JOHN ERICSSON. 205 



JOHN ERICSSON. 



<ii , . ... 



fN a mountain hamlet in a beautiful district of Central 

 Sweden, near the iron mines of Langbanshyttan, stands in 

 front of a miner's cottage a granite-shaft eighteen feet high, with 

 this inscription in golden letters — 



JOHN ERICSSON 



WAS BORN HERE IN 1803. 



September 3, 1867, when this monument was unveiled, was 

 a gala day in the mining districts ; all work was suspended, and 

 crowds gathered from far and near to do honour to their dis- 

 tinguished countrj'man, whose fame is world-wide, and of whom 

 they may well be proud. 



John Ericsson is the son of Olof, a Swedish miner ; his mother 

 was a woman of inteUigence and refinement ; John's brother, 

 Mils, distinguished himself highly in his native country as an 

 engineer of canals and railroads, and was raised to the rank of 

 Baron by the King of Sweden. 



John Ericsson's genius developed early. Hischildish toyswere 

 machinery and tools of his own construction. At nine years of 

 age he saw through one of the draught offices on the grand ship 

 canal of Sweden, and there caught some idea of how to use the 

 drawing instruments. This knowledge was put to use in most 

 ingenious ways. Accompanying his father to a pine forest, where 



