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E-STORy-OF-OUR

HTHOUSES'i

AMLIGHTSHIPS

•BY. W

DAMS

THE STORY OF OUR

LIGHTHOUSES

LIGHTSHIPS

Descriptive and Historical

W. II. DAVENPORT ADAMS

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS

London, Edinburgh, and Nnv York

I/K

©Contents.

I. LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY, ... ... ... ... 9

II. LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION, ... ... ... ... 31

III. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OP LIGHTHOUSES, ... ... 39

IV. THE ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES, ... ... 46

V. LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND DESCRIBED, ... 73

VI. LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND DESCRIBED, ... ... ... 255

VII. SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES, ... ... ... ... 288

VIII. LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES, ... ... ... 309

IX. LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES, ... 319

X. FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS, ... ... ... 339

XI. LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, AND FOG-SIGNALS, ... 355

XII. LIFE IN THE LIGHTHOUSE, ... ... ... 374

LIGHTHOUSES.

CHAPTER I.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

T)OPULARLY, the lighthouse seems to be looked
A upon as a modern invention, — and if we con-
sider it in its present form, completeness, and efficiency,
we shall be justified in limiting its history to the last
two centuries ; but as soon as men began to go down
to the sea in ships, they must also have begun to ex-
perience the need of beacons to guide them into secure
channels, and warn them from hidden dangers, and
the pressure of this need would be stronger in the
night even than in the day. So soon as a want is
strongly felt, man's invention hastens to supply it ; and
we may be sure, therefore, that in the very earliest
ages of civilization lights of some kind or other were
introduced for the benefit of the mariner. It may
very well be that these, at first, would be nothing
more than fires kindled on wave-washed promontories,

10 LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

or on hill-tops* commanding clear and extensive views
of the neighbouring waters ; but we may be certain
that the difficulties in the way of maintaining such
fires in stormy weather would speedily suggest the
construction of some permanent shelter or protection.
And therefore I see no reason to doubt the statement
that long before Greece had become a maritime nation,
light-towers, which served as landmarks during the
day as well as beacons during the night, had been
planted along the coast-line of Lower Egypt. The
first, however, of which we have any certain infor-
mation was the celebrated Pharos of Alexandria, so
celebrated that its name is very generally applied to
lighthouses in our own day, and exists in the French
Phare. It was erected about 280 B.C., during the reign
of King Ptolemseus Philadelphus, on the strip of shining
calcareous rock lying about a mile off Alexandria that
sheltered both its ancient ports — the Greater Harbour
and the Haven of Happy Return — from the fury of
the north wind and the occasional high tides of the
Mediterranean. Its site was a kind of rocky peninsula
at the east end of the island, and it stood conspicuous
from its great height and the whiteness of the stone of
which it was constructed. Whether the light it sup-
plied was obtained from an ordinary fire, or some more
effective system of illumination, we have no means of

* See the passage in Homer (" Iliad," xix. 375) :—
" As to seamen o'er the wave is borne
The watch-fire's light which, high among the hills,
Some shepherd kindles in his lonely fold."

LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY. 13

determining; though we can hardly suppose that to
the former Lucan, in his " Pharsalia," would have ap-
plied the word " lampada," or that Pliny would have
expressed his fear lest, on account of its steadiness
(" continuatione ignium "), the mariner should mistake
it for a star.

The Alexandrian Pharos was probably destroyed by
the Turkish conquerors of Egypt. That it existed in
the twelfth century we know from the elaborate de-
scription of it recorded by the Arabian writer Edrisi,
who says : — " This pharos is without its like in the
world for skill of construction and solidity ; since, to
say nothing of the fact that it is built of excellent
stone, the courses are united by molten lead, and so
firmly fitted together as to form an indissoluble mass.
We ascend to the summit by an internal staircase.
About half-way the building becomes much narrower,
and from the gallery rises to the top with a continually
increasing contraction, until at last it may be compassed
within a man's arms. The staircase from the gallery
is, therefore, of narrowing dimensions also. In every
part it is pierced with windows to give light to persons
making use of it." He adds, in language reminding us
of Pliny's, that from a distance the Pharos-ray was so
like a star which had risen upon the horizon, that
mariners, misled by it, steered towards the other coast,
and were frequently wrecked upon the sands of Mar-
morica.

The famous Colossus, or gigantic statue of Apollo,

14 LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

designed by the sculptor Chares, and erected at Rhodes,
has been by some authorities described as a Pharos;
but for this statement we confess ourselves unable to
find any authority. We pass on, therefore, to the
light-tower which the Romans raised on the heights
of Dover. In a shattered state, it is still extant ; and
Mr. Puckle describes it* as "a massive shell, the
inner face of its walls vertical and squared, the outside
with a tendency to a conical form, which was probably
at one time much more distinct, allowing for the
quantities of external masonry and facing which by
degrees must have fallen or been hewn away." The
basement alone, however, is of Roman work. The
octagonal chamber above was added in the reign of
Henry VIII. Its dimensions are about fourteen feet
square, and its materials, according to Mr. Puckle,
tufa, concrete, and red tile-brick. There is little doubt
but that it was raised for the purposes of a Pharos ;
but as, from its elevated position, it must have con-
stantly been shrouded in mists, its fires were probably
discontinued immediately after the Conquest. In course
of time it was applied to military uses, the lower
chamber being converted into a guard-room; and of
late years it has served as a store-house. It is thirty-
three feet in diameter, and was formerly about seventy-
two feet high.

The first Pharos which performed its duties in a reg-
ular manner seems to have been that which Lesches,

* Rev. J. Puckle, "Church and Fortress of Dover Castle," ed. 1864.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY. 15

the author of the " Little Iliad" (who flourished about
the 9th Olympiad), erected on the promontory of
Sigeum, at the entrance of the Hellespont. It is fig-
ured in the Iliac Table.

Though the most ancient in our records, the honour

THE TOWER AT DOVER.

was not reserved to it of bequeathing its name to its
successors, any more than to Columbus the glory of
leaving his name to the New World. This honour was
gained, as I have said, by the mighty tower elevated
on the island of Pharos, which served as a model for
some of the most celebrated lighthouses erected in later

16 LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

times. Such was the case with the Pharos built by the
Emperor Claudian at Ostia, which appears to have been
the most remarkable of any on the Latin coast. It
was situated upon a breakwater, or artificial island,
which occupied the mid space between the two huge
moles that formed the harbour ; * and its ruins were
extant as late as the fifteenth century, when they were
visited by Pope Pius II. Not less stately was the
Pharos which guided the seamen into the port of
Puteoli, the emporium of the foreign trade of im-
perial Rome; nor that which Augustus erected at the
entrance of his new harbour of Ravenna, and Pliny
describes with so much enthusiasm ; nor that, again,
which shed its warning light from the mole of Messina
over the whirlpool of Charybdis and the rock of Scylla ;
nor that which blazed in the island of Caprese, and was
destroyed by an earthquake shortly before the death of
Tiberius.

Dionysius of Byzantium f describes a celebrated
lighthouse planted at the mouth of the river Chry-
sorrhoas, where the latter mingles its waters with those
of the Thracian Bosphorus (the modern channel of Con-
stantinople). " On the crest of the hill," he says, " the
base of which is washed by the Chrysorrhoas, may be
seen the Timean tower, of an extraordinary height;
and from its summit the spectator beholds a vast ex-

* Suetonius, "Claudian," 20.
t Author of an "Ava-rrXovs ^ovirbpov, circa A.D. 190.
(241)

LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

panse of sea. It has been built for the safety of the
navigator, fires being kindled for their guidance ; which
was all the more necessary because the shores of this
sea are without ports, and no anchor can reach its

A ROMAN PHAROS.
(From a Medal in the D'Estrtes' Collection.}

bottom. But the barbarians of the coast lighted other
fires on the loftiest points of the coast, to deceive the
mariner, and profit by his shipwreck. At present,"
adds our author, " the tower is partly ruined, and no

lantern is lighted in it."

(241)

18 LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

Strabo refers in exaggerated terms to a superb light-
tower of stone at Capio, or Apio, near the harbour of
Menestheus — the modern Puerto de Santa Maria. It
stood on a rocky headland, nearly surrounded by the
sea, and served as a guide for vessels through the shal-
low channels at the mouth of the Guadalquivir.*

What was the form of the Roman light-towers?
This is a question not easily answered, when we re-
member that Herodian compares them to the cata-
falques of the emperors. The catafalques were square ;
but it is certain that quadrangular lighthouses were
very seldom constructed. Montfaucon reproduces a
medallion, from the famous cabinet of the Mare'chal
d'Estrees, which represents a Roman lighthouse as a
circular tower, built in four stories of decreasing dia-
meter. Another medal, discovered at Apameia, in
Bithynia, and also figured by Montfaucon, likewise
depicts a circular building. And we shall hereafter
see that the Pharos at Dover, as at Boulogne, was of
the same form.

