The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1883-09-05
MISCELLANY.
A SCIENTIFIC HERMIT.
How n Famous Inventor I.abors and Pre-.
serves his Health Mt Over Eighty.


serves his Health Mt Over Eighty.
-
At st. Johns Park, New York, is q small
brick house facing the southwestern end OF
the square. It is only disting,Ishable from
its neighbors by reason of an almost excess
siye neatness and the mathematical precision
with which the shades in the various win.
dows are adjusted. A visitor in the neigh.
borhood at 10 o'clock at night would see the
door of this little house open suddenly and
man, apparently of so, with a stout figure
and ruddy face, trip lightly down the steps,
md reaching Hudson street, walk rapidly
lorthward
This man is Capt John Ericsson the in.
'entor of the screw-propeller, the monitor,
the solar engine and host of other famous
contrivances. Though he looks but so he
is in reality so years old. but having been
unsuccessful in finding solution for the
problem how to live, as how to overcome
the resistance of the sub-current, he is
enabled at what is usually considered to be
advanced age, to work twelve hours a day,
walk to Central Park and back, and withal
preserve his mind unimpaired.
Ericsson's mode of life may be briefly
stated. Upon rising in the morning he
rubs his skin briskly with dry towels, fol-
towing which he takes cold bath, in sum-
mer using crushed ice. Then come GYM
nastic exercises of vigorous description.
When his system has recovered its normal
temperature Ericsson breakfasts upon eggs,
tea, and coarse brown bread Then comes
work and, as may be supposed, when Erics-
non works it is to some purpose.
He resembles Edison in his natural in.
ventive instinct, his thorough originality
and his profound indifference, if not con.
tempt, for the dogmas laid down by those
learned gentlemen who have spent life in
the laboratory without accomplishing any,
thing beyond the generation of new and
usually useless compounds. But Ericsson
has an advantage over Edison in the fact
hat he received in early life superior
education. Thus it is that instead of being
compelled, like Edison, to work out the
simplest problem by actually handling the
metals, acids and other ingredients he has
but to take pencil in his hand and per-
haps table of logarithms and the thing is
done. All his work-and this, as has
already been said, occupies twelve hours
daily-is performed at either the drawing
board or the writing desk.
Singularly enough, Ericsson delights In
knocking down idols which he has once set
up. Thus, he perfected the steam engine
and found new uses for it, and this being
done, at once 81, himself at work TO find
machine that should take its place, namely,
The solar engine, which gathers and slows
away the heat generated by the suns rays.
It should be said however, that Ericsson
only intended this to take the place of the
steam engine where fuel was costly and
water not to be had, as, for instance, il
Upper Egypt.
Again, after revolutionizing marine war
Fare with his monitor, he is now hard at
work perfeetinga g Destroyer that shall
make armored war ships az useless as wood
Ell ones.
Capt. Ericsson is widower and childless.
The fact that his father, uncles and broth
ers have been distinguished in their native
country for mental ability, goes far to prove
that John Ericssons genius is no abnormal
growth, but the healthy product of rare
stock which has in him reached its bes,
1eyelopment.--Neso York Journal