Ericsson, JOHN, engineer, was born at Langbanshyttan, in the Swedish province of Vermland, 31st January 1812. After serving for some time as an officer of engineers in the Swedish army, he removed in 1826 to England, and continued to occupy himself with improvements chiefly on steam machinery and its applications. In 1829, for the
Liverpool and Manchester railway race, he built within six weeks (so it is said) the Novelty, a steam-engine which, had not the fan broken down at the last moment, might have proved a formidable competitor to Stephenson's Rocket. In 1836 he took out a patent for the screw-propeller (see SHIP-BUILDING, p. 404). In 1839 he went to the United States, where he furnished designs for the warship Princeton, the first steamer that had her engines and boilers entirely below the water-line, and brought out his improved caloric engine (see AIR-ENGINE) and numerous other inventions. In 1861, during the civil war, he designed and finished in one hundred days the ironclad Monitor (see NAVY, Vol. VII. p. 418), and in 1862 built a number of similar vessels for the American navy. The Destroyer, a vessel with under-water guns, from which projectiles enclosing 300 lb. of gun-cotton were to be fired into an enemy below her armour-plating, was tried in 1881, but failed to satisfy the requirements of the navy board. In 1883 he erected a 'sun motor' in New York: his earlier experiments for developing power from the direct rays of the sun are described in his magnificent volume, Contributions to the Centennial Exhibition (1876). He died in New York, 8th March 1889. By his own wish he was buried in the place of his birth, a United States man-of-war conveying his body in 1890 to Langbanshyttan; and it was decided to erect his statue in Stockholm. His inventions cover nearly the whole field of mechanical engineering, and have revolutionised both the navigation and the navies of the world. His great services to science were recognised by the governments of the United States, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Austria, as well as by many learned societies in America and Europe. See his Life by W. C. Church (1891).