OF
A MACHINE
For clearing turbid Liquors.
I confess, I again stand on a kind of forbidden ground; and am uncertain to what degree this Invention will justify it’s title. Yet I think myself safe in expecting it will produce an useful effect. But the fact is, I never fully proved it: the apparatus with which, more than twenty years ago, I was trying the System, having broken in the experiment—which I then had no opportunity of resuming.
I had then, as formerly, asked myself a question, viz: “will not the centrifugal force of a heavier body, suspended (without chemical action) in a lighter fluid, increase the subsiding tendency, and quicken the clearing process?”. I then thought “yes,” and do not yet see why it should not. But not having any absolute fact to build my conclusions on, I must leave the whole matter to time and experience; and crave the candour of my readers in favour of my somewhat bold assumption.
This Machine then, which is to purify muddy liquors by motion, is thus composed: a perpendicular axis A, ([Plate 37], [figs. 3 and 4]) turns very swiftly, surmounted by a conical cap B C, so formed, as to receive and lodge in it’s thickness, four or more vessels a b, f e, which hang on pins c d, near that centre and have the liberty of leaving it by the centrifugal force, round the said pins, until lost in the thickness of the cap above mentioned; where they turn on the common centre, without suffering any resistance from the surrounding atmosphere. This conical cap B C, &c. is made as light as possible, by protuberant ledges, but it’s solid form would be restored by lighter substances fixed between the arms, so as to add little to the friction or resistance of the whole mass. Any turbid liquor then, being introduced into any pair of these vessels while in the position g h, [fig. 3], and put into swift motion, will have it’s muddy particles thrown from the centre, and (I presume) soon deposited at the greatest possible distance from that centre: since, although the centrifugal force will add, in the same degree, to the tendency outwards of the particles of the liquid, and make them gravitate more towards the circumference; that force will not render the liquid less fluid—which, therefore, will suffer the clearing process to take place sooner with motion than without it; and this is all I dare advance in the present state of my knowledge on this subject. Thus have I again reckoned on the kind forbearance of my readers, and risqued a little more of “the bubble reputation.”
My readers will supply one remark I had omitted—which is, that if bodies heavier than the fluid, recede faster from the centre by this motion, than without it, lighter bodies will approach toward the centre, and be there collected for the same reason—another cause for which, will doubtless be the pressure occasioned by this centrifugal force in the revolving fluid.