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 ADDRESS 
 
 OCCASION OF PRESENTING TO JOHN ERICSSON 
 THE RUMFORD MEDAL OF THE 
 AMERICAN ACADEMY. 
 
 Nf HORSF 
 
 E^'^Nf HORSFORD, 
 
 LATE RU:MFORr) PROFESSOR IN HARVARD rjflVERSITy. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON, 
 
 459 Broome Street. 
 
 1866. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OCCASION OF PRESBNTma TO JOHN ERICSSON 
 THE RUMFORD MEDAL OF THE^ 
 AMERICAN ACADEMY. 
 
 r. 
 
 /' 
 
 E) N" HORSFORD, 
 
 LATE RUMFOKD PROFESSOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON, 
 
 459 Become Street. 
 
 1866. 
 
-T^^ 
 t?^^ 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 PRINTED BT H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
ADDRESS, 
 
 We have met to place in the hands of Captain Ericsson 
 the Rumford Prize, awarded to him by the American Acad- 
 emy of Arts and Sciences, in 1862. It seems appropriate to 
 the occasion, so long delayed by the events of the war, to call 
 to mind the claims which the Academy has thus recognized. 
 They rest upon the just appreciation of the purpose of Count 
 Rumford in founding the Premium. What that was we 
 gather from his letter of bequest, his letter of explanation to 
 Sir Joseph Banks, and his pursuits. A great part of his life 
 was passed in experimental researches in the application of 
 the sciences to the useful arts. He studied to economize 
 fuel, and to improve the arts of illumination, ventilation, 
 and cooking. While in Bavaria he sought to lessen the 
 discomforts of the poor, as well by improved mechanical 
 contrivances for domestic uses, as by fully thought out and 
 practically effective systems of relief. His more purely scien- 
 tific labors were most of them in the same field. He pre- 
 ceded by half a century the German Mayer in the revival 
 of the hypothesis of Bacon, that " heat is motion." This 
 was the happy interpretation of the experiment conducted by 
 Count Rumford of boring a cannon in a trunk filled up with 
 water, in which the vibration imparted to the metal ultimately 
 brought the water to the boiling-point. His scientific me- 
 moirs will be a lasting monument to his fame ; but the Pre- 
 mium he established has provided, in an especial manner, for 
 the perpetuation of his name, by forever associating with it a 
 large class of the most useful inventions among men. In the 
 
4 ADDRESS. 
 
 year 1796 he founded, in the American Academy of Arts and 
 Sciences, and also in the Royal Society of England, a prize to 
 be awarded for " improvements or discoveries in light or 
 heat." The scope of the Premium w^as specially defined in 
 a letter addressed the year following to Sir Joseph Banks, 
 President of the Royal Society, in which he says : " The ob- 
 jects more particularly had in view to encourage, are such 
 practical improvements in the generation and management 
 of heat and light as tend directly and powerfully to increase 
 the enjoyments and comforts of life, especially in the lower 
 and more numerous classes of society." 
 
 The first Rumford Medal, in this country, was awarded to 
 Robert Hare, for his invention of the Oxyhydrogen Blow- 
 pipe. 
 
 The second Medal was awarded to John Ericsson, '■'■for 
 his improvements in the management of heat, particularly as 
 shown in his caloric engine of 1858." 
 
 CLAIMS OF ERICSSON. 
 
 To enable us to appreciate the full claim to this award, 
 it would be necessary to review much of Captain Ericsson's 
 career of invention for the last forty years and more, as it 
 has been distinguished chiefly for the improvements it pre- 
 sents in the " generation and management of heat." Time 
 will not permit this. I must pass, with a mere allusion, the 
 steam fire-engine made in England, and used on the fires 
 of the Argyle Rooms, the English Opera House, and Bar- 
 clay's brewery, and that made for the King of Prussia, and 
 put in operation in Berlin before the idea had been suggested 
 in this country ; and the locomotive Novelty, which attained 
 a speed of fifty miles an hour in the great competition on the 
 Liverpool and Manchester Railway, at the dawn of the new 
 mode of travel in 1829. I must pass, too, the improvements 
 in distillation and the procu?'ing of fresh from salt water at 
 sea, together with numerous inventions relating to boilers 
 and steam-engines. It would be interesting to dwell on these 
 in connection with the great issues to which they have con- 
 
ADDRESS. 5 
 
 tributed, as it would on others not connected with heat, but 
 still of great interest, such as the water meter, the sounding 
 apparatus, the balanced rudder, and the device — recently- 
 revived — of conducting railway-trains up steep grades, by 
 directing the power of the locomotive through lateral press- 
 ure applied on both sides of a central rail; but I must 
 limit myself to the consideration of the principal inventions 
 connected with improvements in the naval and commercial 
 marine and the caloric engine. 
 
 That these belong to the class of " such as tend directly 
 and powerfully to increase the enjoyments and comforts of 
 life, especially in the lower and more numerous classes of 
 society," will be obvious when we consider their connection 
 with the development of industry and commerce and the 
 preservation of States. 
 
 IMPEOVEMENTS IN THE NAVAL AND COMMERCIAL MARINE. 
 
