the railroad had yet been finished; thus
the competing locomotives were compelled to cover their distance by
making twenty trips back and forth over one and three-quarter miles
of track. The excitement was intense. The London _Times_ next
morning said: "The 'Novelty' was the lightest and most elegant
carriage on the road yesterday, and the velocity with which it moved
surprised and amazed every beholder. It shot along the line at the
amazing rate of thirty miles an hour! It seemed, indeed, to fly;
presenting one of the most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and
human daring the world ever beheld."

Ericsson had really built a much faster locomotive than Stephenson's
"Rocket;" and although it had been constructed with such celerity
that it broke down before the final point was reached, and he
thereby lost the prize, yet the superiority of the principle
involved in it was universally recognized. John Bourn said: "To most
men the production of such an engine would have constituted an
adequate claim to celebrity. In the case of Ericsson, it is only a
single star of the brilliant galaxy with which his shield is
spangled." "We may imagine," writes Mr. Church, "the excitement
following the announcement in the _Times_ concerning the performance
of the 'Novelty,' for to this engine England's great daily devoted
chief attention." Railroad shares leaped at once to a premium, and
excited groups gathered on 'change to discuss the wonderful event.
The pessimists were silenced, and the art of modern railway travel
inaugurated. A grand banquet was given in Liverpool to the directors
and officers of the railway and to the competing locomotive
builders. Toasts and speeches followed; and if Ericsson did not
carry home with him the L500 offered as a prize, he at least made
himself known to all England as one of the rising men of his
profession.

Ericsson's long-cherished plan of a caloric engine was realized in
1833, and was hailed with astonishment by the scientific world of
London. Lectures were delivered on it by Dr. Dionysius Lardner and
Michael Faraday, and it was much praised by Dr. Alexander Ure and
Sir Richard Phillips. In 1836 Ericsson invented and patented the
screw propeller, which revolutionized navigation, and in 1837 built
a steam vessel having twin screw propellers, which on trial towed
the American packet-ship Toronto at the rate of five miles an hour
on the river Thames. In 1838 he constructed the iron screw steame