One of the most interesting of ancient lighthouses
was, unquestionably, the TOUT d'Ordre at Boulogne, —
the ancient Bononia or Gesoriacum, — erected by the
Emperor Caligula for the gratification of a colossal
vanity. From the description left by Claude Chatillon,
engineer to Henry IV., we learn that it was built about
two hundred yards from the brink of the cliff; that
its materials were gray and yellow stones and tile-red

* Strabo, Edit. Oxon., 1867, p. 184.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY. 19

bricks ; that in shape it was octagonal ; that its base
measured one hundred and ninety-two feet in circum-
ference ; and that each of its twelve stories was a
foot and a half narrower than the story immediately
below it, so that it assumed externally the outline of a

ROMAN PHAEOS.
(After a Medal of Apameia.}

pyramid. In height it was about one hundred and
twenty-four feet. As late as the opening years of the
seventeenth century three of its stories or vaulted cham-
bers still remained ; they were connected by an inner
flight of stairs. Even at this period it seems to have

20 LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

been used as a lighthouse; whence, according to a
dubious etymology, its ancient name of Turris ardens
became corrupted into Tour d'Ordre.

Along with these ancient lighthouses we may class,
I think, the Tour de Cordouan, for its origin certainly
belongs to a very distant period. The present is the
third which has been erected on the same site — a tall
cliff dominating the entrance of the Gironde, and
washed by the waters of the Gulf of Gascony. The
first was built in the thirteenth century, at the solicita-
tion of the merchants of Cordouan, who, as their
wealth depended upon the visits of foreign traders,
were naturally anxious to remove any difficulties of
navigation. A second lighthouse was raised in the
middle of the fourteenth century by order of Edward
the Black Prince (about 1362-1370). It was forty-
eight feet high, and terminated in a platform, where
an open wood-fire was kept alive by a holy hermit,
who received in acknowledgment of his humane labours
a toll of two groats from each passing vessel. It is
generally believed that the rock on which the light-
house stood was, at that period, a part of the Medoc
coast ; and this belief is supported by such facts as the
similar character of the geological conformation, the
depth of the existing channel between rock and main-
land, and the nature of the havoc still committed by
the sea at Soulac and the Point de Grave.

In immediate neighbourhood to the Black Prince's
light-tower was raised a chapel in honour of the

LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

blessed Virgin ; and gradually a small village clustered
round about, inhabited principally by fisher-folk.

In an old engraving the lighthouse is represented as
octagonal in shape, with elongated quadrangular open-
ings ; it was strengthened up to its first story with an
exterior or second casing of stone.

ANCIENT TOWER OF CORDOUAN.

The present structure was begun — not on the ruins,
but by the side, of its predecessor — by Louis de Foix,
a Parisian architect, in 1584, and completed in 1600,
under his son's direction. It consisted of a circular
platform protected by a broad parapet, and of a tower,

24 LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

one hundred and sixty-two feet high, which formed a
circular cone, and was divided into four stories, besides
the lantern. Each story was of a different order of
architecture, and embellished with busts and statues
of French monarchs and the Olympian deities. The
ground floor was arranged as a spacious four-square
vestibule, with four recesses which were used as store-
rooms. Staircases in the embrasures of the entrance-
gate and the two windows led to cellars and water-
supply. The first story, of the same dimensions as the
vestibule, but more richly ornamented, was called
" The King's Chamber," and opened upon the first
outer gallery. The second story was occupied by a
chapel, with a fine vaulted ceiling, Corinthian pilasters,
decorative carving, and two rows of windows. A bust
of Louis de Foix was placed above the chapel door,
and a tablet lettered with a quaint inscription in his
honour.

This second story was surmounted by a circular
pavilion, vaulted, and decorated with composite pil-
asters, the entablature being crowned by the open
balustrade of a second outer gallery which led into
the lantern. The lantern was built of hewn stone,
and consisted of eight arcades, the piers of which were
enriched with columns, while the cupola terminated
with a shaft to carry off the smoke of the brazier. In
1727, this stone lantern, which obscured a good deal of
the light, was replaced by one of iron ; but the eleva-
tion above the sea was not reduced. In course of time,

PRESENT LIGHTHOUSE OF CORDUAN.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY. 27

however, as more shipping entered the Gironde, this
elevation was declared to be inadequate for lighting
purposes, and the Chevalier de Borda proposed a scheme
for increasing it by one hundred feet. Teulere, the
chief engineer to the city of Bordeaux, considered so
great an addition unnecessary and dangerous, and sub«
mitted plans for an increased elevation of sixty -five feet.
These were approved, and in 1788-89 were successfully
carried out by their ingenious author; so that the
focal plane of the light is now at a height of two hun-
dred and five feet above the ground, and of one hun-
dred and ninety feet above high water.

Teulere's addition is in striking contrast, with its
almost barren simplicity and severity of outline, to the
richness, grace, and elegance of the Renaissance work
of De Foix. Yet the general effect is so impressive as
to leave little to be desired; and the spectator gazes
with involuntary admiration on the majestic monument
of skill and philanthropy which seems to spring so
boldly from the heaving bosom of ocean. So Michelet
writes in his prose-poem on the Sea :— " During a six
months' residence on the coast here, our ordinary object
of contemplation — I had almost said, our daily society
—was the Tour de Cordouan. We felt very strongly
how its position as guardian of the waves, as the faith-
ful warder of the Channel, conferred upon it a living
individuality. Erect against the eastern horizon, it
assumed a hundred different aspects. Sometimes, in a
belt of glory, it triumphed under the sun ; sometimes,

28 LIGHTHOUSES OF ANTIQUITY.

wan and indefinite, it hovered through the mist, no
augury of good. At evening, when it abruptly kindled
its red light, and darted forth its fiery glare, it seemed
like a zealous custodian, who watched over the waters,
impressed and disturbed by his responsibility."

Within the last thirty or forty years a complete
restoration of this noble lighthouse has been under-
taken, for the purpose of replacing so much of the
masonry as had suffered from the weather, and of re-
newing the sculptures and carvings, which had lost
their sharpness. The commonplace buildings erected
at different times around the base for the accommoda-
tion of the keepers were handsomely reconstructed.
And in 1854 it was differentiated from other sea-
marks by being furnished with a white and red revolv-
ing light, visible over a range of twenty-seven miles.

The apparatus of the dioptric system of lighting was
introduced into the Tour de Cordouan long ago ; and it
was here that Fresnel's earliest experiments were made.
For the Cordouan lighthouse has held among the
French lighthouses much the same place as the South
Foreland among English lighthouses, and has always
been chosen as a place for experiments. It was one
of the very first in which the chauffer was replaced
by oil-lamps. In 1782, its lantern was illuminated by
at least eighty, each with a metal reflector. And a few
years later, when Teulere had suggested to Borda the
elements of the catoptric system, the new apparatus
was immediately installed here (1790).

- ^ • •- • ;
INTERIOR OF THE CORDUAN LIGHTHOUSE.

CHAPTER II.

LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION.

WE may justly claim for our own country the
praise, among modern nations, of having
been the first to appreciate the full importance of a
complete and efficient lighthouse system, and of having
made its development and its maintenance on a liberal
scale a matter of national concern. But that such
should be the case was natural enough, considering
the extent of our coast -line as compared with the
superficial area of the United Kingdom, the number
of our harbours, havens, estuaries, and waterways, the
dangers and difficulties of their approaches, and the
magnitude of our maritime interests.

The supervision of our lighthouse system is in the
hands of three separate boards — one for each of the
three kingdoms — and all three responsible to the Board
of Trade. These are : —

1. The Corporation of the Trinity House of Dept-
fwd Strand — for England.

2. The Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses — for
Scotland; and

32 LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION.

3. The Corporation for Preserving and Improving
the Port of Dublin — for Ireland.

The history of the Trinity House is but imperfectly
known, owing to the destruction of a considerable
portion of its archives by fire in 1714. It was founded
by Sir Thomas Spert in 1515, and incorporated by
Henry VIII. in 1529, under the- title of "The Master,
Wardens, and Assistants of the Guild, Fraternity, or
Brotherhood of the Most Glorious and Undividable
Trinity." At first, perhaps, the sole duty of its mem-
bers was to pray for the souls of sailors drowned at
sea, and for the lives of men struggling with the dangers
of wind and wave ; but at a very early date they were
intrusted with the general control of our mercantile
marine and the lighting of the English coast. Charters
with full powers were granted to them by Elizabeth,
James I. (1604), Charles II. (1660), and James II
(1685). It is true enough that signal-lights and
beacon-fires already blazed on rocky headlands and at
the mouths of our most frequented havens ; but as the
marine activity of England was rapidly increasing, a
more effective and uniform system became indispens-
able. Moreover, the owners of these private lights and
beacons had seldom been animated by patriotism or
philanthropy, and levied excessive tolls upon passing
ships. To erect and maintain a lighthouse was a
profitable speculation ; and the privileges conferred
upon the Trinity Corporation provoked very general
discontent. In the reign of James I. an attack was

LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION. 33

made upon them — an attack by no means unwelcome
to the king, for the revocation of these privileges by
the Crown would have placed in its hands the disposal
of a valuable monopoly. The judges charged with the
examination of the Trinity Corporation's claims were
considerably embarrassed by the royal action ; and at
length the different parties concerned arrived at a com-
promise, to the effect that the fraternity of the Trinity
House should retain its authority to erect lighthouses,
but that the Crown should enjoy the same privilege
in virtue of the common law. Hence, instead of the
lighting of our coasts remaining exclusively, as Eliza-
beth had intended, in the hands of the Trinity Corpo-
ration, it was divided by the Crown among numerous
private individuals, and the old evil system was to a
great extent re-established, and the privilege again
became such a source of pecuniary advantage that
great exertions were made to obtain it. Even a man
like Lord Grenville could enter in his diary the signifi-
cant memorandum : — " To watch the moment when
the king is in a good temper, to ask of him a light-
house." Eventually the system was found to be an
intolerable burden upon navigation. Many of the
lights were shamefully deficient in power ; others were
allowed to fall into disuse, and yet heavy tolls con-
tinued to be levied. Parliament was constrained to in-
terfere ; and in the reign of William IV. an act was
passed which made over all the interests of the Crown
to the Trinity House, and empowered it to buy up the

(241) 3

34 LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION.

lights in the hands of private individuals ; and as this
corporation has usually exhibited no ordinary activity,
intelligence, and conscientious zeal for the efficiency of
its work, the lighthouse service of England has been
brought into a very effective and complete condition.

