SKETCH OF JOHN ERICSSON. 117 



While he was making all these machines he was also exper- 

 imenting with designs for a caloric engine. His researches in 

 this direction were begun with the " flame engine " already men- 

 tioned. He contributed a paper on the subject to the English 

 Institution of Civil Engineers in 1826 ; built three engines in 1827 

 based on the principle of the expansion of air ; brought out a 

 completed caloric engine in 1833, to which he applied improve- 

 ments as his investigations continued ; received the Rumford 

 medal in 1856 for his researches into the nature of heat; and, 

 according to Mr. Church, spent in thirty years, including the 

 engines for his caloric ship, more than a quarter of a million 

 dollars in building twenty-seven experimental engines. The ca- 

 loric system was not successful when applied to the propulsion of 

 large vessels like the Ericsson, although that vessel registered a 

 speed of eight and attained at one time a speed of eleven miles 

 an hour, but for lighter work it has proved very practicable and 

 efficient ; the smaller machines have been extensively used, and 

 the inventor derived large profits from them. 



The first experiment with the screw propeller was made in 

 1836 by Captain Ericsson, in conjunction with his friend Francis 

 B. Ogden, of New Jersey, United States consul at Liverpool. A 

 model of the apparatus was built and tested in a public bath. 

 Then a boat forty feet long, propelled by a double screw, attained 

 a speed of ten miles an hour on the Thames. The Lords of the 

 Admiralty were passengers on the trial trip ; but seeing was not 

 believing with them, and, while they witnessed the successful 

 performance of the craft, they declared that no vessel could be 

 steered if the power was api^lied at the stern, and would have 

 nothing to do with it. Captain Robert J. Stockton, of New Jer- 

 sey, afterward United States Senator, was visiting England at the 

 time on business connected wit^ the Delaware and Raritan Canal, 

 and, witnessing the performance of the propeller vessel, ordered 

 one built for himself and named after him. It was sent across 

 the Atlantic, and when it reached New York the freedom of the 

 city was given to its captain. This vessel was employed for 

 many years in the waters of the United States, and, passing into 

 the possession of the Messrs. Stevens, of Hoboken, N, J., was 

 known as the tug New Jersey till 1866, when, or about that time, 

 it was broken up. 



On the invitation of Captain Stockton, Captain Ericsson re- 

 signed, i-n 1839, the position of Superintending Engineer of the 

 Eastern Counties Railroad in England, and removed to the United 

 States. By the aid of Captain Stockton's influence he obtained a 

 commission to build a steam-propeller frigate, the Princeton, for 

 the United States Navy. Before this vessel was finished, in 1844, 

 his screw had been placed in forty-one commercial vessels of the 



