CELEBRATION TO HONOR INVENTOR OF MONITOR

Apropos of the celebration today in Boston of the sixty-seventh anniversary of the maritime battle between the Monitor and Merrimac in honor of John Ericson, builder of the Monitor, is the fact that the original contract for the Caloric engine built by Ericson, is in the possession of a Harvard student, Stephen Thomas '32.

The contract for the Caloric engine, a type of which was used in the Monitor states among other things that at first a Philadelphia man and his associates desired to "ascertain whether Ericson's Caloric Engine might be employed for the purpose of propelling city rail-road cars." This part of the contract however did not materialize for only Ericson's signature is appended.

The document was found by Thomas several years ago in the storage room of a New York law firm among the papers of a Mr. Gallahan who was Ericson's lawyer. The papers at the time were unclaimed and were deemed to be worthless. Thomas however rescued this and several other valuable records out of the mass of papers.