ted. Yet even this was not accomplished without objection. The
officers of the navy were accustomed to the old type of wooden ship,
and were slow to realize that naval war was, after all, an engineering
problem, and that the ideas of the engineer must now be substituted for
those which had been sanctified by long ages of past experience. Still,
the demonstration was too convincing to admit of serious question, and
Ericsson and his associates in business were busily occupied during the
remainder of the war in the design and construction of a numerous fleet
of vessels of the monitor type.

Ericsson's work during this period was enormous. One design followed
another in quick succession, while work of supervision and inspection
and cares of a business nature all combined to make a burden which would
have broken down a nature less determined and self-centred, and a body
less inured to physical endurance and sustained nervous tension.

This prodigious load was not so much but that he found time to devote to
the needs of other nations, and in 1862 he offered to construct for the
Chilian government a monitor similar to those under construction for the
United States, while later a similar offer was made to the Peruvian
Government. With the close of the Civil War Ericsson found still further
time to devote to the introduction of this type of vessel into foreign
navies, and a considerable part of his time seems to have been occupied
with projects of this character, and more particularly with the question
of the naval defence of his native land. As regards the introduction of
warships of the monitor type, the results were not so pronounced as
might have been expected, and while the influence of the idea is seen in
the practice of every maritime nation in regard to the construction of
its warships, still, for the most part, the leading nations preferred to
make application of the idea in their own way rather than order such
vessels direct from their original designer. Yet in not a few cases the
original type was faithfully copied, though it is not always clear to
what extent Ericsson himself may have had direct contact with their
designs. In 1866 the Swedes were able to test the first of a small fleet
of monitors built after Ericsson's plans. This was called the "John
Ericsson," and was armed with two 15-inch guns presented to Sweden by
Ericsson himself. Later, in 1868, he designed for Spain and
superintended the construction of thi