The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-09-15
JOHN ERICSSON.
New York Evening Sun.

The eighty nth anniversary Cf the birth of the man who revolutionized naval warfare and ocean steam trans- portation suggests with great force that we are in the infancy of the age of magnificent mastery of physical forces for the comfort and develop ment of mankind. John Ericsson was lad when the first successful steam boat went up the Hudson, though it was forty years later that the motion o1 fish's tail suggested to him de- vice better than Fulton's paddle wheel for rough water travel.
 He was man beyond his majority when Stephenson put the locomotive on iron rails, and so brought into practical use the mightiest engine of modern civilization. He was just in the prime of life when Morse devel- oped the inevitable handmaid of rail . road travel, the instantaneous trans- mission of intelligence, and had, in fact, predicted that to make railroad travel all that was possible, some means must be devised for sending in- formation ahead of locomotive.
 He was in the youth of old age though his birthdays alone indicated that fact-when he built the "Moni- tor," which not only silenced the "Merrimac," but converted every navy in the world into a fleet of massive ironclads.
 The stupendous achievements of the genius which gave us the screw pro- peller and which planned in the lab oratory the engine which practically blew every wooden warship of the world into a useless hulk, was not content herewith. Having built the "Monitor" he set to work to complete an engine which should make the "Monitor" useless, and one of the most romantic and fascinating of the tales that could be told of this wonderful mans career is that which would de- scribe how in secret, and guarded as though it were king's treasure, the little torpedo boat, which he called "The Destroyer" was constructed. It was a true leviathan because 1t not only floated on the surface, but at the wish of its controller plunged beneath the sea and sailed about between the surface and the bottom of the ocean with an engine of destruction pro- jecting from its bow. Although "The Destroyer" has not satisfactorily dem onstrated the power of the torpedo boat to annihilate navy, yet 1t has turned the attention of the war bu- reaus of the governments of the world to the vast possibility that lies in tor pedo warfare.
 But MT. Ericsson regards none oi these triumphs of intellect over the forces of nature as the chiefest of his achievements. If you are shown into the plainly furnished parior of his house on Beach street, you will see there glistening polished machine oi queer construction and mysterious purpose. It will do the work which MT. Ericsson set out to have 1t do, and it repi esents what he regards as sure to be the grandest achievement of the human intellect in the domain oi physics It is his solar engine-a machine built to capture the heat in the rays of the sun, that it may be utilized as power producing force. If you put lens where it will collect and concentrate the direct rays of the sun, you may burn hole in an ignit- able substance. To capture and con- trol this power with system and methodically to apply it 80 that force may be obtained to turn the wheels oi manufactories and locomotion, has been the great problem of Ericsson'l life for twenty years. He has solved 1t partially. He can now run an en. zine by the force contained in tho sulrs rays, but he cannot yet do it @, cheaply and as certainly as coal will do it.
 His workshop is on or just beneatl the roof of his unpretentious house In ine weather, those who are co situ. ated that they can look down upoI the roof, can see the stalwart figure o this splendid specimen of vigorous old age as he bends over his tools, work out his problems and makes his ex. pertinent. He pursues the study o his favorite idea with tho anne req tha. impelled him in the beginning o his career as scientific inventor.
 As we see this old man at work, i, is interesting to reflect that the spal of his life covers every ono of the mag, ni6cent achievements of men in ap. piled physics of the past hundred years except those of Watta and pos sibly that of Whitney. There had been steamboats twenty years and moro before Ericsson's birth. A strange genius, who must have bees playmate of the great erandfAther ol GenerAl Grant. In East Windsor Conn, John Fitch, had constructed al engine and propeller that successfully