The story of the two other corporations may be
told in a few lines. The Commission of Northern
Lights, which is certainly not inferior to the Trinity
House in enlightened discharge of its duties, was in-
corporated by Act of Parliament in 1786, and consists
of two magistrates appointed by the Crown, of the
sheriffs of the sea-board counties, of the Provosts of
Edinburgh and the royal burghs, and the Provost of
Greenock.

The lightage of the Irish coast was formerly in the
hands of the " Revenue or Barrack Board," but was
afterwards transferred, a few years ago, to the Corpora-
tion for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin,
and is now superintended by a body called the Com-
missioners of Irish Lighthouses. The Barrack Board
contented itself with farming the lights out to a con-
tractor, who employed the keepers, and paid all expense
of maintenance. " The pay to light-keepers was very
small, generally averaging £15 per annum; and as
perquisite they had all the unburned portions of the
candles, and were allowed to carry on their trades, and
keep a public-house in the lighthouse. This was the
case at Howth, Wicklow, and Hook Tower (where the
keeper was a herb-doctor), and doubtless at other sta-

LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION. 35

tions." The Irish lighthouse service is now, however,
quite adequately organized.

These three boards are all under the general control
of the Board of Trade. Before new lighthouses are
erected by the Trinity House, they must be sanctioned
by the Board of Trade ; and prior to the erection of a
Scotch or Irish lighthouse, the Trinity House must be
consulted, and in the event of a difference of opinion
arising, the Board of Trade pronounce their decision,
which is final. We think it a regrettable fact that a con-
siderable number of the lights of the United Kingdom
should still be under the control of local authorities. The
Royal Commission of 1859-60 gave the number as about
one hundred and seventy. We believe it has since been
reduced ; but it is much to be desired that all should
be brought under the control of one central authority,
so as to secure uniformity, efficiency, and economy.

With the structure erected by Winstanley on the
Eddystone in 1696 began the great efforts of modern
engineering science to direct the powers of nature for
the use and convenience of man — efforts continued
with brilliant energy and success by Smeaton, the
Stevensons, Halpin, James Walker, Sloane, Douglass,
and others, who have converted hidden dangers into
" sources of safety," and beneficently provided for the
mariner's guidance in his trackless path. During the
last century an extraordinary increase has occurred in
the number of lights, fixed and floating, required to
meet the needs of a constantly increasing commerce.

LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION.

Accurate statistics, however, can be obtained only for
the last twenty-five years ; but these show that whereas
in 1860 the aggregate of coast-lights throughout the
world did not exceed eighteen hundred, the present
total does not fall short of about four thousand two

hundred.

COMPAKATIVE STATEMENT

Of the Coast-lights in the chief countries of the world (exclusive of their
outlying Possessions) in the years 1860 and 1885 respectively.

COUNTRY.

LlGHTHOUSKS.

LIGHT-VESSELS.

1860.

Number.

1885.

Number.

Increase.

Number.

1860.
Num.
ber.

Num-
ber.

55.
In-
crease

lit Class.

Secondary.

888
189

127

6S6
413

250

178

255

178

102

87
208

72
55
128

57
56
30
22
57

19
6
8

:;:;
25
7
1
5
13
12
IS
2
5
2
5
13
9
6
14

8
9

118
54
34

2(ji ;
1603

181

544

206
146

101

198
51

taa

196

39
32
152
63
37

4!
31
15
16
54

England and Wales

26
32

:;
2
6

a
s

178
112
74

864

314

Hi:;
S7
115
ss
63
33
10

41
55

42
31

4
13

202
129

sr,

4ir>
340
225
111
118
91
65
39
10
70
50
58
42

23
19

96
51
39
5

8
16

14
24
2

4
8
13
10

S
9
1
1

29i i
166
108

570
1917
374
631
:!2I
234
164
2:;i
61
45
167
94
74
193
66
41

47
2!l
21

187
60

239

1C2S
188
545
211
159

2 Hi

118
128
44

163

51
115
57
40
15
16
57

42
1
5

3
1
2

12
5

7
8

2
136

57
4
11

72
23
9
15
8
13
16
14

3
9
22
2
13
5
2
1

3
242

24
*16
6
14
6
13
4
9

2
14

~sr

Scotland
Ireland

United Kingdom
United States

Prance

British America
Sweden and Norway
Italy

Australia
Austria

Spain

Netherlands

India

New Zealand

China

Turkey

Brazil

1
!

16
14

16
6

Portugal
Belgium

Totals

Ill

ION

iTtir

335

5883

5847

190

:i827

41:12

* Decrease, owing to the large substitution of permanent lighthouses
for lightships.
t Decrease, owing to the cession of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia in 1864,

LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION. 37

The preceding table, prepared by Sir James Doug-
lass, and submitted to the British Association in 1886,
illustrates the relative progress of each of- the chief
maritime countries in the extension of their system
of lighthouses and light - vessels between 1860 and
1885. It will be seen that Japan, which had not
a single coast-light in 1860, has now fifty-seven (of
which eight are first-class lights) ; while China, which
had only four secondary coast-lights, has now fifty -five
(fourteen of these being first-class). The greatest in-
crease, however, is found in British America, where in
1860 were only ninety-one coast-lights, but in 1885
no fewer than six hundred and thirty -six.

We may note, in conclusion, that the coast-line of
England measures 2,405 nautical miles, that of Scotland
4,467 that of Ireland 2,518, and that of France 2,763
nautical miles. In 1885 England had 339 lighthouses
and 57 lightships ; Ireland, 127 and 11 ; Scotland,
189 and 4, — against France, 413 and 9. The proportion
of lights to the coast-line was : for England, 1 to every
6^nr miles; for Ireland, 1 to every 18 Jf miles; for
Scotland, 1 to every 23T2¥8s- miles ; and for France, 1 to
every 6f§ miles. The advantage, therefore, still rested
with England, though France had made an immense
advance in the last quarter of a century.

It may be added that the French lighthouse service
is administered by the Board of Bridges and Highways
(Conseil General des Fonts et Chausse'es), which is com-

38 LIGHTHOUSE ADMINISTRATION.

posed of officers of the marine, hydrographic engineers,
members of the French Institute, and other persons
acquainted theoretically or practically with the sciences
bearing upon navigation. The executive is committed
to the Inspector-General " des Fonts et Chaussees,"
who has under his orders a certain number of engineers
in each maritime district, charged with the supervision,
construction, and maintenance of the lighthouses. This
bureau has its special manufactories in Paris, where
experiments are tried with illuminating apparatus,
and the artisan is trained in the scientific principles
on which they are based, in the calculation of angles,
curves, prisms, lenses, and the like. This centralization
insures not only efficiency but economy, the whole cost
of the French system not exceeding £40,000 per annum.
Finally, to France, as to the United States, belongs the
honour of having regarded the lightage of her coasts,
not as a source of public or private profit, but as a
work of humanity. It is to be hoped that Great
Britain will follow so excellent an example, and before
long abolish the tolls now levied upon shipping for the
maintenance of her lighthouses ; for though these have
been subjected to a large reduction, they remain as a
burden upon commerce, and a burden which commerce
ought not to bear.

CHAPTER III.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OP LIGHTHOUSES.

WHEN the military protection of our island
shores is discussed, the civilian is strongly
warned of the necessity of maintaining more than one
" line of defence." We may confidently assert that a
similar necessity exists in connection with their com-
plete and satisfactory lightage. We know, too, that in
the construction of these lines of defence a great variety
is observed : that at one point a battery is erected, at
another an ordinary earthwork, at a third the most
complicated system of bastions, ravelins, and redoubts
which military engineering can devise. A similar
diversity is introduced into the disposition of those
defences which are erected in the interests of com-
merce. Tracing the long coast-line of our country, we
perceive considerable differences not only in the situa-
tion of our lighthouses, but in their mode of construc-
tion, their height, their illuminating apparatus. Some
are planted on lonely rocks far out in the waste of
waters ; others on wind-swept headlands or low sandy

40 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF LIGHTHOUSE*.

spits, where at night the sea-birds dash against the
lighted pane; others at the entrance to noble havens
in which the tallest ships may ride in peace. One is a
shapely tower, like a pine tree, springing from the very
bosom of the waves; another, a square, castellated
structure like the keep of a feudal castle. One exhibits
a fixed light with the steadfast glow of a star of the
first magnitude; another suddenly leaps out of the
womb of darkness, and throws over the sea its arrow of
flame, to fade away and reappear a few moments later
with the same strange and impressive lustre. One is
visible at a distance of twenty-seven miles ; the range
of illumination of another is only five. Nor are all
lights of the same colour. Some are red, with an in-
tense ruby-like splendour ; others, white ; others, blue
or green. This variation in aspect, range, and position
has, like the variation in aspect, range, and position of
our forts and batteries, a special object.