 The distinguishing characteristics of the vessels of war of 
 the ancients were, their power to take position without regard 
 to winds or currents ; their ability to run down an antagonist, 
 for which the bow was armed with a metallic beak ; the in- 
 vulnerability of the propelling power, — the banks of oars 
 working through the sides of the hull; and the sheltered 
 condition of the fighting men, who could, nevertheless, from 
 towers, direct their missiles to any quarter from which the 
 foe might be approaching. 
 
 With the Battle of Actium, nineteen centuries ago, culmi- 
 nated the naval architecture of the ancients. Thereafter, no 
 marked advance was made in any quarter of the world for a 
 thousand years. The first great improvement, like the most 
 recent, was the offspring of Scandinavian genius. The sharp 
 keel, enabling the vessel to encounter turbulent waters, was 
 devised by the fishermen from the eastern shores of the North 
 Sea. From the same waters issued the vessels in which 
 the adventurous Northmen led the way of discovery to the 
 western shores of the Atlantic. The ships of the period were 
 small. The army of William the Norman crossed the British 
 
6 ADDRESS. 
 
 Channel in transports, some of which were inferior in tonnage 
 to many of our fishing-smacks, and others but little exceeded 
 our whale-boats or the launches of a man-of-war in size, and 
 did not equal them in safety. 
 
 With the practical use of gunpowder it had been made 
 possible to hurl projectiles to greater distances, and cannon 
 were placed on shipboard. The ship-yards of the Adriatic 
 sent out a class of vessels capacious and safe, — the armed 
 argosies, suited to the wants of commerce. Out of these 
 argosies grew the man-of-war, with its tiers of guns, — a 
 structure singularly suited to display the pluck of the sailor. 
 Though shot might pierce the sides of the vessel and scatter 
 splinters among the gunners and crew, the hull more fre- 
 quently survived in a naval engagement to become a prize to 
 the victors. At the Battle of Trafalgar, though hundreds of 
 shot were driven through the wooden walls, not a vessel was 
 sunk. The introduction of the horizontal firing of hollow 
 shot, to burst on striking, lessened the safety and with it the 
 steadfastness of the gunners. Such shot were contemplated 
 by the first Napoleon in his armament of the Boulogne fleet 
 in 1805. They were constructed at about this time by 
 Robert L. Stephens, and specimens are still preserved in the 
 navy-yard at Washington. But as an instrument of ofi^ence 
 in war it was reserved for the French officer, General Paix- 
 hans, to introduce, in 1820, the use of large guns on ship- 
 board for the express purpose of throwing hollow shot to be 
 exploded by percussion. These shells, penetrating the sides 
 of ships and bursting within them, greatly intensified the 
 sanguinary character of naval battles, and increased the 
 importance of being able to take choice of position. Consid- 
 erable actions were of course impossible without wind. The 
 fleets could not manoeuvre. Steam had come, it is true, to 
 make vessels independent of wind and current. But with it 
 came the side-wheels, the smoke-stack, and the boilers on 
 deck, which placed the vessel at the mercy of the enemy's 
 shot. Steamers proved useful as transports and despatch- 
 vessels, but were unable to cope with the old ships of the 
 
ADDRESS. 7 
 
 line. If the latter could not take choice of position so as to 
 bring the broadside guns into service, the pivot-gun at the 
 bow or stern, vrith a single happy shot, might pierce a boiler, 
 or destroy a wheel, or smoke-stack, or the rudder-chains, and 
 at once put an end to the supremacy of the steamer. 
 
 This brief sketch was necessary to enable us fully to com- 
 prehend the magnitude of the first great revolution in naval 
 architecture since the introduction of steam. 
 
 It proposed to place the boiler, the machinery, and the 
 propelling power — all the vital parts of the ship — below 
 the water-line, out of the reach of shot and shell. It pro- 
 posed the telescopic chimney, that might be elevated or de- 
 pressed at pleasure, in connection with a centrifugal blower, 
 that made the draught of the fire independent of the height 
 of the chimney. 
 
 Without these elements of the modern war-ship, all the 
 others, it will be seen, are of comparatively little moment. 
 
 A vessel was constructed expressly to illustrate these great 
 improvements. Though built in England, it was called the 
 Francis B. Ogden^ — a name familiar as that of our consul 
 at Liverpool. This may be regarded as the first successful 
 propeller. The screw, boiler, and machinery were below the 
 water-line. It performed its duty in all respects well, on an 
 excursion to which were invited His Majesty's Lords Com- 
 missioners of the Admiralty, and Sir William Symonds, the 
 distinguished surveyor of the navy ; and what was the 
 result ? Did they welcome such an accession to the naval 
 power of England ? Was a new vessel ordered of adequate 
 dimensions to fully test the proposed improvements ? Far 
 from it. There was never a happier illustration of the ha- 
 bitual conservatism of the British Government in the treat- 
 ment of new projects, than the course of the Lords of the 
 Admiralty on this occasion. After considerable delay, it 
 transpired, as the result of the deliberation of the Admiralty 
 Board, that it would be impossible to steer a vessel where the 
 propelling power was so near the rudder ! 
 
