JOHN ERICSSON. 



1803-1889. 



THE arts of marine engineering and naval construction 

 have been revolutionized through the inventions of Captain 

 Ericsson. As is remarked in Mr. W. C. Church's biography of 

 him, " in the closing years of his life he could look back upon 

 * a change in the physical relations of man to the planet on 

 which he dwells, greater than any which can be distinctly 

 measured in any known period of historic time,' and this he 

 had no small part in creating." 



John Ericsson was born at Langbanshyttan, in the province 

 of Wermland, Sweden, July 31, 1803, and died in the city of 

 New York, March 8, 1889. His ancestry is traced back to the 

 family of Leif Ericsson, the son of Eric the Red, the Norse 

 discoverer of America. He was also related to Thorwaldsen, 

 the sculptor, who was descended, according to Mr. John Fiske, 

 from the son of Thorfmn Karlsefne, the first white child born on 

 American soil. His father, Olaf Ericsson, was a proprietor of 

 mines ; his mother was a daughter of an ironmaster, and was pos- 

 sessed of gifts which, according to Mr. Church, she transmitted 

 to her sons Nils and John. She used to relate that an old 

 man had prophesied to her father that two boys would be born 

 in the family who would become famous. John manifested an 

 aptitude for constructive work at an early age. As a child he 

 amused himself with drawing, boring, and cutting. A little 

 older, he watched the engines at the mines, copied their 

 models in his drawings, and studied their motions. He traced 

 the first suggestion of his future career to the day when, in 

 his seventh year, he dug a mine a foot deep and made a ladder 

 for the use of imaginary miners. When nine years old he had 

 learned the use of drawing instruments and the art of prepar- 

 ing constructive plans. 



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