Specification of Joseph Wass : construction of smelting furnaces.

  • Wass, Joseph.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Joseph Wass : construction of smelting furnaces. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Weiss's Improvement for Smelting or Calcining Lead Ore, fyc. NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said Joseph Wass, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described and ascertained in and by the Drawings hereunto annexed, and the following de¬ scription thereof (that is to say):— 5 My improvement for preventing the ill effects upon animal and vegetable life which have hitherto been experienced from the noxious fumes and particles emitted in the smelting or calcining of lead ore and other minerals, consists in an improved mode of consuming the smoke and ventilating the flues of smelt¬ ing furnaces, by which the heavier particles of the noxious efflusia will be 10 arrested and the lighter parts or mere vapour be conducted into the atmosphere, at a sufficient height and under such circumstances as will cause it to rise and mix with the air, so as to produce no deleterious effects. These objects will be fully accomplished by a contrivance similar to that shewn in the Drawing hereto annexed, in which Dig. 1 is a plan or horizontal section of a building, wherein 15 the site of four lead smelting furnaces are shewn at a, a, a, a. In the center of the building the horizontal flues and chimneys b, b, b, b, from the several furnaces are intended to meet and pass into a circular tower. Fig. 2 is a vertical section of the tower taken through the middle, and in which two of the smelt¬ ing furnaces are shewn with their flues and chimneys passing into the tower. 20 In the construction of these furnaces I claim no improvement (except in the introduction of dampers 0), but consider the combining of several together to be new. A, A, are the external walls of the tower, which must be lofty and capacious, its suitable dimensions depending upon the number of furnaces and flues intended to be connected thereto. Under the circumstances of four fur- 25 naces, as shewn in the plan, its internal diameter may be about thirteen feet, and its height, commencing at the top of the chimney at about thirty-six feet from the ground, not less than twenty-four feet, but higher would answer better. b, b, as aforesaid, are the flues and chimneys, extending from the smelting fur¬ naces a, a, and rising up into the central passage at any desired height, as shewn 30 by the dotted lines. It is found that lead smelting furnaces in general consume a great part of their smoke (except at the first igniting, before the furnace has arrived at a smelting heat), but from the powerful draft much of the noxious and pernicious particles have hitherto been found Jo pass through the flues and chimneys and escape into the air. To prevent this, I have contrived a cap B, 35 which I suspend over the throat C, under which a part of the smoke will be consumed and the heavier particles of the efflusia be impeded in their progress and prevented from passing up the tower. G, G, is the lodge floor, upon which a great portion of the heavy particles deposit themselves, and from whence they