Patent Claims Issued by the United States Patent Office for the week ending April 23, 1861

1,146.

E. T. Shepard, of Gallipolis, O., for an Improved Washing Machine:

I claim the arrangement of a series of rings, C, secured to a rotary
axle, D, by means of springs, E, and suspended in a swinging frame,
F, in combination with the rotary-slatted cylinder, B, constructed and
operating substantially in the manner and for the purpose shown and
described.

[This invention consists in the arrangement of a series of rings, each
of which is supported by four (more or less) springs, secured round the
circumference of a rotary shaft, having its bearings in a swinging
frame, in combination with a slatted rotary clothes cylinder, in such a
manner that the several rings bear on the surface of the clothes
wrapped round the slatted cylinder, and that on rotating said cylinder
the clothes are carried through the rings, which latter, by means of the
springs supporting them, accommodate themselves to the inequalities
in the surface of the clothes.]