5 ADDRESS. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that our guest should soon after 
 have sought appreciation in another hemisphere. He came 
 to America, bringing with him the machinery of a second 
 propeller, the Robert F. Stockton, (still in active operation, in 
 1866,) and introducing screw navigation to the New World. 
 At a later period he built for the government the screw war- 
 steamer Princeton, embodying the improvements illustrated 
 in a smaller way in the Robert F. Stockton ; and when her 
 plans and performance had elicited the admiration of some 
 of the first naval constructors and naval officers of the world, 
 then the Lords of the Admiralty commenced altering the 
 old ships of the line, and building an indefinite number of 
 the new vessels of various sizes, adopting not only the mode 
 of propulsion demonstrated in the Princeton, and the plan of 
 placing the vital parts of the steamer below the water-line, 
 but even the artificial draught and the telescopic chimney. 
 
 Here were taken, at once, two great strides in marine 
 architecture, the invulnerable propelling power and the screw. 
 Steam was rendered available in naval warfare. These 
 improvements restored to ships of war the ability lost sight 
 of with the triremes, to take choice of position ; and placed 
 the power to go into or come out of an action almost beyond 
 the contingencies of shot and shell. 
 
 The inventions of Captain Ericsson bear date of 1837. 
 Various other persons had attempted to find a practical solu- 
 tion for propulsion by the screw, but it remained to achieve 
 the victory over all difficulties and give what the world 
 needed, — success. English authorities concede this, as do 
 the French, for whose government he furnished the plans 
 for the Pomone, the first screw man-of-war in the French 
 navy. We do not lose sight, in this sketch, of the steam- 
 screw propeller put in operation on Kollec Pond, in the city 
 of New York, by John Fitch, in 1796. It was very small, 
 it is true, and very little like the propeller of modern times. 
 The screw was a shaft with a single, continuous, deep thread, 
 and its other appliances were equallj'- crude ; but it was the 
 first steam-screw propeller. Its veteran inventor — who, like 
 
■ ADDRESS. 9 
 
 too many sons of genius, reaped but indifferent reward for 
 his labors for the good of mankind — wrote : " This will be 
 the mode of crossing the Atlantic in time, whether I shall 
 bring it to perfection or not." 
 
 With this revolution in naval architecture, which speedily- 
 spread through the British and French fleets, the world 
 seems to have been satisfied, and it slumbered on till the 
 experience of the Crimean War suggested the protection of 
 ships against bursting shells. The vessel was to be coated 
 with plates of iron, thick enough to crush the shells thrown 
 against them. Soon the idea arose of plating thick enough 
 to resist the penetration of solid shot. The Gloire, on the 
 part of the French, and the Warrior, on the part of the 
 English Government, were the first vessels constructed on 
 the new principle. The plate was strong enough to resist 
 the penetrating power of the smooth-bore sixty-eight pounder, 
 then the best gun in the British naval service. 
 
 The adoption of Professor Treadwell's system of coil-guns, 
 as produced by Sir William Armstrong, soon proved to the 
 English Government that the Warrior four-and-a-half-inch 
 plates were no longer impenetrable. Thicker plates were 
 made for the already burdened hull, until the ponderous 
 armor weighed it down as the coats of mail weighed down 
 the knights of the Middle Ages. The full broadsides, ex- 
 tending high out of water, were still presented as targets to 
 the enemy. Their vulnerability with improved ordnance 
 was relatively even greater than before. These defects were 
 in some degree redeemed by the adoption of the ram for 
 running down the enemy's ship, — a measure so eloquently 
 urged upon the government by Colonel Ellet years before 
 the war, and so signally illustrated by the Merrimack in 
 Hampton Boads and the fleet under Admiral Davis before 
 Memphis. 
 
 2 
 
10 ADDKESS. 
 
 THE MONITOR SYSTEM. 
 
 This was the condition of the problem of armor 
 ordnance in 1861. At that time our navy, with the ex- 
 ception of a few effective ships of the hne, frigates, and 
 sloops of war, had to be created, — a condition of things 
 scarcely conceivable now that our iron-clads may fairly chal- 
 lenge the assault of the world. The outbreak of the Rebel- 
 lion presented an emergency which called into activity the 
 resources of our people. The Navy Department gave an 
 attentive ear to the projects devised by men of inventive 
 talent, and in no case with more fortunate results than in the 
 first turreted vessel submitted by Captain Ericsson. If it 
 was to the honor of the commission who advised the con- 
 struction of so novel a ship of war, and the department 
 which acted with such promptitude upon their counsel, it 
 was no less to the credit of the projector and constructor, 
 that, within ninety days from the date of the contract, the 
 Monitor was launched, and two months later had achieved — 
 to the glory of Worden, his officers, and crew — its life-work 
 in Hampton Roads. The plans of the vessel had been suited 
 to the facilities of existing work shops, and to the exigency 
 that made the saving of time a possible condition of national 
 existence. 
 
