cutting machine, and various others, to the number of fourteen patented inventions and forty machines, all novel in design."

Ericsson entered, in 1829, into a competition for a prize of £500 offered by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company for the best locomotive. George Stephenson's engine, the Rocket, gained the prize. Ericsson's, the Novelty, was the swiftest, running at the speed of thirty miles an-hour, the speed of Stephenson's being only thirteen and a-half miles. Great enthusiasm was manifested over Ericsson's Novelty, but the judges decided in favour of the superior traction power of Stephenson's. The Novelty was planned and executed in the short space of seven weeks.

He next introduced the use of steam in fire-engines; one which was built for the King of Prussia, was the means of saving some valuable buildings in Berlin. In January, 1840, he won the gold medal of the New York Mechanics Institute for the best steam fire-engine.

One of his inventions, begun in England and carried on and completed in America, was the construction of the Caloric engine. This engine was fitted into a ship built for the purpose, and named the Ericsson, and of which the engineer himself says, "The ship after completion made a successful trip from New York to Washington and back during the winter season; but the average speed at sea proving insufficient for commercial purposes, the owners, with regret, acceded to my proposition to remove the costly machinery, although it had proved perfect as a mechanical combination.

"The resources of modern engineering having been exhausted in producing the motors of the Caloric ship, the important question has for ever been set at rest, Can heated air, as a mechanical motor, compete with steam.

"The commercial world is indebted to American enterprise for having settled a question of such vital importance. The marine engineer has thus been encouraged to renew his efforts to perfect the steam-engine without fear of rivalry from a motor depending on the dilation of atmospheric air by heat.”

Ericsson did not, however, give up the idea of the usefulness of this engine, as in places where water is scarce or not obtainable, it is necessary. It is gratifying to know that his exertions in this direction did not go unrewarded; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences voted in 1862: "That the Rumford premium be awarded to John Ericsson for his improvements in the management of heat, particularly as shown in his Caloric Engine."

Ericsson's tireless brain was now turned towards another possible motive-power, in the sun's rays. His solar engine was intended for use in sunny countries; as, for instance, Upper Egypt, North African deserts, Eastern Arabia, the western part of China, in the Western Hemisphere, Lower California, Mexico, and North America, &c. He can even now supply an engine of one hundred horse-power, to any one who can pay the price, but it is too expensive, under existing circumstances, to make the venture a profitable one. The time may come when it may be used with advantage. It is, indeed, a noble idea to convert a power which, in many countries, is a means of blight into a blessing. The screw propeller was suggested to Ericsson by the study of the movements of birds and fishes. This propeller was first offered to the English Admiralty, who rejected it, and thus England lost Ericsson; he met an American naval officer, who took up the idea with enthusiasm, and ordered two vessels to be made at his own expense. He removed to America in 1839. Captain Stocktin's government

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did not catch his enthusiasm so readily; and it was not till after many experiments and many delays, that must have been very irksome to the active Ericsson, that they finally adopted it.

Ericsson completely revolutionised naval warfare; and, as in all revolutions of a like kind, many prejudices had to be overcome, in this case matters were hastened by the practical issue of a fight between Ericsson's boat the Monitor and the Merrimack in Hampton Roads, 9th March, 1862, resulting in the defeat of the latter. After this time the Monitors were adopted by Sweden, Norway, and Russia. England was the last to be convinced of their superiority. The introduction of vessels for conducting submarine warfare is now engaging the attention of the great engineer, and he has completed, at his own expense, the Destroyer, a vessel for discharging torpedoes. Ericsson deserved much at the hands of his adopted country; he himself asked little, and, we regret to say, got what he asked.

Honour has, however, been done to him by many distinguished scientific societies, both in Europe and America. In addition to the monument at his birthplace in Sweden, already mentioned, another was erected on the roadside near the ironworks of Langbanshyttan bearing his own and his brother's name and the words: "Both of whom have served and honoured their native land. Their way through work to knowledge and lasting fame is open to every Swedish youth." On the reverse side is the suggestive inscription: "The way to the schoolhouse of Langbanshyttan."

Although absent from his native land, it has not been forgotten by him. He built at his own cost, and presented to the Swedish Government, the machinery of a gun-boat as a model for a fleet of gun-boats, to be manœuvred by hand independently of steam. Of his personal history there is little

to tell; his work represents his life; he does not go much into society, nor does he invite society to visit him at his home and workshop in Beach Street, New York. His amusements are found in his work. His habits are simple in the extreme, and unvaried; he takes gymnastic exercise in the morning after a cold bath, and walking exercise in the evening from ten till twelve. He is strictly temperate in his eating and drinking, and does not use tobacco; it says much for this mode of life when it is remembered that he is seventy-six, and is still vigorous in body and mind. Captain Ericsson is a widower and childless, but he has nephews living who have distinguished themselves in various ways.

It seems hard to believe that Ericsson was one of the pioneers in the early days of locomotives, that he competed against Stephenson, and was unsuccessful, and that in these later days he still leads the van of progress in the line of inventions which he has taken up.

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THOMAS ALVA EDISON.

THOMAS

ALVA EDISON was born at Milan in Erie

county, Ohio, 11th February, 1847. It was, however, in Port Huron, Michigan, a village perhaps equally obscure, that the early youth of this wonderful genius was passed. His father is of Dutch descent; his mother was of Scotch parentage and born in Massachusetts, was well educated, having been a teacher in Canada, and from her Edison received instruction. Two months was all the time passed at a regular school. His father's occupation, or rather occupations, seem to have been both many and varied; by turns tailor, nurseryman, dealer in grain, in timber, and in farm lands. Possibly the versatility displayed by his distinguished son may be an inheritance from this parent. No precocious sayings or doings of young Edison are reported, but he was a great reader, devouring indiscriminately everything in the shape of a book that came in his way.

His first entrance into the world of work was made at the early age of twelve. He started as train boy on the Grand Trunk Railroad of Canada and Central Michigan. Here the peculiar bent of his mind began to show itself; in a disused corner of an old baggage car, where he kept his papers and other wares, he gradually accumulated a quantity of bottles and retort-stands, and, with the aid of "Fresenius's Qualitative