376 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



develop originality and make his own way in physics and 

 mechanics. 



When John was eleven years old he and his brother be- 

 came pupils in engineering of Captain Edstrom, who had been 

 sent to England to study the most approved methods in canal 

 construction. He was so pleased with their work that he 

 recommended them to Count Platen, President of the Gotha 

 Ship Canal. This officer had been shown specimens of what 

 John had done, and, receiving him, predicted that if he con- 

 tinued as he had begun, he would some day produce something 

 extraordinary. When twelve years old John was employed, 

 under the direction of his chief, in drawing profile maps and 

 plans for use on the canal, and to be filed in the archives of 

 the company ; in the next year he was assistant to the niveleur 

 (or leveler) in charge of the station of Riddarhagen ; and in 

 another year, when only fourteen years old, and obliged to 

 stand on a stool to reach the eyepiece of his surveyor's level, 

 he was put in charge of the Rottkilms station, where he had to 

 give directions daily to six hundred men. About this time he 

 became assistant to the chief of the work. While engaged as 

 leveler he made drawings of the Sunderland iron bridge, which 

 Count Platen admired very much. He drew for his private 

 use maps and sketches of important parts of the canal and of 

 the machinery used in its construction, which he began to pub- 

 lish several years afterward, inventing an engraving machine 

 to enable the work to be more speedily done. He found, how- 

 ever, that the machinery illustrated by his drawings was being 

 superseded in the rapid progress of improvement in mechan- 

 ical construction, and discontinued this enterprise. 



In 1820, when Ericsson was seventeen years old, after his 

 father had died, he entered the military service of Sweden, 

 and was appointed an ensign in the Royal Field Chasseurs of 

 Jamtland, and stationed at Froson, near Ostersund. The step 

 was taken against the protest of Count Platen, and was the 

 occasion of a breach between them. Soon after joining his 

 regiment he was recommended for promotion, but his colonel 

 was out of favour at court, and the recommendation would 

 not have been heeded, had not the Duke of Upland, son of 

 King Bernadotte, pleaded for him. The Duke showed his 

 Majesty one of Ericsson's military maps, whereby the pro- 

 motion was secured, and the king's attention was directed to 