 Before the astonishment with which we viewed the naval 
 conflict with the Merrimack had subsided, public attention 
 was called to the claim that one of the distinguishing features 
 of the Monitor^ the revolving turret, was an English in- 
 vention. Appeal was made to the publications of Captain 
 Coles, in " Blackwood " and in the " Mechanics' Magazine," 
 bearing date of 1860, in which it was pointed out that the 
 breech-loading guns of a ship of war might be served on 
 turn-tables, moved by hand, and covered with dome-shaped 
 shields. The conception of Captain Coles, as illustrated 
 under his own signature, exhibited a double row of cupolas 
 on the otherwise flush deck of an old-fashioned sloop of war. 
 
 Tlie Lords of the Admiralty gave to the plans of Captain 
 
ADDRESS. 11 
 
 Coles the same distinguished consideration that had been 
 vouchsafed to the earher proposition of Captain Ericsson in 
 regard to screw war-steamers. It was only after the success 
 of the Monitor that Captain Coles obtained the hearing to 
 which his high order of ability entitled him. 
 
 Of the relative merits of the system, appropriately desig- 
 nated by John Scott Russell, in his great work on naval 
 architecture just published in London, as the " American 
 iron-clad navy,'' the projector and builder of the G-reat 
 Eastern says : — 
 
 " It is a creation altogether original, peculiarly American, ad- 
 mirably adapted to the special purpose which gave it birth. Like 
 most American inventions, use has been allowed to dictate terms 
 of construction ; and purpose, not prejudice, has been allowed to 
 rule invention. 
 
 " The ruling conditions of construction for the inventors of the 
 American fleet were these : the vessels must be perfectly shot- 
 proof; they must fight in shallow water; they must be able to 
 endure a heavy sea, and pass through it, if not fight in it. 
 
 "The American iron-clad navy is a child of these conditions. 
 Minimum draught of water means minimum extent of surface pro- 
 tected by armor. Perfect protection means thickness to resist the 
 heaviest shot, and protection for the length of the whole ship ; it 
 also means perfect protection to guns and gunners. Had they 
 added what our legislators exact, that the ports shall lie in the 
 ship's side, nine feet above the water, the problem might at once 
 have become impossible and absurd; but they wanted the work 
 done as it could be done, and allowed the conditions of success to 
 rule the method of construction. 
 
 "The conditions of success in the given circumstances were 
 these : that you should not require the sides of the ship to rise 
 much above the water's edge ; that you should be content with as 
 many guns as the ship could carry and no more. 
 
 " To do the work, therefore, the full thickness of armor required 
 to keep out the enemies' shot was taken, but the ship was made to 
 rise a few inches above water and no more ; and so a narrow strip 
 of thick armor, all along the upper edge of the ship's side, gave her 
 complete protection. Thus the least quantity of thickest armor 
 did most work in protecting the ship, engines, boilers, and maga- 
 
12 ADDRESS. 
 
 zines. Next, to protect the guns, a small circular fortress, shield, 
 or tower, encircled a couple of guns ; and if four guns were to be 
 carried, two such turrets carried the armament and contained the 
 gunners. Thus, again, weight of armor was spared to the utmost, 
 and so both ship and armament were completely protected. 
 
 " But the consequences of these conditions are such as we, at 
 least for sea-going ships, would reluctantly accept. The low ship's 
 side will, in a sea-way, allow the sea to sweep over the ship ; and 
 the waves, not the sailors, will have possession of the deck. The 
 American accepts the conditions, removes the sailors from the deck, 
 allows the sea to have its way, and drives his vessel through — not 
 over — the sea to her fighting destination by steam, abandoning 
 sails. The American also cheerfully accepts the small round tur- 
 rets as protection for guns and men, and pivots them on a central 
 turn-table in the middle of his ship, raising his port high enough 
 to be out of the water, and then figliting his gun through an aper- 
 ture little larger than its muzzle. 
 
 " By thus frankly accepting the conditions he could not control, 
 the American did his work and built his fleet. It is beyond doubt 
 that the American Monitor class, with two turrets in each ship 
 and two guns in each turret, is a kind of vessel that can be made 
 fast, shot-proof, and sea-proof." 
 
 It is now admitted that no v^'^eather is too severe for a 
 monitor that has a tight deck and tight deck-openings. The 
 larger vessels, of the Dictator and Monadnoch types, have 
 been reported, by such experienced officers as Admiral Por- 
 ter, Commodore Rogers, and Chief-Engineer Ziegler, to be 
 capable of performing any sea-service. " The easy-rolling 
 and good-steering qualities of the Dictator are not surpassed 
 by any iron-clad afloat." Chief-Engineer Ziegler says of the 
 Monadnock, after six thousand miles of sea-service, — " All 
 agree that she is a perfect, successful, sea-going monitor." 
 
 Scott Russell says : — 
 
 " It will be noticed that the arrangements of the turret are very 
 different from Captain Coles's arrangements. The whole turret is 
 on the upper deck, exposed to shot ; it is not carried on a revolving 
 set of rollers, but is pivoted on the centre, which seems to carry 
 most of its weight by means of an iron trussing, from which it is, 
 
ADDRESS. 13 
 
 as it were, suspended ; and it slides on a smooth metal plate lying 
 on the deck. The turret is worked by a small pair of donkey 
 engines working on tooth-gear, and the ports are covered by hang- 
 ing blocks. When we consider the extreme rapidity which attended 
 the execution of the project, we must say that the original Monitor 
 was a remarkable success, and that she was a type of an entirely 
 new class of war-ship. 
 
