Polytechnic Association Proceedings. 761 



To the first three words of this paragraph, I will call your atten- 

 tion immediately, in connection with another and separate introduc- 

 tion and interference of another part of my improvements for the 

 leaching and spending of tanners' bark; as I wish for the present, 

 notwithstanding the unavoidable and constant recurrence to the 

 fact and manner herein described (of my washing the tannin from 

 bark), to confine our consideration and attention of the foregoing 

 Vords, in their application to my priority claim for the using of 

 steam on damp bark as distinguished from the using of steam on 

 bark immersed in fluid. 



I have herein used the term, disintegrating any vegetable sub- 

 stance, as a substitute for the term grinding, because I contemplated 

 the application of my invention to other vegetable substances, that 

 could not be disintegrated by grinding, after the manner employed 

 to grind brittle dry bark; and I have used the term " percolator," 

 OS a substitute for the tanners' term "leach or spender," because I 

 w^anted a more comprehensive designation, wherewith I might not 

 only cover, but, to some extent, indicate, the additional objects and 

 uses of the invented apparatus to be named; for though a percola- 

 tor is, to all intents and purposes, a leach, as tanners understand 

 the term, yet no ordinary leach would admit of my showing with 

 it the inventions I was introducing for the improvement of the 

 mode of leaching tan-bark and other iuo-redients. 



And you will bear in mind the necessity I was under to describe 

 my modus operandi, as applicable to a drawing and model of some 

 one apparatus, by which I had to exhibit a new and most invaluable 

 invention for the procurement of a pure, aqueous menstruum, deriv- 

 able from, and continuously derived out of, the solution or decoc- 

 tion under progressive concentration, and for the operating of a 

 variety of ingredients. 



I had to exhibit by it, as I already explained to you, the steam- 

 ing of damp bark, for the effectual dissolving and separating of its 

 tannic acid, or soluble parts, from its fibrous or indissoluble por- 

 tions (while both continue to form the component parts of each 

 piece or particle of bark); and then complete the further and distinct 

 separation, removal, and carrying away of the tannin, in the shape 

 of vegetable solution, to a provided receiver; which I performed, 

 in another improved method on tanners' operations, by causing the 

 menstruum to fiill upon the whole superfices of the upper surface of 

 the ingredient under operation, in drops like drizzling rain, and 

 from thence percolating, and trickling down to, and through enri' 



