is manner with strangers was courteous and extremely taking. He
invariably made friends of high and low alike. With those in
immediate contact in carrying out his work he was very popular."

Mr. Church, in his biography, devotes three chapters to a
delightfully condensed account of Ericsson's career in England,
whither he went in 1826 to exhibit his flame-engine. He quickly
formed a partnership with John Braithwaite, a working engineer, and
in his new field of activity produced invention after invention in
such rapid succession that the truth reads like a fairy tale. An
instrument for taking sea-soundings, a hydrostatic weighing-machine,
his improvements in the steam-engine--dispensing with huge
smoke-stacks, economizing fuel, using compressed air and the
artificial draught--and in surface condensation, were the work of
this period, during which he also invented the steam fire-engine,
which excited great interest in London. The famous battle of the
locomotives in 1829 brought the young man of twenty-six before the
English public in a manner never to be forgotten. At that date
Stephenson himself dared not say very much about the speed of the
locomotive. Had he ventured to predict that it would reach twenty
miles an hour on the railway, he would have been laughed out of
court. He cautiously expressed his faith in the possibility of
running it ten miles an hour, and multitudes regarded the experiment
with consternation. There was great prejudice then existing in
England against railroads. It was a mode of conveyance that would
bring noble and peasant to a common level, and fashion clung
tenaciously to its earlier inconveniences, which had at least the
merit of being exclusive.

But in spite of the baleful prophecies concerning the locomotive
engine, the officials of the projected railroad between Liverpool
and Manchester, where the cars were expected to be drawn by horses,
offered a premium of L500 for the best locomotive capable of drawing
a gross weight of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour. The
conditions required a run of seventy miles. Five months were allowed
for building the engines. Ericsson heard of the project only seven
weeks before the appointed time of trial, and at once determined to
compete. He hastily built the "Novelty," assisted by Braithwaite,
and when the exhibition came off his was practically the only
locomotive which disputed for the supremacy with Stephenson's
"Rocket." But a portion of