Mr. Church, in his biography, devotes three chapters to a delightfully condensed account of Ericsson's career in England, whither he went in 1826 to exhibit his flame-engine. He quickly formed a partnership with John Braithwaite, a working engineer, and in his new field of activity produced invention after invention in such rapid succession that the truth reads like a fairy tale. An instrument for taking sea-soundings, a hydrostatic weighing-machine, his improvements in the steam-engine--dispensing with huge smoke-stacks, economizing fuel, using compressed air and the artificial draught--and in surface condensation, were the work of this period, during which he also invented the steam fire-engine, which excited great interest in London. The famous battle of the locomotives in 1829 brought the young man of twenty-six before the English public in a manner never to be forgotten. At that date Stephenson himself dared not say very much about the speed of the locomotive. Had he ventured to predict that it would reach twenty miles an hour on the railway, he would have been laughed out of court. He cautiously expressed his faith in the possibility of running it ten miles an hour, and multitudes regarded the experiment with consternation. There was great prejudice then existing in England against railroads. It was a mode of conveyance that would bring noble and peasant to a common level, and fashion clung tenaciously to its earlier inconveniences, which had at least the merit of being exclusive. But in spite of the baleful prophecies concerning the locomotive engine, the officials of the projected railroad between Liverpool and Manchester, where the cars were expected to be drawn by horses, offered a premium of £500 for the best locomotive capable of drawing a gross weight of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour. The conditions required a run of seventy miles. Five months were allowed for building the engines. Ericsson heard of the project only seven weeks before the appointed time of trial, and at once determined to compete. He hastily built the "Novelty," assisted by Braithwaite, and when the exhibition came off his was practically the only locomotive which disputed for the supremacy with Stephenson's "Rocket." But a portion of the railroad had yet been finished; thus the competing locomotives were compelled to cover their distance by making twenty trips back and forth over one and three-quarter miles of track. The excitement was intense. The London _Times_ next morning said: "The 'Novelty' was the lightest and most elegant carriage on the road yesterday, and the velocity with which it moved surprised and amazed every beholder. It shot along the line at the amazing rate of thirty miles an hour! It seemed, indeed, to fly; presenting one of the most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and human daring the world ever beheld."