42 
BETTS’S PATENT METALLIC CAPSULES. 
cannot be opened without cutting or tearing the metal, and manifestly disfiguring the 
metal cover, cap, or capsule. Metal covers, caps, ot capsules, made of tin, are w r ell known 
under the designation of ‘ Betts’s Patent Capsules,’ and are now in common use, great 
numbers having been made and sold under certain letters patent, granted at three several 
times by Her present Majesty to my late father, John r lhomas Betts, namely,. on the 
eleventh day of August, one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, and on the sixteenth 
day of March, one thousand eight hundred and forty-three, and on the twenty-seventh 
day of June, one thousand eight hundred and forty-three. The new manufacture of a 
material to be employed in the manufacture of capsules, and for other purposes, consists 
in combining lead with tin, by covering the lead with tin over one or both surfaces of the 
lead, and reducing the two metals in their conjoined state into thin sheets, of a thick¬ 
ness suitable for the purposes to which they are to be applied. And for the purpose of 
so preparing lead by covering the same with tin as aforesaid, I first cast the molten lead 
in an ingot mould of cast iron (or other suitable material), and constructed in the usual 
manner of ingot moulds for metal, and of suitable internal dimensions for producing 
ingots of lead, which (for the manufacture of the material for capsules) may be between 
four and five inches wide by about three-quarters of an inch thick, and about thirty 
inches in length, with a few inches at one end of each ingot gradually reduced in thick¬ 
ness, in the manner of a wedge. I also cast tin, either into similar ingots, of the same 
or nearly the same dimensions as the aforesaid ingots of lead, or the tin may be cast into 
long thin strips, of nearly the same width as the aforesaid ingots of lead, and between 
one-quarter and one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness, and several feet in length. And 
having thus obtained the lead and the tin in suitable states for beginning the rolling or 
laminating each of the two metals separately between a pair or pairs of revolving cylin¬ 
drical flatting-rollers, of the construction usually employed for rolling or laminating 
ductile metals, I pass and repass the lead one or more time or times through or between 
such rollers, that is to say, rolling and re-rolling the ingot of lead as many times as 
may be requisite for reducing the lead to about one-fourth of an inch in thickness, and 
thereby the ingot of lead will become greatly elongated. And in like manner I roll and 
re-roll the tin as many times as (according to its original thickness when cast as aforesaid) 
may be requisite for reducing it to about one twentieth part of the thickness to which 
the lead is reduced by rolling as aforesaid, whatever that thickness may be. The lead 
and the tin having been thus reduced to their proper relative thicknesses, and their 
widths being nearly alike, and even surfaces of each of the two metals having been ob¬ 
tained by the aforesaid rolling, then, in case it is intended to cover both sides of the lead 
with tin, I extend a long strip of the thin tin (so reduced to relative thickness as afore¬ 
said) flatways upon a smooth table, and lay a shorter strip of the lead (so reduced to re¬ 
lative thickness, as aforesaid) very evenly upon the extended tin, with one end of the 
said strip of lead conforming with one end of the said long strip of tin, and then I fold 
back the tin over the other end of the lead (being that end thereof which still retains 
some of that wedge-like form of the original casting of the ingot of lead already men¬ 
tioned), and, consequently, the tin when so folded will apply to both surfaces of the lead; 
I then cut off the long strip of folded tin to correspond with the length of the lead, and 
I smooth down the tin with any convenient wooden rubber, or otherwise, so as to take 
out all wrinkles in the tin, and bring it very evenly into superficial contact with the lead, 
and with the two bordered edges of the strip of tin, conforming everywhere with the 
two border edges of the lead, so as to ensure that the tin shall cover the lead as com¬ 
pletely as can be done ; I then take up the lead and tin together from off the said table, 
and present the folded end of the tin to a pair of revolving flatting-rollers, which are set 
so as to subject the two metals to a very considerable pressure, and that pressure, at the 
same time that it reduces the thickness and elongates the two metals, will also cause their 
surfaces to adhere together, and then I repass the conjoined metal again and again be¬ 
tween the said rollers for further reduction and elongation, and at every succeeding time 
of so repassing the adhesion of the two metals will become more complete, and when 
the strip of conjoined metals is thus become elongated to a considerable length, I find it 
is convenient, for further repetitions of the rolling, to gather up the said strip (as fast 
as it comes out from between the said pair of flatting rollers) into a spiral coil, by means 
of a roller which is suitably disposed behind that pair of rollers, and is turned round 
by an endless strap motion, so as that the said roller will wind and coil up the strip 
around it into such a coil; and then that roller, with the said coil thereon, can be re- 
