Page "Alfred Nobel" Paragraph 5

As a young man, Nobel studied with chemist Nikolai Zinin ; then, in 1850, went to Paris to further the work ; and, at 18, he went to the United States for four years to study chemistry, collaborating for a short period under inventor John Ericsson, who designed the American Civil War ironclad USS Monitor.

Nobel filed his first patent, for a gas meter, in 1857.