ERICSSON. 184 ERIE. for some time as an officer of engineers in the dish Army, he removed in 1S20 to England, and occupy himself with inventions, chii m machinery. While in England ted a new form of largely through his w came to be generally adopt - navigation. The Admiralty and British naval engineers did not become interested in Erii rk; but his ideas were appreciated - bates Consul at Liver- aced at his disposal funds to con- st] ill o.ran steamer, which was subse- quently sent across the Atlantic. Mr. Ogden and (Japt. Robert F. Stockton. U.S.N., induced the engineer to come to the United States, and he the orders for the construction of two amships. He arrived at New York in 1839, and two years afterwards was employed in con- structing 'the LT. S. S. Princeton, which was the first war steamship to have its propelling ma- chinery below the water-line and to use the screw propeller. Ericsson soon became known te great number and novelty of his inven- tions, among which, in addition to the screw pro- peller, were a steam boiler with artificial draughts which did away with smokestacks and effected an impel taut saving in fuel; a -team fire-engine; the caloric engine; a sliding telescopic chimney; machinery to check the recoil of heavy guns; an instrument for measuring distance at sea ; the hydrostatic gauge for measuring the vol- ume of fluids under pressure; a meter to measure the amount of water passing through pipes; an alarm barometer; a pyrometer to meas- ure tempera i ure, from the freezing of water to the ling of iron; a lead to take soundings without rounding tin- vessel to the wind; and various modifications of his calorie engine (q.v.). In the civil War he was engaged in building moni- tors. The firsl one was built in a little more than three months, and March 0. 1862, defeated I disabled tin' Confederate ironclad l/< rrimao. In his later years he attempted to perfect the solar engine, tor which heat is obtained from the ray- of the sun collected by a huge funnel lined with a reflecting surface, lie died in New York, March 8, L889. In 1890 the body of Ericsson was removed to Sweden, being conveyed by the United States cruiser Baltimore, and in IS!).'! the State ..f New York creeled a monument to him on the Battery, New York City. Consult Church's - I i i (New York, 1890) ERICSSON, Nils (1802-70). A Swedish en- gineer. He was born in Stockholm, and was the eldest brothel of John Ericsson, of Monitor fame. In 1850 he was appointed colonel of the Naval En- gineering Corps, and iii ls;,s became director of Government railroad construction, in which capac- ity hi' probably contributed more than any other devi ' i i ef the present railroad ■leu s a hydraulic engineer he een ;i Stockholm, the great canal uniting Lake Saima with the Gulf of Fin land, and the new sluices of the Trollliattan E'RIE. The most souther chain of five rained by the Saint Lawrence River < May i nited State . Eastern Part, K 2). It between lakes Huron and Ontario, receiving
- mer through the Saint ( 'lair
Rivi : nt Claii and the Detroit River on the west, and discharging its waters into the latter through the Niagara River on the cast. Lake Erie has a length of about 240 miles, in a northeast and_ southwest direction, and a breadth of from 30 to 58 miles. Its surface, which has an area of !lbu0 square miles, is 573 feet above the level of the sea and 320 feet above Lake Ontario; its mean depth is about 100 feet, and the greatest depth is only a little over 200 feet, this being the shallowest of the Great Lakes. Lake Erie is bounded on the north by the Canadian Province of Ontario, on the east and south by New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and on the northwest by Michigan, the boundary between the United States and Canada traversing it. Be- sides receiving the drainage from lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, it has a limited river sys- tem of its own, receiving among others the Grand from the north, the Maumee from the west, and the Sandusky and Cuyahoga from the south. The chief islands are in the western part, among them Put-in-Bay, Bass, Kelly, and Point Pelee islands. Navigation on Lake Erie is rendered somewhat difficult, its comparative shallowness making it liable to a heavy ground-swell. Navigation is suspended wholly or in part during the winter season, on account of the ice. Lake Erie is con- nected with Lake Ontario by the YVelland Canal, around Niagara Falls, and with the Hudson and Ohio rivers by canals. Several large cities and important ports are situated on Lake Erie, chief of which are Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, and Toledo; and Detroit, on the Detroit River, may be added to this list. The growth of these cities, especially of Cleveland and Buffalo, in the last half-century, has been remarkable. The commercial importance of Lake Erie has greatly increased in recent years, as it forms a link in the waterway from the West to the East, over which a great grain and iron movement takes place. Numerous large freight steamers and magnificently equipped passenger steamers ply upon its waters. Lake Erie was an important theatre of naval warfare in the War of 1812. See Erie, Battle of Lake; Great Lakes. ERIE. A city and the county-seat of Neosho i County, Kan., 130 miles south by west of Kansas City: on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fo railroads (Map: Kansas, G 4). It is in the valley of the Neosho, the centre of a fertile agricultural region, ami has flour and saw mills. There are natural-
- jas and oil wells in the vicinity. Population, in
1890, 1176; in 1900, 1111. ERIE. A city, port of entry, and the county seat -if Flic County, Fa., on Lake Erie, 88 miles southwest of Buffalo, N. Y.j and 95 miles northeast of Cleveland, Ohio (Map: Pennsyl- vania, A 1). The city's supplies of nat- ural gas. and its proximity to the coke and bituminous coal districts of the State, great- ly favor ils commercial and industrial impor- tance. The only lake port in Pennsylvania, Frie has a superb harbor, protected by a peninsula •-i mile- long and a mile wide, called Presque Isle. The city receives a large part of the ship- pine; ol the Great Lakes, and is also an impor- tant railroad centre, being on the New York, Chicago and Saint Louis, the Pennsylvania, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, the Phila- delphia and Frie. the Pittsburg, Bessemer and