The system of lightage in general adoption surrounds
the coast with three lines of defence. The outermost
of these is formed of lighthouses with a very extensive
range — lighthouses of the first class, which are planted
upon reefs and islets some miles out at sea ; or on the
summit of capes and promontories, exposed to the full
fury of the gale; and along our British shores these are
so amply provided that it is impossible to approach any
important part without sighting one or more of them,
such as the Longships, the Wolf, the Eddystone, the
Bell Rock, the South Stack, the Skerryvore. Inside

QEOGRA PHIGAL DISTRIB UTION OF LIGHT HO USES. 41

these, the navigator comes upon a second circle, com-
posed of lighthouses of the second and third class,
which indicate the position of shallows and sandbanks,
and, more particularly, the safest channels in the mouth
of a river or the entrance of a port. And, lastly, when
the ship reaches the wished-for haven, she is guided to
her moorings by the " harbour lights " which cluster
about quay, pier, or breakwater. The lighthouse map
attached to this volume will show that, so ample is the
illumination of our shores, the luminous circles created
by our " fire-towers " are not simply contiguous, but
actually overlap each other, maintaining an unbroken
belt of light.

It has even been contended that the British coast is
too plentifully supplied with those beacon-marks, and
that in their very abundance lurks danger. Such might
very probably be the case if the means had not been
provided of easily distinguishing between them — means
so simple and yet so effective that it is almost impos-
sible for the mariner to experience any difficulty in
differentiating them. By day the distinction presents
no difficulties ; only at night could mistakes be made ;
and to obviate them — and, if by accident the navigator
has been driven out of his reckoning, to enable him at
once to calculate his true position — a distinction is made
in the character of each light, which, as we have said,
is a safeguard against danger. Broadly speaking, all
lights come under two classes : they are either fixed —
that is, they undergo no alteration; or they are not

42 GEOGRAPHICAL D1STR1B UTION OF LIGHT HO USES.

fixed. The former can be differentiated by the use of
coloured glass — white, red, or green ; or two fixed lights
may be placed together, or superposed — two white
lights, or two red, or red and white, or red and green :
the second class can be varied more effectively. For
instance, there can be the " revolving light," in which
the rays are separated by dark intervals, and as they
travel round, illuminate the horizon in due succession.
Now this kind of light is also susceptible of variation.
The dark intervals can be lengthened or shortened:
the ray can come round in half a minute or a minute
or a minute and a half; or coloured shades may be
introduced, and made to revolve alternately with the
white rays ; or two coloured rays may be shown to one
white ; and so on. Other changes will be readily ima-
gined by the reader.

The late Mr. Robert Stevenson proposed three more
variations, all of which are now in use — the " flashing "
light, the " intermittent," and the " double lights in
one tower." The " flashing " light is one which shows
two flashes and two eclipses, or more, in a given period.
These flashes differ from the paling and increasing rays
of a revolving light in being more sudden in their
action and briefer in their duration. They cannot be
modified very easily by time-periods, as it is not ad-
visable to separate the flashes by any long interval of
darkness, but coloured glasses can again be introduced,
and a white and red flash, or red and white, be brought
into immediate contrast. Recently an important dif-

GEOGRA PHICA L DISTRIB UTION OF LIGHT HO USES. 43

ferentiation has been brought forward in Mr. Wigham's
" group-flashing " system — two, three, or four, or even
five flashes appearing in such swift succession as to
form a distinct group, which is separated from the next
group by a dark period sufficiently long to be dis-
tinguished from the momentary intervals between the
flashes. A very large number of combinations and
permutations may be effected in this system. The
flashes may be lengthened or shortened; so may the
dark intervals; coloured flashes may be used, or col-
oured and white flashes alternately ; and so on.

We now come to " occulting " or " intermittent "
lights, in which the leading feature is the disappear-
ance of the light, through the automatic and regular
interposition and withdrawal of a screen in front of it,
or the periodic lowering or raising of a metal cylinder
round the chimney of the lamp. Here, again, a varia-
tion is possible in the duration of the intervals of light
or darkness. The light period may be thirty seconds,
and the dark thirty seconds ; or twenty and forty
seconds respectively. Or there may be a sudden
eclipse every half-minute for three seconds. There
may also be a change of colour, the red light being
occulted at one time and the white at another. But
this class of lights is not much used, and, we believe,
is not in favour with our seamen, who have been habit-
uated by long experience to watch for the ray or flash,
and not for the interval of darkness. In distributing
these different kinds along the coast, the rule observed

44 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF LIGHTHOUSES.

by our engineers is, if possible, never to place two
similar lights within a hundred miles of each other.
Taking a portion of the south coast of England, from
the Land's End to Start Point, let us note the varia-
tions introduced : — 1. White with red sectors, intermit-
tent ; 2. White and red alternately, revolving ; 3. White
and coloured sectors, fixed ; 4. White, fixed ; 5. Double
light in same tower, white, revolving twenty seconds
and fixed ; 6. Green, fixed ; 7. Red, fixed ; 8. Double
light in same tower, white, flashing and fixed ; 9. Double
light in same tower, white, occulting and fixed ;
10. White, occulting; and 11. Double light in same
tower, white, revolving, one minute, and fixed. It will
be seen that each of these eleven lights is distinctly
differentiated from the others.

An important service is performed by coloured lights,
to which reference must briefly be made. The main
light, whatever may be its individual character, is de-
signed to do what may be called "distant work. It
lifts its head high," says Mr. Edwards, "reaches out
across the waters as far as the horizon, and, we may
fancy, strives to look over and beyond the earth's
curve, so as to catch the eye of any far-off struggling
mariner who may need its guiding light." But " it is
the practice at many places to throw from the light-
house a subsidiary light of a special character, intended
more particularly to mark any rocks or shoals in the
immediate neighbourhood. On seeing this special
light sailors know that they are in danger, and by its

GEOGRA PHICAL DISTRIB UTION OF LIGHTED USES. 45

bearing are assisted in shaping a course of safety.
Neither long ranges nor powerful lights are required in
these cases The portions of the main light appro-
priated are generally given a special character by means
of colour, and are called sectors, the object being prac-
tically achieved by simply causing the light going out
in the direction of the dangers requiring to be indicated
to pass through a vertical strip of coloured glass. Red
is the colour mostly employed; but it is plain that
any kind of sector differing from the character of the
main light will be applicable."

At present not fewer than eighty -six distinctive char-
acters are in use throughout the lighthouses and light-
vessels of the world; and this important question of
securing for each light within a certain definite range
a complete distinctive individuality is receiving the
careful attention of lighthouse authorities both at home
and abroad,

CHAPTER IV.

THE ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

AN illuminating apparatus, of whatever material or
on whatever principle it may be constructed,
is placed in the lantern of a lighthouse in order that it
may so inflex the rays, which would otherwise (and
naturally) proceed in straight lines, that instead of
being thrown upon the sky and thereby expended use-
lessly, they may be made to fall upon and light up
certain points at sea. And if the light is to be fixed,
and intended to be visible all round, and from the
horizon to the base of the tower, the upper rays issu-
ing from the illuminating apparatus must be directed
downwards and the lower upwards, so as to increase
the illumination. If it be simply desired to illuminate
a narrow strip of sea, extending from the horizon to
the base of the lighthouse, all the rays must be inclined
laterally, or they may be concentrated and brought to
bear upon particular objects.

Originally two systems were employed in order to
accomplish these results. The first, called the catoptric,

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 47

depended on the use of silvered parabolic reflectors;
the second, called the dioptric (or refracting) employed
lenses of a peculiar construction. After a while these
two systems were combined, first in the ordinary cata-
dioptric, and second in Mr. Stevenson's ingenious
holophotal arrangement, which is applicable either to
the one or the other.

Before entering upon an explanation and description
of these systems, I shall attempt to furnish the reader
with a brief historical sketch of the progress of light-
house illumination.

The earliest sources of light made use of were wood
and coal fires, which blazed or flickered, according to
the condition of the atmosphere, on the top of massive
beacon-towers erected at conspicuous points along the
coast, or at the mouths of ports and harbours. Such
fires must have been very uncertain and even mis-
leading guides; yet so slow was the development of
better modes of illumination, that as late as 1822 a
coal fire was maintained at St. Bees lighthouse, on the
Cumberland coast, and was only then replaced by catop-
tric oil-light apparatus. For nearly two centuries these
bonfires prevailed ; some of them being closed in with
bars, and so made to keep their glow towards the sea,
while the landward side was open, and others being en-
closed in glazed lanterns. Candles were introduced as
illuminants towards the close of the seventeenth cen-
tury, as in Rudyerd's Eddystone lighthouse, and con-
tinued to be in vogue until far on into the eighteenth.

