This was in the
year 1839.
Circumstances delayed, for some two years, the execution of their plan.
With the change of the Federal Administration, Stockton was first able
to obtain a favorable hearing; and having at length received the
necessary authority, the Princeton was built under his superintendence,
from the designs of Ericsson. She was completed and ready for sea
early in 1844, when she was pronounced by Stockton "the cheapest,
fastest, and most certain ship of war in the world."
In this vessel, in addition to the propeller, Ericsson introduced his
semicylindrical steam-engine, a beautiful invention, so compact that
it occupied only one-eighth of the bulk of the British marine engine
of corresponding power, and was placed more than four feet below the
water-line. The boilers were also below the water-line, having a
peculiar heating-apparatus attached which effected a great saving of
fuel, and with their furnaces and flues so constructed as to burn
anthracite as well as bituminous coal. Instead of the ordinary tall
smoke-pipe,--an insuperable objection to a steamer as a ship of
war,--he constructed a smoke-pipe upon the principle of the telescope,
which could be elevated or depressed at pleasure; and in order to
provide a draught independent of the height of the smoke-pipe, he
placed centrifugal blowers in the bottom of the vessel, which were
worked by separate small engines,--an arrangement originally applied
by him to marine engines in the steam-packet Corsair in 1831.
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