon the lines of rail when the same are in a moist state. February 13. Ezra Jenks Coates, of Bread-street, Cheapside, London, merchant, for improvements in the forging of bolts, spikes, and nails. (Being a communication from abroad.) February 15. Essence of Hops.-Professor Redtenbacher has observed, that of the constituents of the hop, the bitter substance, (lupuline,) the astringent substance, and the aromatic oil, are the only substances which enter into the composition of beer. The aqueous extract of hop, prepared by boiling, may easily be preserved, and 12 lbs. of it correspond to 1 cwt. of hops; it contains the first two constituents. The oil of hops, which, in the usual method of employing the hop, is volatilized for the greater part, may be obtained by distillation with water; 1 cwt. of hops would afford 3 ozs. If, then, in brewing, extract be employed instead of the hops, and the oil added when the beer is filled into the fermenting vats, the brewer would save all the expense of store-room for hops, avoid all the risks of the hop trade, could not easily be cheated, would be able to determine with greater certainty the quantities necessary to be added, and would require less hops from the saving effected in the quantity of oil. The expense of obtaining the extract and oil from one hundred of hops would not amount to any great deal, and by this a fourth of the hops would be saved on account of the oil; so that when the price of hops stood at 120 florins per hundred, there would be a clear saving of 25 florins on the hops alone. A butt of beer would require about 2 ozs. of extract, and 11 grains of oil.-Polytechnic Review. INTENDING PATENTEES may be supplied gratis with Instructions, by application (post paid) to Messrs. Robertson and Co., 166, Fleet-street, by whom is kept the only COMPLETE REGISTRY OF PATENTS EXTANT from 1617 to the present time. LONDON: Printed and Published by James Bounsall, at the Mechanics' Magazine Office, No. 166, Fleet-street.-Sold by A. and W. Galignani, Rue Vivienne, Paris; 'Machin and Co., Dublin; and W. C. Campbell and Co., Hamburgh. BEAUMONT'S VACUUM PAN-FEED REGULATOR. VOL. XL. M Mechanics Magazine, MUSEUM, REGISTER, JOURNAL, AND GAZETTE. VACUUM PAN-FEED REGULATOR. JOSEPH BEAUMONT, OF 16, BATTY-STREET, FEW of our readers can be unacquainted with the sugar-boiling vacuum pan, which-suggested by Davy, and patented by Howard-is generally reputed to have been the subject of one of the most lucrative patents ever granted in this country. For many years the royalties paid by refiners for licenses to use it amounted to not less than 40,000l. per annum. According to the old plan of boiling the saccharine syrup in open pans, it had to be subjected to a temperature as high as from 230° to 250°, which was not only injurious to the quality of the sugar, but a hindrance to the next succeeding process of granulation, for which a much lower temperature is requisite; but by the Howard method of covering in the pans, and partially exhausting them by an air-pump, the syrup being proportionally relieved from the atmospheric pressure, attains the boiling point at about 130°, or 100° less than before. The liquor has been hitherto supplied to the pan by two different methods. One is to pump it up from the groundfloor of the sugar-house, where it is usually filtered, into a cistern on the first-floor, placed above the pans, whence it is allowed to descend by its own weight into what is called the measure, through a pipe, having a cock to open and shut it. This has been found objectionable for two reasons; first, on account of the double cistern room which is thus required; and secondly, because of the great agitation of the liquor from so much pumping and shifting, being materially injurious to its quality. The other method, which is that generally followed, is to cover in the measure in the same way as the pan to connect it at the top by a pipe with the pan, so that the air-pump which exhausts the one may also exhaust the other-and to connect the measure at bottom with a pipe leading to the ground floor cistern, through which pipe the liquor rushes up into the measure, when exhausted in the manner just described, whence it is afterwards transferred to the boiling pan. But to enable the measure to empty itself into the pan, each time it is filled, it is necessary to close for the moment the pipes through which the air was exhausted from it, and the liquor admitted from below, and to open an orifice at the top of the vessel to readmit the atmospheric air, that it may, by its pressure, force the liquor out of the measure into the boiling pan; and when the measure has been emptied, the air orifice must be once more closed, and the vacuum and supply pipes again opened, before a second measure-full can be obtained, to be discharged as before. The delay which thus takes place between the different fillings, is but the least of the evils attendant on this mode of procedure; for upon each emptying of the measure, there is a quantity of atmospheric air left in it, which, on the opening of the vacuum communicating pipe, finds its way into the boiling pan, reduces the vacuum there, and proportionally impedes the boiling. It seldom takes less than from ten to fifteen minutes after the admission of the atmospheric air from the measure, before the proper vacuum in the pan, (which should never be less than 270,) is re-established. Worked according to either of these methods, the Howard vacuum pan is, with all its advantages, undeniably a very imperfect apparatus. That it should be capable of so much improvement, however, as is evinced in the very ingenious design represented in the prefixed