48 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

In 1759 Smeaton's Eddy stone was lighted by twenty-
four tallow candles, weighing two-fifths of a pound each.
From experiments made by Sir James Douglass, it
appears that the intensity of the light of each candle
must have been about 2*8 candle units each, so that
the aggregate intensity of radiant light from the
twenty-four candles did not exceed sixty-seven candle
units. The first attempt towards improvement was the
employment of a lantern of eight sides, the centre of
each being occupied by a huge semi-convex lens of
greenish glass, of about twenty inches in diameter and
nine inches in thickness. It was supposed that this
would intensify the rays proceeding from candles
placed in the focus ; but as the candles burned rapidly,
it must have been doubtful whether they were at any
time in focus at all. A small disk of tin was next
adopted; it was shaped nearly to a parabolic curve,
and lined with plaster, which again was lined with small
pieces of ordinary looking-glass, and in this way an at-
tempt was made to form a parabolic reflector. As late
as 1852 the illuminating apparatus at Portpatrick
lighthouse was of this primitive kind. "It consisted
of mirror glass fixed in parabolic moulds of plaster as
reflectors, six lamps with broad wicks, but without
glass chimneys ; and the glazing of the lantern, con-
sisting of small panes of common window glass, with a
mass of woodwork framing, forming a very inferior
light."

About the end of the eighteenth century oil-lamps

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 49

were brought into use. These were provided with
broad wicks, and furnished a small proportion of light
in comparison with their immense volume of smoke.
Already, in 1763, a master mariner of Liverpool, named
William Hutchinson, had introduced there a catoptric
apparatus; but the first great step in advance was
taken in 1782, when Argand invented the cylindrical
wick -lamp. About the same time Teulere, a French
engineer, accomplished a signal improvement in the
reflectors, which he made of mirrors of perfect polish
and a better shape. And by causing these mirrors to
revolve around the focus of illumination, so as to
project successively towards different points of the
horizon the collected ray of light, he invented "the
eclipse." Teulere's invention was first applied at Dieppe,*
where the celebrated Borda caused a small revolving
apparatus of five parabolic lenses.

In 1825 the French lighthouse authorities accom-
plished another very important improvement by in-
troducing the dioptric system of Fresnel in conjunction
with Arago and Fresnel's improvements on the Argand
lamp by the addition of a second, third, and fourth
concentric wick. It was adopted in England on July
1, 1836.

In 1827 coal gas was employed as an illuminant at
the Troon lighthouse, between Ardrossan and Ayr ; and
in 1847 at the Hartlepool lighthouse, Durham — the latter

* There is some evidence, however, that a small revolving apparatus,
with three reflectors, was in use at Marstrand, in Sweden, before this date.
(241) 4

50 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

combining it with a Fresnel first-order dioptric apparatus.
The costliness of gas, where it had to be manufactured
in small quantities and at isolated stations, prevented
its general adoption. In 1839 experiments were made

at the Orford Low
Lighthouse, Suffolk,
with the Bude light*
of the late Sir Golds-
worthy Gurney, con-
sisting of two or more
concentric Argand gas-
burners, superimposed,
which produced a
brilliant rose-coloured
light, through the ac-
tion of oxygen gas on
a flame derived from
the combustion of fatty
oils. Its expense, how-
ever, proved a fatal
drawback. Electricity
was next invoked as
an illuminant, and in
1857, at the suggestion
of the illustrious Faraday, the Trinity House experi-
mented at Blackwall with one of Professor Holmes's
direct current magneto-electric machines, and with so
much success that in the following year, at the South

* So called from Bude, in Cornwall, the inventor's residence.

ELECTRIC APPARATUS FOR A
FIXED LIGHT.

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 51

Foreland High Lighthouse, two machines were installed,
and the electric arc light formally established as a rival
to oil and gas for lighthouse illumination. In 1859
the experimental trials at the South Foreland were
discontinued ; but in 1862 the electric light was per-
manently applied at the Dongeness or Dungeness light-
house. In the following year it was introduced by
the French authorities at Cape la Heve, where it
furnishes a ray equal in intensity to five thousand
Carcel burners, and visible for upwards of twenty-
seven miles.

In 1871 Professor Holmes having perfected a new
alternating current machine, two were applied to the
new lighthouse on Souter Point, Durham, and in 1872
to both the High and Low Lighthouses at the South
Foreland, where they are still in successful operation.
According to Sir James Douglass, the early experience
with the electric light at Dungeness was far from en-
couraging. " Frequent extinctions of the light occurred
from various causes connected with the machinery and
apparatus, and the oil light had, at such times, to be
substituted. As no advantage can counterbalance the
want of certainty in signals for the guidance of the
mariner, no further step was taken in the development
of the electric light until the latter part of 1866, when
favourable reports were received from the French light-
house authorities of the working of the Alliance Com-
pany's system at the two lighthouses of Cape la Heve.
Complaints were also received from mariners, in the

52 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGPITHOUSES.

locality of Dungeness, of the dazzling effect on the eyes
when navigating, as they are there frequently required
to do, close inshore, thus being prevented from rightly
judging their distance from this low and dangerous
point. Therefore in 1874 the electric light was removed
from Dungeness, and a powerful oil light substituted."
In 1877 the electric arc light was installed at the Lizard
lighthouses on the south coast of Cornwall, and it has
since been introduced at St. Catherine's, Isle of Wight,
and at the High Tower on the Isle of May, Firth of
Forth. The machines now in use at Souter Point and
the South Foreland are the "alternating current"
machines.

Experiments were made with various dynamo-electric
machines at the South Foreland in 1876, in order to
ascertain which was best fitted for adoption at the
Lizard. The one selected was the direct-current
machine invented by the late Dr. Siemens, and two
machines of this type were set up at the Lizard in
1878. But as they failed to work with due regularity,
and as satisfactory reports were received of the success
of a very powerful alternating-current machine in-
vented by Baron de Maitens of Paris, one was ordered
and sent to the Lizard for trial, where it has ever since
worked in the most satisfactory manner. The expe-
rience thus acquired led to the adoption of the De
Maitens machine at St. Catherine's Point ; but it was
first despatched to the South Foreland, where experi-
ments were then being made as to the relative illu-

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 53

minating value for lighthouse purposes of gas, oil, and
electricity.

In 1862 the lime-light invented by and named after
Lieutenant Thomas Drummond — which is produced by
the combustion of oxygen and hydrogen on a surface
of lime — was tested at the South Foreland, but not
with encouraging results.

The rapid development of the electric arc light as a
lighthouse illuminant naturally provoked the emula-
tion of the partisans of gas, and in 1865 the attention
of all concerned was directed to the gas system of Mr.
John R. Wigham of Dublin — a system which is now
the only direct and successful rival of electricity. Mr.
Wigham having been requested by the Commissioners
of Irish Lights to report on the subject of oil gas for
lighthouses, found a difficulty in getting hold of a suit-
able burner, and was led to invent for this purpose an
ingenious combination of fish-tail jets in what is called
the Crocus Burner, which, by the introduction of an
oxidizer of mica or other material, renders the flame
not only smokeless, but exceedingly white. The com-
bustion is also assisted by a bottom cone for equalizing
the current of air to the flame. And further, this
burner requires no chimney-glasses, the breaking and
cleaning of which is often the cause of much incon-
venience in lighthouse maintenance. When photo-
metrically tested, the illuminating power of this burner
was proved to be two and a half times that of the
largest and most powerful fan-wick oil-lamp hitherto

54 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

used in the lighthouses of England or Ireland, while
its cost for gas consumed was much less than that of
the oil-lamp. The Commissioners were so satisfied
with this result that they ordered the construction of
a gas apparatus at the Howth Baily lighthouse, where
the new illuminant was first exhibited in October 1865,
and has continued without intermission up to the
present time. The gas was for a short time made from
oil, then from shale, and latterly from rich cannel, as
producing gas of sufficiently good quality.

On the general subject of gas in lighthouses we quote
Mr. Wigham's remarks : — " A flame obtained from gas
by the method above described possesses in an eminent
degree both quantity and intensity. It is unnecessary
to say that the former quality is of great importance
in lighthouse illumination. Every one knows that the
lime light and the electric light, while possessing ex-
ceeding intensity, are deficient in quantity, and we are
all familiar with the deep darkness to be found outside
the line of the rays thrown out by these lights. This
want of divergence is a serious drawback to their use-
fulness, as it necessitates exceeding accuracy of adjust-
ment in the necessary lenticular apparatus One

manifest advantage possessed by the gas over the
electric light is the greater simplicity and much smaller
cost of the apparatus required for its generation, and
the great ease and certainty with which gas can be
made and its light maintained. The simplicity of the
gas apparatus is such that any ordinary labourer can

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 55

manage it ; but in the case of the electric light skilled
labour is required to superintend the electro-magnetic
machines from which the electricity is produced, and
the steam-engines by which these machines are driven.
To guard against any breakdown in the electric light,
duplicate steam-boilers, duplicate engines, duplicate
electrical machinery, and duplicate electric lamps are
provided, and all this is not only very complicated, but
enormously more costly than the most perfect gas
apparatus."