 " It is curious and instructive to observe how differently the sys- 
 tem has been developed in America and in England ; in the one 
 case the sudden abandonment of all the conventionalities of a ship, 
 and in the other the studious retention of old forms and ways, 
 admitting the innovation with the greatest possible amount ol 
 reluctance and seeming aversion." 
 
 Any question of originality in point of time between Cap- 
 tain Ericsson and Captain Coles is effectually set at rest by a 
 letter and illustrative diagram, bearing date 1854, addressed 
 by Captain Ericsson to the Emperor Napoleon, of which I 
 hold in my hand a printed copy. It will be seen that all 
 that is characteristic in Captain Coles's invention, to wit : the 
 revolving turn-table and its cupola shield, were anticipated 
 by some six years. 
 
 It is not too much to say that with the Monitor a second 
 revolution takes date in naval architecture within a period 
 of twenty-five years. In this vessel, and more especially 
 in those of the Dictator and Monadnoch classes, besides 
 a hull containing all the vital parts of the vessel below 
 the water-line, alike invisible to an enemy and invulnera- 
 ble, we have a revolving turret, capable — like the narrow 
 edge of the low deck — of indefinite increase of armor, and 
 of carrying and serving amidships the most powerful ord- 
 nance that can be devised ; a wheel-house within the turret 
 and sharing its protection ; a ram of powerful construction, 
 in which the deck acts as a wedge to penetrate and bear 
 down an adversary; armor- plate as effectually protecting the 
 stern as the bow and sides ; an impregnable chimney and 
 artificial draught ; an even motion that permits the service 
 
14 ADDRESS. 
 
 of the guns almost regardless of winds and waves ; a system 
 of ventilation which sweeps the atmosphere of the whole 
 habitable vessel under the grate-bars ; and a system of bunk- 
 ers, which, when cleared of coal, may be filled with water to 
 lower the deck and put the vessel in fighting trim, or emptied 
 to make her light and high for speed. 
 
 The system, in a word, provides for the safe and suc- 
 cessful working of guns however large, and presents a com- 
 bination of advantages, both for defence and aggression, to 
 be sought for in vain in any contrivance based on the form 
 of the old line-of-battle ship. 
 
 THE CALORIC ENGINE. 
 
 Let us turn now to the caloric engine. 
 
 The idea of employing air in the propulsion of machinery 
 is of early date. Papin, of Marburg, to whom we owe, 
 among other inventions, the digester, the vacuum by steam, 
 and the safety-valve, conceived the notion of compressing 
 air by water power or other agency, and transmitting it 
 through tubes to distant points, to be applied, to operate 
 machinery. This proposition was followed, after a long in- 
 terval, by that of heating the compressed air on its transit, 
 as proposed by Medhurst toward the close of the last century. 
 Since then, the patents taken out for various forms of air- 
 engines in the Old World and the New number several 
 hundreds. They class themselves under three principal 
 heads : — 
 
 1st. Such as use the same volume of air over and over 
 again, alternately heating and cooling it, wholly or par- 
 tially ; of which there are various forms, including — beside 
 some of Ericsson's — Stirling's, Hazeltine's, Parkinson & 
 Crossley's, McDonough's, and others. 
 
 2d. Such as use the volatile products of combustion with 
 the air, discharging at each stroke ; like Ericsson's flame- 
 engine, Bennett's, Baxter's, Sir George C.ayley's, Gordon's, 
 Drake's, Whipple's, Shaw's, and Roper's. 
 
 3d. Such as take in air at ordinary atmospheric pressure, 
 
ADDKESS. 15 
 
 heat it by contact with heated metal, and discharge it at each 
 stroke ; like Ericsson's, Reach's, and Wilcox's. 
 
 It would be an endless, and for the purposes of this occasion 
 a needless task to attempt to present, if justice could be 
 done, the claims of all these exhibitions of thought, labor, 
 and triumph over great mechanical difficulties. It is our 
 duty only to point out the relative significance of the part in 
 them performed by the recipient of the Rumford Premium. 
 
 Ericsson's first air-engine, called by the inventor the flame- 
 engine^ belonged to the second class ; in which the products 
 of combustion pass through the working parts of the engine. 
 His second engine, in point of time, was of the third class. 
 
 In 1826, a Scotch clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Robert Stir- 
 ling, and John Ericsson, applied to the British Government 
 for patents for motive power actuated by heat and atmos- 
 pheric air. 
 
 Stirling's engine was founded on the old idea of producing 
 an alternating expansive force by moving a solid body back 
 and forward within a closed vessel containing atmospheric 
 air, heated at one end and cooled at the other. Ericsson's 
 was founded on the idea of taking in a fresh supply of air at 
 each stroke, heating and discharging it into the atmosphere. 
 Robert Stirling, associating himself with his brother James, 
 steadfastly pursued his chosen line of invention till about 
 1840, when the Dundee air-engine was produced. It is not 
 known that this engine, which for several years gave very 
 good satisfaction, has ever been repeated. The principal 
 difficulties consisted in finding material which would sustain 
 the intense heat of the fire, and in the necessity of supplying 
 a large amount of water for cooling purposes. 
 
