rst efforts were directed toward the introduction of the
flame-engine, but he soon found unexpected difficulties in the use of
coal as fuel instead of wood, and it became clear that in order to live
he must turn his attention to other matters for a time. Then followed a
series of remarkable pieces of work in which Ericsson's genius showed
itself, either in original invention or in the adaptation and
improvement of the existing facts and material of engineering practice.
While thus occupied, his leave from his regiment expired, and he seems
to have overlooked taking proper steps to have it renewed. He was thus
placed technically in the attitude of a deserter. Through the
intervention of a friend, however, he was soon afterward restored, and
promoted to the rank of Captain in the Swedish Army. This commission he
immediately resigned, and thus his record became technically cleared of
all reproach.

To give a mere list of the work with which Ericsson was occupied during
the years from 1827 to 1839, when he removed to the United States, would
be no small task, and reference to the more important only can be here
made. Compressed air for transmitting power, forced draft for boilers by
means of centrifugal blowers, steam boilers of new and improved types,
the surface condenser for marine engines, the location of the engines of
a ship for war purposes below the water line, the steam fire-engine, the
design and construction of the "Novelty" (a locomotive for the Rainhill
contest in 1829, when Stephenson's "Rocket" was awarded the prize,
though Ericsson, heavily handicapped in time and by lack of a track on
which to adjust and perfect the "Novelty," achieved a result apparently
in many ways superior to Stephenson's with the "Rocket"), various
designs for rotary engines, an apparatus for making salt from brine,
further experimental work with various forms of heat, or so-called
"caloric" engines, and the final development, in 1833, of a type from
which great results were for a time expected, superheated steam and
engines for its use, a deep-sea-sounding apparatus embodying the same
principle as that later developed by Lord Kelvin in the well-known
apparatus of the present day, a machine for cutting files automatically,
various types of steam-engines, and finally his work in connection with
the introduction of the screw-propeller as a means of propulsion for
steam vessels. These are some of the important lines of work on which
Erics