Specification of John Stephens : treating excreta, &c.

  • Stephens, John.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of John Stephens : treating excreta, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Specification. Stephens9 Improvements in Treating Excreta, 8fc, consists in filtering the liquid portion from the solid portion of the excreta in a vessel which is capable of being disconnected and reversed for discharging it of its solid contents. The vessel is arranged above the funnel shaped opening of a tube, the body of which is provided with a glass gauge, and with a connection fitted with a cock which can 5 be opened and closed when necessary. There is a cock in the tube below the connection and this also can be opened when desired to allow the passage of the liquid to a kind of fan in combination with a Barker’s mill, the draught from the blades of which fan draws off the evolved vapour and the ammonia and fixes them 10 into lime and into charcoal With which the casing is lined or charged. The moist excreta may however be filtered by a syphon tube provided with cocks and glass gauge; the tub or vessel in which the solid excreta is placed is capable of being reversed for the discharge, the filtering tube moving with the tube having a flexible pipe attached for the 15 purpose. The effluent or escaping water from the mill passes from the mill back to the collecting tank to be amalgamated with fresh excreta, in order to bring it to the proper consistency for pumping it up to the filtering medium. 20 The excreta may also be treated with clayey water under pressure to impregnate the body with clay. The fan and the mill portion of the casing are divided, the arms being at the bottom, so that the streams or jets if forced against a serrated wall become broken up into spray to free the ammonia which with the 25 rising vapour passes through a contracted opening to be acted upon by the fan blades and the lime and the charcoal as before explained. The solid excreta is passed through rollers to squeeze the air from, and also to partially dry it and also into a chamber into which carbonic acid gas is forced, so that it becomes charged therewith, the carbonic acid gas 30 being preferably obtained from peat when in a crude or a semi-prepared state by heat. The excreta thus charged is then mixed with the char¬ coal impregnated with ammonia and thoroughly amalgamated there with the compound, forming a valuable manure. The mixture or compound is afterwards packed in sacks lined with fresh charcoal to prevent escape 35 of the ammonia.