 Ericsson brought into practical operation, in 1827, the 
 first double-cylinder engine actuated by heated air discharged 
 at each stroke into the atmosphere. One cylinder and its 
 piston served to supply the air. With the descent of the 
 piston, air was taken in through valves above, while that 
 below was driven over the heater into the working cylinder. 
 With the rise of the piston in the supply cylinder, the air 
 
16 ADDRESS. 
 
 from above was transferred through a lateral passage to the 
 bottom of the cylinder, filling the space as the piston rose. 
 The air driven into the working cylinder, acquiring expansive 
 force by the heat received in its transfer, operated the piston 
 in the open working cylinder, communicating motion to the 
 machinery. 
 
 THE REGENERATOR. 
 
 By using a common passage, containing a number of 
 straight pieces of metal, alternately for the heated air escap- 
 ing from the working cylinder, and for the transfer of the 
 cold air from above to below the piston, in the supply cylinder, 
 in which case the piston moves in equiltbrio, Captain Eric- 
 sson, in 1837, introduced the regenerator, already applied 
 by him to the engine of the first class in 1833, and in re- 
 gard to which there has been so much and such ill-informed 
 discussion. Could the parties to the opposing views have 
 come to a common stand-point, they would have discovered 
 themselves reenacting the combat of the gold and silver 
 shield. The use of the heat of the heated air after the air 
 has performed its work in the working cylinder, by warming 
 closely arranged sheets of metal or coarse wire netting and 
 then absorbing this heat from the metal by the air in its pas- 
 sage, in constant volume, from one side to the other of the 
 piston in the supply cylinder, is no more mysterious than the 
 economy of the use of water condensed from waste steam 
 and returned at a temperature below 212° to the boiler. 
 There is this difference, however, that it is possible to heat 
 the air passing through a regenerator to a temperature much 
 above 212°. What the inventor claims to be a regenerator, 
 and Franchot called a calefactor, the disputant would perhaps 
 call an economizer. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES AND REWARDS OF INVENTORS. 
 The progress of discovery and invention in the case of the 
 caloric engine, with its attendant constant collision with 
 difficulties, anticipated and unforeseen, with its unflinching 
 
ADDRESS, 17 
 
 struggle continued through evil and through good report for 
 thirty-five years, and the calm conviction of ultimate success 
 which animated it, can never be fully known or appreciated. 
 It required, moreover, the perennial inspiration of capital, 
 proverbially wanting in faith, and yet never appealed to in 
 vain by Captain Ericsson in this city of merchants, " some 
 among whom, like those of ancient Tyre, are princes." 
 
 While the history of the caloric engine illustrates the gran- 
 deur of the cooperation which its inventor has enjoyed, it 
 illustrates also the conditions of success in invention which 
 even genius must recognize. The development of a con- 
 ception requiring mechanical devices, serial processes, trials, 
 modifications, and a period of probation, involves capital. 
 The duty of capital is self-increase. It demands, as a pre- 
 requisite to investment, satisfaction in regard to prospective 
 profit, or, if there be chances of loss, that they be balanced 
 by chances of corresponding or greater gain. How are these 
 chances of gain to be secured to capital ? By precluding 
 competition for a limited time, that the losses incidental to 
 development may be reimbursed. And this is done through 
 the protection afforded by the patent laws. Without this 
 protection few of the great achievements of the age would 
 have made their mark. The steam-engine, the locomotive, 
 the photograph, the telegraph, the wood-screw, the thresh - 
 ing-machine, the reaping-machine, the sewing-machine, the 
 Hoe printing-press, the improvements in arms, and in domes- 
 tic economy, warming, and illumination, the analine colors, 
 vulcanized rubber, the propeller, the caloric engine, and the 
 monitor, have become what they are, and rendered their 
 services to civihzation chiefly through the method of co- 
 operation between the inventor and the capitalist which the 
 patent laws have provided. 
 
 It has sometimes occurred that men of science — unlike 
 Liebig, Gay-Lussac, and Hoffman, Brewster and Wheat- 
 stone, Watt, Fairburn, and Ericsson — have declined to avail 
 themselves of this provision for rendering their discoveries 
 or inventions useful to their fellow-men. Where, in such 
 3 
 
18 ADDRESS. 
 
 cases, there lias been genuine invention, promising increased 
 comfort and culture to man, it has usually happened that the 
 labor and thought were bestowed in vain ; and for the obvious 
 reason, that, as all may engage in the supply of the new 
 product, the capital required for unavoidable expenditures at 
 the outset cannot have its needed protection. The author 
 and publisher are aware of this natural law. The copyright 
 is the recognition of their necessities. Where, on the other 
 hand, the invention, as may be assumed in the great majority 
 of cases, has advanced only to the stage of difficulty, where 
 the steadfastness of the experimenter and the resources of 
 varied creative power are called into action, as the essentials 
 to success, the giving over of what has been done to the 
 public is not to be wondered at ; nor should it be a matter of 
 surprise, that, to the authors of the latter class of inventions, 
 especially, the patent laws seem to have, been devised for 
 another class of minds than their own. 
 