A more powerful light being still desirable, Mr.
Wigham designed another form of burner, consisting of
rings of double gas-jets, which can be lighted or cut off
according to the requirements of the weather. Profes-
sor Tyndall, who examined it at the Howth Baily light-
house in June 1869, describes it as consisting of a series
of concentric fish-tail jets. The three central rings
embrace a group of twenty-eight jets, and this is the
light employed under ordinary circumstances at Howth
Baily. To this central group can be added in succes-
sion four other circles of burners, each embracing
twenty jets. Thus the lowest light employed is emitted
by twenty-eight jets, the next in power by forty-eight,
the next by sixty-eight, the next by eighty-eight, and
the next by one hundred and eight jets of gas. It is
possible, therefore, to employ lights of five different
powers.

A notable advantage of the gas system is that the
gas-burner while lighted is almost independent of all

56 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

care on the part of the light-keeper, and cannot, except
intentionally, be burned so as to give less than its
proper focal size of flame. The oil-lamp, on the con-
trary, requires continual watchfulness ; and although a
careful light-keeper will endeavour to keep its flame at
full focal height, yet there is no doubt that it requires
constant skill and attention to do so, and that some-
times a proper light is not maintained. Another
peculiarity of the gas light is, that when it is desirable
to extinguish and relight its flame for any purpose, as
in the case of intermittent lights, or when additional
power for penetrating fogs is required, the changes can
be effected in a moment. This cannot be done satis-
factorily with oil or paraffin lamps, for any manipula-
tion of the wicks causes incrustations of carbon upon
them, irregularity of flame, smoke, and consequent loss
of light. The gas system has also the great collateral
advantage that a supply of gas at a lighthouse is a
motive power always at hand, by which at a few
minutes' notice fog trumpets or whistles may be
sounded. This has been carried out at the Howth
Baily, where gas has been employed to drive a Hugon's
patent gas-engine, which requires only the application
of a match to set it in motion. Many interesting ex-
periments have been made there with gas as a means
for fog-signalling. An engine for compressing air, and
thus sounding an enormous trumpet, was driven by
gas, and quite recently guns charged with and fired by
gas have been tried with good effect.

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 57

Great economy necessarily results from the use of
gas for " intermittent " lights ; for if the light be inter-
mitted with equal periods of darkness — for example,
three seconds of light followed by three seconds of
darkness — it is evident that about one-half the quan-
tity of gas which would otherwise be expended will 'be
saved. It became therefore a desideratum to apply it
to revolving lights ; and though this was no easy task,
Mr. Wigham after a while accomplished it by making
use of the catoptric or reflector system. A mechanical
arrangement enabled him to apply gas to a series of
revolving reflectors : " a ground-in " gas-joint, fed from
a central source, and furnished with radial arms to
carry the gas to the reflectors, admits of its being
burned in the focus of each reflector with perfect
steadiness, while the revolution of the reflectors brings
in turn the face of each towards every part of the
horizon.

The annular lens, of which eight are generally used
for revolving lights, not only transmits the whole of
the rays horizontally, but also collects them into one
parallel beam. It will be evident, therefore, that the
power of the annular lens is greatly superior to that
of the refracting belt (used for fixed and intermittent
lights) : it has been ascertained by calculation to be
thirteen times more powerful. That this enormously
greater power can be availed of only in revolving lights
is obvious ; for the fact of the horizontal rays being
parallelized of necessity causes angles of darkness, and

58 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

to give light to those dark portions of the horizon it is
necessary to cause the octagon of lenses to revolve so
that the beam from each lens may traverse the whole
horizon. Eight portions of the horizon are illuminated
by the beams, but the eight portions between them
(which are of much greater extent) are in darkness.
it will be readily seen how advantage can be taken of
the economy of intermittent gas-flashes for revolving
lights without depriving the mariner of any light. We
simply make use of the periods of darkness. Thus,
suppose the apparatus set in motion, what we may
call beam No. 1, now lighting a certain point of the
horizon, will move on till it occupies the place now
held by beam No. 2 ; beam No. 2 will replace beam
No. 3; beam No. 3 will replace No. 4; No. 4 will
replace No. 5, and so on, beam No. 8 replacing beam
No. 1. Thus every part of the horizon will have been
visited by a beam or flash of light, and if the complete
revolution of the octagon of lenses occupies say ninety-
six seconds, a beam or flash of light will reach an
observer stationed at any point of the horizon every
twelve seconds ; but if, when beam No. 1 reaches the
place occupied by beam No. 2, the revolving machinery
is stopped, and remains stationary for twelve seconds,
during which time the gas is extinguished and not
re-lighted till the machine is again set in motion, it is
evident that the observer will receive a flash every
twenty-four seconds instead of every twelve. As,
however, it is not convenient to stop the revolution of

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 59

the octagon of lenses — which is very heavy, and could
not soon regain its proper velocity — we can accomplish
the same end without stopping the machinery by ex-
tinguishing the gas at the moment when the whole
horizon has been illuminated, and not re-lighting it till
the lapse of the same period of time as was occupied
by that illumination. Thus, say an observer has re-
ceived a flash from the lens of beam No. 4, beam No. 3
is coming on, and under ordinary circumstances he
would receive a flash from it; but the moment the
light reaches him (perhaps showing him a momentary
glimmer) the gas is lowered, and not raised again till
lens No. 2 is opposite to him, when he receives the
flash exactly twelve seconds later than he would other-
wise have received it. Thus, in the case we have been
supposing, every alternate lens passes over one-eighth
of the whole horizon in the dark, and the same effect
is produced as if the machine were stopped. It would
seem, therefore, that this plan of simply doubling the
duration of each dark interval must necessarily reduce
the consumption of gas by one-half.

Another invention by Mr. Wigham (whose own de-
scriptions of his apparatus we are freely using) which has
come into extensive use is that of " the group-flashing
light," or, in other words, a continual intermittent light
in conjunction with revolving annular lenses. Instead of
extinguishing the gaslight during the passage of every
alternate lens, as just described, a little bit of wheel-
work connected with the revolving machinery is so

60 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

arranged that the gaslight is continuously lowered and
raised again without interrupting the ordinary revolu-
tion of the lens. The special advantage of this device,
that the constant extinction and re-exhibition of the
light powerfully arrests the attention of the mariner,
must be insisted upon. The name " group " is applied
to it because, instead of a single flash, a cluster of six
or eight flashes reaches the eye at each recurring period.
The required duration of the individual flashes compos-
ing each group is secured by regulating the revolution
of the lenticular apparatus to the necessary speed.
Professor Tyndall has reported upon this invention in
very favourable terms. He describes it as producing a
powerful and indeed splendid effect, and as giving a
revolving light so distinctive a character as to render it
perfectly unmistakable.

A very important improvement in lighthouse illum-
ination has been effected by Mr. Wigham's triform and
quadriform system of gas-burners. Formerly only one
central illuminant was used in first-order lighthouses,
the dioptric apparatus for which consisted of three
parts — the great central annular lens, the top prisms,
and the bottom prisms. The light from these top and
bottom prisms being very feeble — not more than one-
fifth of the whole — Mr. Wigham considered that it
would be better to use three of these central lenses
superposed, with a light in the focus of each, thus
securing an addition of light in the ratio of 240 to 100.
The three superposed lenses do not take up more space

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 61

than the original dioptric apparatus, so that the same
lantern will contain them ; and the extra cost of con-
sumption is very small, for only one out of the three
burners is used in clear weather, the others being added
when the weather is thick and foggy.

The question, which is the best lighthouse illuminant —
oil, gas, or electricity? has been under the consideration
of a strongly constituted committee, appointed by the
Board of Trade; but its decision was not so clear as could
have been desired. So far as we can judge from the
evidence before us, gas seems specially adapted for use
in the more important shore lighthouses, and has un-
questionably been very successful at Gaily Head and
Howth Baily. For rock lighthouses it is probable that
oil will continue to be employed. The electric arc light
finds many powerful advocates, and has been installed,
as we shall see, at several first-class English and Scotch
stations ; but there seems a consensus of opinion among
seamen that in foggy weather it is ineffective, and in
absolute intensity and extent of range it is at present
surpassed by the triform and quadriform gas-burner
system. The subject is one of much interest and high
importance, and we wish the committee had been able
to give a more conclusive deliverance upon it. Mean-
while, let us bear in mind the fact that the practical
application of electricity has by no means attained to
its full development, and that its future cannot possibly
be forecasted.

The oil formerly used in lighthouses was spermaceti,

62 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

but since 1846 colza has been generally adopted. The
substitution of the new mineral oils for colza was con-
sidered as far back as 1861 ; but they were then so
dear, and so imperfectly refined, that the lighthouse
authorities decided against them. In 1869, however,
the price of mineral oil, of good illuminating quality
and safe flashing point, having been reduced to about
one-half of that of colza, the Trinity House, after a
series of satisfactory experiments, recommended the
change. It was found during these experiments that
"the improved combustion effected in the colza burners,
in their adaptation for consuming mineral oils, had the
effect of increasing their mean efficiency, when burning
colza, 45f per cent. A further advance was made
during these experiments by increasing the number of
wicks of the first-order burner from four to six, more
than doubling the intensity of the light, while effecting
an improved compactness of the luminary per unit of
focal area of 70 per cent." The value of a light given
by a six-wick burner equals, it is said, that of seven
hundred and twenty-two sperm candles, while the old
four- wick burner gives a light equal only to that of
three hundred and twenty-eight sperm candles. Sir
James Douglass, a few years ago, introduced a seven-
wick burner, with proportionately greater results. It is
available of course either for colza or paraffin. When
burning the former, the wicks are raised about a quarter
of an inch above the top of the burner, and the oil
allowed a slight overflow ; but in burning paraffin, the

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 63

wicks are not raised more than one-sixteenth part of
an inch, and the oil is kept down about an inch and a
quarter below the burner's edge. The consumption of
oil, whether colza or paraffin, for a four-wick burner is
about eleven hundred gallons, for a six-wick burner
seventeen hundred and
fifty gallons, yearly.