engravings, is more than one could have reasonably anticipated. The inventor of it is a Mr. Joseph Beaumont, a millwright in the employment of Messrs. Bowman and Son, the eminent sugar refiners of Great Alie-street, Whitechapel, by whom it has been adopted with the most decided success, and may (we presume) be seen daily at work. Fig. 1 is a side elevation of a vacuum pan as ordinarily constructed, with the additions thereto made by Mr. Beaumont, and which are marked C D a def. Fig. 2 is a sectional elevation on a large scale, of the parts C Ca de f, and of others with which they are immediately connected. A is the vacuum pan, and B the liquor measure, both of the usual form; C is a feed regulator, which is attached to the top of the measure B, communicating with the BEAUMONT'S VACUUM PAN-FEED REGULator. measure at one end and with a small steam supply pipe D at the other; a is a cock by which the steam can be shut off or let on at pleasure; b is the pipe with a cock c, by which a communication can also be established at pleasure between the measure B and the vacuum pan A, and d is a barometer inserted into the top of the feed regulator, for the purpose of indicating the pressure of the steam or vapour within the regulator and measure; E is the pipe, with a cock F, by which the liquor is admitted into the measure from below, and G H the pipe and cock by which the liquor is transferred from the measure to the pan. On beginning to work with the apparatus, the measure B and regulator C are first exhausted, or nearly so, of the air, vapour, or gases within them, by turning the cock c of the pipe by which they communicate with the vacuum pan. The cock c is then turned off, and the cock F turned on, which allows the liquor to flow up into the measure B, to any height deemed most suitable. The cock F is then turned off, and the cock H turned on to allow the liquor to flow into the pan; and simultaneously with this operation the cock a is opened just long enough to admit a very small quantity of steam, which, as the measure is emptied of the liquor, expands, until ultimately the place of the discharged liquor is occupied by steam of a very attenuated quality. The measure is then filled and emptied a second time as before, and as much oftener as may be necessary during an entire day's working, without any farther exhaustion of the measure and regulator being required. Lest, by any oversight, both the cocks a and F should be left open, in which case the liquor might rise into the measure and regulator, and force itself into the steam pipe D, there is a conical valve e a little below the cock a, with a spindle and ball-float ƒ attached to it, by the rising of which, in any such event, the pipe D would be closed. It is obvious that by this feed regulator all the evils attendant on the two existing methods of supply are entirely obviated. The liquor is agitated to the least possible extent in its passage to the boiling-pan; the intervals between the fillings of the measure are reduced to a minute's duration, or less; the vacuum in the pan is at no time disturbed, and the liquor is kept uninterruptedly at the boiling point. Not only is a much better article thus produced, but a great saving is effected as well in the time occupied in the refining process, and consequently in the expenditure for wages, as in the consumption of water and fuel. 163 The saving in each of these respects is estimated by the inventor as equal to at least 35 per cent. NEW METHOD OF CLOSING THE PNEU- [Communicated by M. Hallette to the French In the system adopted by Messrs. Clegg and Samuda, the tube, as every one knows, is closed by means of a long band of leather, which is free on one side, and fixed by the other to the edge of the longitudinal slit that allows the passage of the rod by which the piston is united to the first wagon of the train. Being raised for a moment to allow the passage of this rod, the band immediately falls again; a lever, the motion of which is connected with that of the piston, afterwards presses it against the opening, and an unctuous substance further contributes towards rendering the adhesion more complete. Now independently of the unctuous body's appearing readily to undergo alteration by contact with the air, the leathern band must gradually lose its suppleness, and tend; in places, to rise a little, after the passage of the compressing lever; it is, therefore, desirable that the closing of the longitudinal fissure, instead of being due to the action of a transient effort, should result from a constant action exercised in each point of the fissure. For this purpose, M. Hallette has arranged on the upper surface of the pneumatic tube, and bodily connected with it, two longitudinal semi-cylinders, or rather two gutters placed lengthwise, with their concave parts facing. Each of these gutters contains a gullet, of elastic material, perfectly impervious both to air and to water. When the two gullets are sufficiently inflated with air, they touch each other by one part of their surface; they act as do the lips of the human mouth, and thus entirely intercept communication between the interior of the pneumatic tube and the exterior air. When the piston moves, the rod, which connects it with the train, slides between the two tubes, which unite again immediately after its passage. This rod, the horizontal section of which is a meniscus, and which hence penetrates, like a wedge, between the two gullets, acts upon them with scarcely any friction. However, in order to ensure their durability, M. Hallette has thought it advisable to protect them with leather at the parts by which they come in contact. |