 INVENTION AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 
 
 It sometimes happens, after the crown of success has been 
 attained by the faithful experimentalist, that the germ of the 
 hypothesis upon which he bestowed his thought and labor is 
 claimed to have been entertained, at an earlier period, by some 
 one else. 
 
 The claim alleged is for the specific scientific discovery 
 which is said to underlie the invention. Now, scientific dis- 
 coveries are of various classes and degrees of merit. There are 
 simple facts, which, like material gems, reward an explorer in 
 a fruitful field, and demand little effort beyond the exercise of 
 attention and a capacity to collect and record. There are 
 others in which the laws of physical force and chemical com- 
 position are determined by systematic experiment. There 
 are still others in which abstract relations are brought to 
 light, as in mathematics ; and others in which the properties 
 conferred upon matter by organic life are the subjects of 
 research, as in physiology. Achievements in these several 
 fields have a certain value as an evidence of culture and a 
 
ADDRESS. 19 
 
 title to social consideration. There is another class in which 
 success is sometimes rewarded by pecuniary as well as social 
 distinction. It is the class in which the object of discovery 
 is a device by which the forces of nature or the qualities of 
 matter may be made to render new service to civilization. 
 
 In this class, discovery has usually, for its first step, the 
 perception or appreciation of a want. Its next step is spec- 
 ulation as to the devices by which the want may be met. 
 Then there is the production of a crude contrivance, by 
 which to test the soundness of the speculation. Then come 
 modifications and new trials, and ultimately what seems suc- 
 cess. Then comes expansion of the process, approaching a 
 working scale. Trial on the larger plan reveals fresh im- 
 perfections ; new relations appear, and new expedients have 
 to be resorted to. The devices which, at the commencement, 
 were distinguished on account of their complexity, are replaced 
 by others of marked simplicity. Again success seems to be 
 attained. Now comes the grand economy and organization 
 of the enterprise for rendering the discovery available and 
 useful. 
 
 The rank of the scientific discovery, or series of discover- 
 ies, which make up such an invention, is high in proportion 
 as the intrinsic difficulties to be overcome have been great, and 
 as the investigation and solution of the problem presented 
 have been exhaustive, and low in proportion as the difficulties 
 were inconsiderable, and as the investigation has been super- 
 ficial and the solution defective. 
 
 It rarely happens that all the stages of an important and 
 useful discovery of this class are presided over by one mind. 
 More frequently the earlier and later stages fall into different 
 hands. In this event the rewards are divided. The nearer 
 one is to the conclusion of the series, the larger uniformly is 
 his measure of material return. Where all have been the 
 offspring of one mind, the honors and pecuniary emoluments 
 enter alike into the reward. Where the naked speculation 
 or suggestion only can be claimed, or where a crude device 
 merely had been proposed and success predicted, the author 
 
20 ADDRESS. 
 
 will be assigned a place in the world's esteem, distinguished 
 in some degree in proportion to the clearness and detail of his 
 plans and predictions. If it be not as high as the man of 
 suggestion sometimes deems his due, it is because the ap- 
 plause of mankind seems to be reserved for its heroes, — the 
 men who have not only encountered difficulty, but made its 
 conquest, — rather than for its men of speculation, whose 
 influence on the well-being of the race is more transient, or, 
 if lasting, less direct. 
 
 The common sense of the world has made a uniform, and, 
 we must believe, a just discrimination, in its award of merit 
 to him who, patiently following the lead of a conception, 
 has brought to successful issue and recognition new agencies 
 for advancing civilization, rather than to him who, equally 
 with the former, had the same happy conception, and had it 
 even at an earlier date, but neglected the duties nature pre- 
 scribes as the condition of fruition. 
 
 " The step from the first more or less vague conception of a new 
 truth to its conclusive demonstration is a matter of far more impor- 
 tance and difficulty than the happy and sometimes, to all appear- 
 ances, intuitive guesses which have invariably preceded eveiy great 
 discovery. Newton formed a right estimate of his own claims, when 
 he ascribed his success to the patient and laborious pertinacity with 
 which he kept fast hold of an idea, until, by long thinking and 
 varied experiment, he has proved either its truth or its false- 
 hood." — Quarterly Review : Newton as a Scientijic Discoverer. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CALORIC ENGINE OF 1858. 
 
 Let US trace the steps by which the caloric engine of 1868 
 was evolved. 
 
 First, in 1827, we had the two-cylinder engine, with a 
 piston in each cylinder. 
 
 In 1837 the fly-wheel above and regenerator were added 
 to the two-cylinder engine. With some modification of de- 
 tails, this engine was reproduced by Wilcox in 1859-60. 
 
 In 1839, in connection with the regenerator, came two 
 pistons operating in one cylinder, one supply and the other 
 
ADDRESS. 21 
 
 working, and with them a device for compressing the air 
 at the instant of its passage from the supply cylinder to be 
 heated. The feature of two pistons in one cylinder reap- 
 peared, with the regenerator in the head of the working 
 piston, in Reach's engine, the plan of which was published 
 in 1854, though it is not known to have been carried out to 
 a working model. 
 
