small consumption of fuel, that he conceived the idea of at once
bringing it out in England, the great field for all mechanical
inventions.

Ericsson accordingly obtained, leave from the King to visit England,
where he arrived on the eighteenth of May, 1826. He there proceeded to
construct a working engine on the principle above mentioned, but soon
discovered that his _flame-engine_, when worked by the combustion
of mineral coals, was a different thing from the experimental model he
had tried in the highlands of Sweden, with fuel composed of the
splinters of fine pine wood. Not only did he fail to produce an
extended and vivid flame, but the intense heat so seriously affected
all the working parts of the machine as soon to cause its destruction.

These experiments, it may well be supposed, were attended with no
trifling expenditure; and, to meet these demands upon him, our young
adventurer was compelled to draw on his mechanical resources.

Invention now followed invention in rapid succession, until the records
of the Patent-Office in London were enriched with the drawings of the
remarkable steam-boiler on the principle of _artificial draught_;
to which principle we are mainly indebted for the benefits conferred on
civilization by the present rapid communication by railways. In
bringing this important invention before the public, Ericsson thought
it advisable to join some old and established mechanical house in
London; and accordingly he associated himself with John Braithwaite, a
name favorably known in the mechanical annals of England. This
invention was hardly developed, when an opportunity was presented for
testing it in practice.