Neither the great labors attending these surveys, nor his military duties, could give sufficient employment to the energies of the young officer. In connection with a German engineer, Major Pentz, he now began the arduous task of compiling a work on Canals, to be illustrated by sixty-four large plates, representing the various buildings, machines, and instruments connected with the construction of such works. The part assigned to him in this enterprise was nothing less than that of making all the drawings, as well as of engraving the numerous plates; and as all the plates were to be executed in the style of what is called machine-engraving, he undertook to construct a machine for the purpose, which he successfully accomplished. This work he prosecuted with so much industry, in the midst of his other various labors, that, within the first year of its commencement, he had executed eighteen large plates, which were pronounced by judges of machine-engraving to be of superior merit. While thus variously occupied, being on a visit to the house of his Colonel, Ericsson on one occasion showed his host, by a very simple experiment, how readily mechanical power may be produced, independently of steam, by condensing flame. His friend was much struck by the beauty and simplicity of the experiment, and prevailed upon Ericsson to give more attention to a principle which he considered highly important. The young officer accordingly made sonic experiments on an enlarged scale, and succeeded in the production of a motive power equal to that of a steam-engine of ten-horse power. So satisfactory was the result, from the compact form of the machine employed, as well as the comparatively 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.