 Then came a series of experimental engines, resulting, in 
 1851, in the differential engine for the caloric ship, — a 
 vessel which, at the outset, yielded a speed of seven knots, 
 but was ultimately abandoned, not from any inherent defect 
 of principle, but because the wants of commerce required 
 faster ships. 
 
 In 1855 we had the supply and working piston in one 
 cylinder, with the regenerator and the compression of air, in 
 which the supply piston worked in equilihrio at the time when 
 the working piston was nearly stationary. 
 
 In 1856 was added the quickened motion at the conclusion 
 of the inward stroke of the supply piston. 
 
 In 1858 came the device of the alternating blast of cold 
 air over the lubricated surface of the cylinder, by which the 
 temperature was kept below that at which oil suffers injury. 
 The difficulty of preventing the oil from burning had been 
 pronounced by eminent authority in England to be insur- 
 mountable, because of the high temperature indispensable to 
 the air-engine, — debarring, therefore, forever, success to the 
 caloric engine. To this device were united, within one cylin- 
 der, the supply and working pistons, the telescopic tube, the 
 fire-pot, and the regenerator. To render these effective were 
 devised the combination of the fly-wheel, rock-shaft, crank, 
 and lever movements, and the system of connecting rods, by 
 which the air of the supply cylinder is compressed at the 
 instant when the working cylinder is nearly at rest, by which 
 the working piston is held in equilihrio during the transfer of 
 the air to the heater through the regenei-ator, and by which 
 the necessary direct, reversed, uniform, accelerated, and re- 
 tarded motions required for operating the pistons and valves 
 
22 ADDRESS. 
 
 are produced and connected with each other. It is difficult 
 to conceive of a higher theoretical and mechanical triumph. 
 
 I do not dwell on the series of air-engines constructed by 
 Captain Ericsson to operate by alternately heating and cool- 
 ing a confined body of compressed air, of which the first was 
 built in 1833, and one of the most recent was nearly com- 
 pleted for the Primero at the outbreak of the Rebellion. It 
 is enough to say, that, in comparing the earlier with the later 
 engines, there is a marked development of the capabilities of 
 the principle, and corresponding progress in invention. 
 
 It has been impossible to go into detail with each of Cap- 
 tain Ericsson's air-engines, of which there have been pro- 
 duced above thirty, distributed through more than this num- 
 ber of years, differing in essential particulars of invention, 
 or designed to test some question to be answered only by 
 experiment, — as it would be to review the discussions of the 
 caloric engine, in which Ericsson, Rankine, Joule, Napier, 
 Regnault, Barnard, Norton, and a crowd of other writers, 
 French, German, English, and American, have taken part. 
 No one who comprehends the action of Stirling's earlier 
 engine, or of Ericsson's of 1833 or 1837, — which, with the 
 regenerator attached, would do an amount of duty to which 
 it was titterly inadequate with the regenerator detached, — 
 or of the action of the caloric engine of 1858, or of Wil- 
 cox's, — which with the escape and supply ports closed, and 
 the air of the working cylinder returned alternately to and 
 received from the supply cylinder, will run for a long time 
 after the fire has been withdrawn, — can now doubt, that, 
 upon the main point, the function of the regenerator, the 
 claims of Ericsson have been sustained. 
 
 I cannot omit to allude to the experimental researches of 
 Captain Ericsson to determine the relations of elasticity to 
 temperature in suddenly compressed air, as compared with 
 air so slowly compressed as to have the heat removed as 
 rapidly as produced. They are important as having been 
 
ADDRESS. 23 
 
 conducted on a scale so large as to escape the errors of pre- 
 vious experimenters, and being therefore more trustworthy 
 as a guide to engineers. It is to be hoped that the details of 
 these researches, together with all the others Captain Eric- 
 sson has made, connected with heated air, steam, and naval 
 architecture and armament, will at no distant day see the 
 light, that their legitimate influence may be felt upon the 
 spirit of invention and the progress of the mechanic arts. 
 
 Captain Ericsson : At the time the vote of the Ameri- 
 can Academy of Arts and Sciences conferring upon you the 
 Rumford Premium was passed, I had the honor to be Chair- 
 man of the Rumford Committee, and, you will remember, 
 signified my wish to relieve myself of the trust imposed upon 
 me ; but as this formal act and the simple ceremony appro- 
 priate to it have been postponed in consequence of the press- 
 ure of the war, in which you, sir, have borne so conspicuous 
 a part, the custody of the vote and medal has been continued 
 with me to the present time. 
 
 I have the honor now to place in your hands a certified 
 copy of the vote passed by the Academy at its annual meet- 
 ing, June 10, 1862. It is as follows : — 
 
 " Voted, That the Rumford Premium be awarded to John Eric- 
 sson, for his improvements in the management of heat, particularly 
 as shown in his caloric engine of 1858." 
 
 In now handing to you the gold and silver medals which 
 have been prepared in accordance with the statutes of the 
 Academy, I beg to congratulate you upon the honors you 
 have won through a life of research and experiment, devoted 
 to the promotion of the prosperity and well-being of man- 
 kind, in the field contemplated by the illustrious founder of 
 the Rumford Premium. 
 
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