Ericsson’s first stroke of business in the United States made him famous. The Princeton war-ship ([see page 69]), built at the Philadelphia navy-yard under his direction, and fitted with his screw propeller, proved a great success, and gained him the favour and patronage of the government officials. Soon after the completion of the Princeton, he embarked in what he then accounted the greatest enterprise of his life—
THE CALORIC SHIP “ERICSSON.”
With the financial assistance of several wealthy friends in New York, Ericsson proceeded to build a large sea-going vessel, to be propelled by means of hot air. It was a costly experiment, involving an outlay of $500,000, the engines alone costing $130,000. The cylinders were 168 inches in diameter, with six-feet stroke. The machinery was in motion within seven months of the laying of the vessel’s keel. On her trial trip the Ericsson attained a speed of eight miles an hour, and subsequently as much as eleven miles an hour. The Ericsson was at once a success and a failure. She sustained the inventor’s theory as to the power of heated air, but so excessive was the temperature of the air required to develop the power, the cylinders were warped out of shape and some of the fittings were burned to a crisp. The costly experiment was consequently abandoned. The caloric engine was replaced by an ordinary steam-engine, and thus transformed the Ericsson earned her living for many years.
THE “MONITOR.”
This further product of Ericsson’s fertile brain is in the form of an armour-protected, semi-submerged steam vessel for war purposes, and first came prominently into notice in connection with the memorable contest which took place in Hampton Roads on the 9th of March, 1862, between the Merrimac and Monitor. The former was an old wooden vessel refitted by the Confederate Government at Norfolk navy-yard, and covered with protective armour to the water-line. The Monitor was a flat iron boat resembling a scow, with nothing visible above water save the flush deck, from the centre of which rose a massive iron tower containing two guns of heavy calibre. The “cheese-box,” as the Monitor was contemptuously styled, held her own against the Merrimac, which carried eleven guns. It was a drawn battle, but a victory for Ericsson, and resulted in many other steam vessels of this description being built for harbour and coast defence under his supervision.
John Ericsson died in New York on the 8th of March, 1889. Vide “Ericsson and His Inventions,” in Atlantic Monthly for July, 1862, and “John Ericsson, the Engineer,” in Scribner’s Magazine for March, 1890.
II. THE WHALEBACK
was invented and patented some years ago by Captain McDougall, of Duluth, a long-headed and level-headed Scotchman hailing from the famed island of Islay. The peculiarity of its construction consists in its elliptical form, combining strength of hull, cheapness of first cost and working, and large carrying capacity upon a light draught of water. Having no masts, the whaleback is entirely dependent on its steam-power, which in case of a breakdown or heavy weather renders the vessel helpless and unmanageable; but, on the other hand, it is contended that so long as she has sufficient water under her she is practically unsinkable. She has no deck to speak of, and consequently nothing to wash overboard save the waves, which play harmlessly over her arched roofing. Her hold is, so to speak, hermetically sealed. Though chiefly intended to carry freight, the capabilities of the whaleback as a passenger steamer have been satisfactorily tested. The Christopher Columbus, built on this principle, did duty as an excursion steamer at the Chicago World’s Fair, and is now plying regularly as a passenger boat between Chicago and Milwaukee—the largest excursion steamer, so it is said, in the world, “having a carrying capacity of 5,000, which number of persons she has comfortably transported on a number of occasions.” The steamer is 362 feet in length, has engines of 2,800 horse-power, and runs at the rate of twenty miles an hour. A considerable number of “whalebacks” are now engaged in the Upper Lakes grain and iron ore trade, all of them having been built by the Steel Barge Company at West Superior.
