But no one can take from Ericsson
the honor of having first introduced the screw-propeller into actual
use, and demonstrated its value,--an honor which is now freely
accorded to him by the highest scientific authorities at home and
abroad.
Although the first five years of his American experience had been less
profitable, in a pecuniary sense, than he had anticipated, he
continued to reside in the city of New York, where he found an ample
field for the exercise of his great powers in the line of his
profession. He planned the war-steamer Pomone, the first screw-vessel
introduced into the French navy. He planned revenue-cutters for the
United States Government, taking care always to have his contracts so
distinctly made that no question could again arise as to his "legal
claim." He invented a useful apparatus for supplying the boilers of
sea-going steamers with fresh water. He invented various modifications
of the steam-engine.
In the American division of the London Industrial Exhibition of all
Nations in 1851, he exhibited the Distance-Instrument, for measuring
distances at sea,--the Hydrostatic Gauge, for measuring the volume of
fluids under pressure,--the Reciprocating Fluid-Metre, for measuring
the quantity of water which passes through pipes during definite
periods,--the Alarm-Barometer,--the Pyrometer, intended as a standard
measure of temperature, from the freezing-point of water up to the
melting-point of iron,--a Rotary Fluid-Metre, the principle of which
is the measurement of fluids by the velocity with which they pass
through apertures of different dimensions,--and a Sea-Lead, contrived
for taking soundings at sea without rounding the vessel to the wind,
and independently of the length of the lead-line.
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