Inventors . posite the freight depot of the Hudson RiverRailroad. This house, by the way, which Erics-son occupied for nearly forty years, faced on Park, the pleasant square which was after-ward filled up by the railroad company. Tow-ard the last years of Ericssons life the neigh-borhood became anything but a pleasant one tolive in; it was dirty and noisy. NeverthelessEricsson refused to move. Perhaps the unpleas-antness of the surroundings made him the reclusehe was. It is not surprising that he should havebeen attracted by the possibility of obtainingpower from the heat of the sun.
Inventors . posite the freight depot of the Hudson RiverRailroad. This house, by the way, which Erics-son occupied for nearly forty years, faced on Park, the pleasant square which was after-ward filled up by the railroad company. Tow-ard the last years of Ericssons life the neigh-borhood became anything but a pleasant one tolive in; it was dirty and noisy. NeverthelessEricsson refused to move. Perhaps the unpleas-antness of the surroundings made him the reclusehe was. It is not surprising that he should havebeen attracted by the possibility of obtainingpower from the heat of the sun. In an earlypamphlet on the subject he says: There is arainless region extending1 from the northwestern o o coast of Africa to Mongolia, nine thousand milesin length and nearly one thousand miles wide. O J 191 In the Western Hemisphere, Lower California,the table-lands of Guatemala, and the west coastof South America, for a distance of more than twothousand miles, suffer from a continuous radiant ; :- - »~-V. Solar-engine Adapted to the Use of Hot Air.(Patented as a pumping-engine, iSSo.) heat. Ericsson estimated that the mechanicalpower that would result from utilizing the solarheat on a strip of land a single mile wide andeight thousand miles long would suffice to keeptwenty-two million solar-engines, of one hundred 102 INVENTORS horse-power each, going nine hours a day. Hebelieved that with the exhaustion of Europeancoal-fields the day for the solar-engine wouldcome, and that those countries which possessedunfailing sunshine, such as Egypt, would displaceEngland, France, and Germany as the manufact-uring powers of the world, for the Europeanwould have to move his machinery to the bor-ders of the Nile. By concentrating the rays ofthe sun upon a small copper boiler filled withair Ericsson was enabled to work a little motor,and for some years he also attempted to producesteam by means of heat from the sun. He wasnot successful, however, in making anything ofcommercial value in
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