We come now to
an explanation of the
catoptric and dioptric
systems of illuminating
apparatus. Until within
the' last few years the
catoptric system was
almost exclusively em-
ployed in our English
lighthouses, but it has
now given way in an
extensive degree to the
dioptric.

In the accompanying
illustration we represent

CATOPTRIC APPARATUS.

a plan and elevation of
a catoptric appaiatus, consisting of nine Argand lamps
and cup-shaped metallic reflectors, arranged in groups
of threes, and set in motion by an iron framework
mounted on a spindle. Eclipses at longer or shorter
intervals are produced according to the rate of speed
at which this spindle rotates. If desired, the apparatus

64 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

may have four vertical faces, and the lamps affixed to
each may be three, five, seven, or ten. At Beachy Head
there are three faces, each face fitted with ten lamps
and reflectors, so that thirty lamps and reflectors com-
bine to furnish a ray of light of great intensity.

The form of the reflector is that of a parabola, which
has been found the best for reflecting forward in a
parallel beam all the rays from the lamp which strike
its surface; and the lamp or burner is carefully adjusted
so as to insure that the flame shall be exactly in the
focus of the reflector, and thus all waste of light
prevented.

The obvious objections to this system are, that it
necessitates a vast amount of trouble in cleaning and
polishing, and that the number of lamps in use entails
the consumption of a large quantity of oil, and develops
a considerable and inconvenient amount of heat.

The reflectors used for this system are made of sheet
copper, plated in the proportion of six ounces of silver
to sixteen ounces of copper.* They are shaped into a
paraboloidal form by a laborious and difficult process
of beating with various kinds of mallets and hammers ;
and when thus shaped are strengthened round the edge
by means of a strong bezel, and a strap of brass
attached to it. Polishing powders are then applied,
and the instrument receives its latest finish.

To test the shape of the reflector, two brass gauges
are employed. One is for the back, and used by the

* Stevenson, "On Lighthouses," pp. 92, 93.

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 65

workmen during the process of hammering ; the other,
while the mirror undergoes the final touches, is applied
to the concave face. Its reflecting power is then
proved by trying a burner in the focus, and measuring
the intensity of the light at various points of the
reflected conical beam.

The flame used in a catoptric apparatus is generally
derived from an Argand lamp, with flat wicks an inch
in diameter. Sometimes the burners
are tipped with silver to prevent the
wick from being wasted by the great
heat evolved. They are also fitted, in
some Scotch lighthouses, with an in-
genious sliding apparatus, by means of
which they can be removed from the
interior of the lantern at cleaning time,
and afterwards replaced with facility
and exactness.

Catoptric lights may be arranged
into nine distinct classes : fixed, revolv- AN ARGAND FOUNTAIN
ing white, revolving red and white,
revolving red with two whites, revolving white with
two reds, flashing, intermittent, double fixed, and double
revolving white.

In addition to what we have already said of these
and other distinctions, we may here quote Mr. Steven-
son's definitions : —

The fixed, he says, maintains a regular and steady
appearance. The reflectors employed are smaller than

(241) 5

66 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

those used for revolving lights ; and this is necessary,
in order that they may be set up on the circular frame-
work with their axes so inclined as to admit of their
illuminating every point of the horizon.

The revolving is pro-
duced by the rotation of
the apparatus ; and as it
exhibits once a minute, or
once in half a minute, a
light gradually increasing
to a maximum, and then
gradually receding into
darkness, it has a very
impressive effect.

The revolving red and
ivhite is obtained by the
revolution of a frame
work with red and white
lights on different sides or
faces : it is susceptible, of
course, of considerable va-
riation.

The flashing light* is
produced in the same
manner as the revolving;
but, owing to a difference in the construction of the

* This description of light was first introduced by the late Mr. Robert
Stevenson, in 1822, at Buchanness, on the coast of Aberdeen. Mr. Steven-
son was also the author of the "intermittent light."

REVOLVING APPARATUS ON THE
CATOPTRIC PRINCIPLE.

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 67

framework, the reflectors are arranged with their
rims or faces in one vertical plane, and their axes in
a line inclined to the perpendicular ; a disposition
of the mirrors which, combined with greater quick-
ness of revolution, showing a flash once every five
seconds, creates an effect wholly different from that of
a revolving light, and presents the / appearance of an
alternately rising and sinking illumination. As this
is but of momentary duration, the light resembles a
rapid succession of bright flashes — whence its name.

The intermittent light is distinguished by bursting
suddenly into view, and continuing steady for a very
brief interval, after which it is suddenly eclipsed for
an equally brief period. This is accomplished by the
vertical motion of opaque cylinders in front of the
reflectors — the light being thus alternately revealed
and hidden.

The double lights ("which are seldom used except
there exists a necessity for a leading line, as a guide
for taking some channel or avoiding some danger ") are
sometimes exhibited in two towers, sometimes in the
same tower at different elevations.

The other distinctions indicated are simply variations
of those which we have just described.

As the catoptric is the reflecting system, and is dis-
tinguished by its use of reflectors, so the dioptric is
the refracting system, and distinguished by its use of
lenses. The former bends the beams of light in the

68 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

required direction by the agency of reflectors, each with
its separate lamp or burner ; the latter employs lenses
for the same purpose, and arranges them round a fixed
central light.

The application of lenses to lighthouse illumination
seems to have been proposed in England as early as
1762, but owing to mechanical defects they were found
to yield a light inferior to that of the paraboloidal re-
flectors, and failed to secure
adoption. It was suggested
by Buffon that a lens might
be constructed in concentric
zones out of a solid piece of
glass, but the difficulties of
the process proved to be in-
superable. About 1773 Con-
dorcet proposed that burning
lenses should be built up, as
it were, in separate pieces;
and a similar method was de-
scribed by Sir David Brewster
in 1811. Quite independently, Augustin Fresnel ar-
rived at the same result in 1819; and having con-
structed a suitable lens, he placed a strong light in its
focus, and obtained a suitable illuminant for lighthouses,
In conjunction with Arago and Mathieu, he introduced
a large lamp having four concentric wicks ; and, ar-
ranging four or more annular lenses in stages around
this lamp, he became the inventor of the dioptric system.

ANNULAR BUILT LENS.

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 69

Let us visit the lantern of a lighthouse which has
been constructed upon this system. Necessarily, the
first object to be noticed is the lamp. This is a fixture
in the centre of the lantern, and is supplied with oil
either on the hydrostatic principle, or, as is usually the
case, by the employment of pressure. In the former
instance, a cistern is placed near the lamp, but at a
higher level than the burner, and by the natural action
of gravitation the oil penetrates to the burning-point.
In the latter, the oil is forced or pumped up to the
wicks from a reservoir underneath the burner by a
weighted plunger, adjusted to the requisite amount of
pressure. The wicks are arranged concentrically — that
is, ring within ring — and they vary in number accord-
ing to the intensity of light desired.

The next object of interest is the lenticular apparatus
— the arrangement of the lenses or prisms, which bend
or refract the rays from the central flame, so as to
gather them into a compact beam.

A ray of light, as everybody knows, when trans-
mitted obliquely from a transparent body to another
of different density, undergoes, at the point where it
strikes the common surface of the two planes, a sudden
change of direction. This change is called refraction.
For instance : plunge one-half of a straight ruler into
a basin of water. The ruler no longer appears straight,
but bent back or broken at the point where it enters
the water. This refraction is the great thing to be
attained in lighthouse illumination.

70 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

Fresnel began by fitting together four or more an
nular lenses, so as to form a crystal frame which sur-
rounded the lamp. When this frame was made to
revolve, the mariner received the full effect of each
lens as soon as its axis was directed towards him ; but
in all other positions there was darkness. In order to
utilize the rays of light which passed above the lens,

Fresnel employed
a system of double
optical agents.
These consisted of
inclined hanging
lenses (a), which
refracted the up-
per rays, these be-
ing reflected into
the proper direc-
tion by mirrors (6)
placed above at a
proper angle. The
lower rays were
intercepted by
fixed prisms (pp),
which did not revolve, and, exhibiting everywhere
a fixed light, were necessarily of very inferior power
to the solid beams proceeding from the annular lenses
(L), and the arrangement of upper and lower lenses and
mirrors.

So far as a "fixed light" was concerned, Fresnel's

FRESNEL'S REVOLVING LIGHT.

ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES. 71

apparatus was practically perfect; it illuminated the
whole of the horizon with equal intensity. But it was
otherwise with revolving lights, in which the whole of
the rays have to be collected into one or more beams
of parallel rays. As we have seen, those rays which
escaped past the lens were caught up by two agents ;
but both caused loss of light by absorption. Fresnel
himself estimated the
loss at one-half of the
whole incident rays.
To remedy this serious
defect, Mr. Thomas
Stevenson, in 1849,
proposed an arrange-
ment, which he called
the holophotal, for
dispensing with one
of those agents, and
advantageously em-
ploying total reflec-
tion for revolving
lights, as Fresnel had
used it for fixed lights. His apparatus, as commonly
employed, consists of a polygonal framework which cir-
culates round the lamp, each face producing a beam of
parallel rays. When the frame revolves with uniform
rapidity round the central burner, the mariner is alter-
nately illuminated and thrown into darkness, according
as the axis of the holophotes is pointed from or towards

STEVENSON'S HOLOPHOTAL
REVOLVING LIGHT.

72 ILLUMINATING APPARATUS OF LIGHTHOUSES.

him. The difference between Fresnel's revolving light
and Stevenson's holophotal, briefly speaking, is this : in
the latter one agent does the work which in the former
is done by two agents — the entire glass frame, with its
lenses and reflecting prisms, revolving round the cen-
tral lamp.

The dioptric holophotal system, or that which makes
total reflection a portion of the revolving apparatus,
was first employed on a small scale, in 1850, at the
Horsburgh Lighthouse, near Singapore, and on a large
scale, in 1851, at North Eonaldshay, in the Orkneys.
It is now in use over all Europe and America.

CHAPTER V.

LIGHTHOUSES OP ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND DESCRIBED.

WE now invite the reader to accompany us on an
imaginary voyage round the coast of Great
Britain, so that we may take stock, as it were, of the
lighthouses and lightships by which it is protected. It
will be found, as, indeed, a glance at the chart attached
to this volume clearly reveals, that, owing to their
number, and admirably chosen position, and range of
illuminating power, they surround our island with an
unbroken belt of light which warns the navigator of
rock and reef and shoal, and points out the way to safe
and secure channels. There is absolutely not a mile of
our shores undefended by these sea-marks and beacon-
lights ; or, at least, it may confidently be asserted that
if any unguarded places still exist, it will not be long
before they are brought into the general system.

Starting from the extreme south-western point of
England, we direct our attention, in the first place, to
the compact little archipelago of islets and rocks known
as the Scilly Islands, the Cassiterides of the ancient

74 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

geographers. So stormy is the climate amongst these
masses and fragments of granite, that it is said they
do not, on an average, enjoy more than six really calm
days in the year. Six of them — St. Mary's, Tresco, St.
Martin's, St. Agnes, Bryher, and Samson — are inhabited.
On the summit of the island of St. Agnes a lighthouse
has been established since 1680. A coal -fire was the
first illuminant, but oil was substituted in 1790. The
lighthouse is a plain, circular building, measuring
seventy-four feet in height from base to vane, and
exhibiting a white light, revolving every half minute,
which in fair weather is visible for seventeen miles.
This light, however, was extinguished in 1888, when
a new lighthouse was erected on Giants' Castle Head,
in St. Mary's Isle. On Round Island, to the north,
a light-tower has been established, which shows a
powerful red flash every half -minute.

The desolate island of Annette, in this group, is
thickly beset with rocks and reefs, and associated with
many a sad memory of suffering and death. They have
been called " the dogs " of Scilly, and compared to those
which, in the ancient fable, hovered round the monster
of the Sicilian sea — the terrible Scylla, which, from
her cavernous lair, darted forth " her ravening mouth "
and dragged down the helpless vessel to destruction.

It was here, on the Gilstone Kock, that Sir Cloudesley
Shovel, the gallant old admiral of Queen Anne's reign,
was lost, his flag-ship the Association, and a crew
of eight hundred men, going instantly to the bottom.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND 75

The Eagle, the Romney, and the Firebrand also per-
ished (October 22, 1707). On Jacky's Rock the Thames
steamer went to pieces (January 4, 1841), and out of
sixty -five sailors and passengers only three escaped.
On the Crebawethan the Douro was wrecked (1843),
and every person on board drowned. The large steamer
Delaware was driven ashore here, and forty-five were
lost out of a complement of forty-seven (December 20,
1871). And, in a thick fog, the Hamburg mail-steamer
went ashore in this perilous neighbourhood (May 7,
1875), with the terrible loss of three hundred and thirty-
one lives.

The south-westernmost of these rocks is called the
BISHOP (lat. 49° 52' 30"), and here the Trinity House
resolved to erect a lighthouse in 1852. The design was
supplied by Mr. James Walker, and carried out under
the direction of Mr. Nicholas, father of the eminent
engineer Sir James Douglass. The cost, including
dwellings on mainland, was £36,559, 18s. 9d. The
tower is of gray granite, circular in shape, entirely solid
to forty -five feet above high water, and is one hundred
and forty-seven feet in height. The foundation-stone
was laid on July 16th, 1852, and the stone-work com-
pleted on August 28th, 1857. The light, a double
flashing dioptric light of the first order— showing two
successive flashes of about four seconds, with an eclipse
of four seconds between each, and forty-eight seconds
of darkness after the second flash — is visible for six-
teen miles, and was first exhibited on September 1st,

76 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

1858.* The commissioners who visited the lighthouse
in 1859 describe it as a magnificent structure, but the
most exposed, perhaps, in the world. The rolling seas
send their spray over the top of the lantern. To
strengthen the tower against wind and wave, it has

BISHOP BOCK LIGHTHOUSE.

been cased in a new coat of granite, three and a half
feet thick, and raised thirty-five feet higher. An ex-
plosive fog signal, with one report every five minutes,
was placed here in 1887.

* Height of lantern 28 feet, and diameter 14 feet. Cost £1,452, Is

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 77

In lat. 50° 3 50", about ten miles from the Bishop, has
been moored the Seven Stones lightship since 1841. It
shows a white light, with three flashes in quick suc-
cession, followed by thirty-six seconds' eclipse, visible
eleven miles. A fog -siren, during thick or foggy
weather, utters three blasts very rapidly every two
minutes — a low, a high, and then a low note. This
vessel has a crew of eleven men. She rides in forty
fathoms, east of the rocks, and has occasionally nearly
three hundred fathoms of an inch-and-a-half chain out.
" Though this is the most exposed vessel on the coast,
the master considers that from the length of the sea
she rides easier than vessels moored in a shorter sea.
As he expressed it, ' She is always ready for it ; ' but
still her decks are occasionally swept by the waves,
and when it strikes her forward, 'it is like a four-
pounder going off.' "

In a graphic passage, Mr. Walter White describes
the south-western extremity of England, the Land's
End, which we now approach. "Those who expect,"
he says, " to see a towering or far-stretching promon-
tory will be disappointed. We form our ideas from
ordinary maps, and imagine England's utmost cape to
be a narrow tongue thrust out from the firm shore,
along which we may walk to meet the advancing
waves. But we find the reality to be merely a pro-
truding shoulder or buttress of the vast irregular bluft
that terminates the county. Cape Cornwall, which

78 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

looks so grand, about two miles distant, appears to ex-
tend farther to the west than the Land's End.

" Sit still and gaze : the scene grows upon you. Here
the two Channels commingle with the ocean ; and far
out as eye can reach, and round on either hand till it
meets the remotest point of the rugged shore, stretches
the watery expanse. The billows come tumbling in
and break in thunder at the base of the cliffs, dashing
the impatient spray well-nigh to their summit. You
may descend by steep paths to a lower level, and see
the cavernous opening which their plunging assaults
have worn through from one side of the buttress to the
other. With what fury they rush into the recess, and
make horrid whirlpools behind the mass which some
day will be an isolated member of the rocky group
scattered along the shore ! There, on the largest of the
cluster, nearly two miles from shore, stands the Long-
ships Lighthouse, and all between is foam and swirl ;
waves running together, and leaping high with the
shock : a dangerous channel known as the Kettle's
Bottom. See how the water chafes around the Armed
Knight there on the left, and the Irish Lady on the
right, and all the nameless lumps ! Yonder, under the
cape, at the extremity of Whitesand Bay, are the
Brisons, invested by shipwreck with a fearful interest."

The LONGSHIPS LIGHTHOUSE was erected in 1795 by
a Mr. Smith, who received as his reward the right to
levy a toll upon shipping for a limited number of years.
It was afterwards purchased of his representatives by

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 79

the Trinity House, and a new tower erected in 1843,
which was rebuilt in 1883. The material used is
granite, and the large blocks are trenailed on the plan
introduced by Smeaton into his great work at the
Eddystone. Its circumference at the base measures
sixty-two feet. From the base to the lantern vane
the height is one hundred and seventeen feet; from
high-water mark to centre of lantern, one hundred and
ten feet. Yet in heavy weather the waves fling their
foam with a rattle against the lantern panes, and on
one occasion even lifted the cowl off the top, so that
the water poured in and extinguished some of the
lamps. At this lighthouse, in foggy weather, is used
the new explosive fog-signal. The explosive charge,
with a detonator (an enlarged percussion cap filled
with fulminate) inside, is connected by the necessary
wires with a small electric machine, and suspended at
the end of a long arm projecting from the building. On
a current being generated by the machine, the induced
spark fires the detonator and explodes the charge. There
are two reports every two minutes. The light is white,
with red sectors, eclipsed for three seconds every minute.
Under the lighthouse, at the end of a long fissure in
the rock, is a cavern ; and when the billows are very
high, the noise produced by the rush and roar of pent-
up air from this cavern is so great that the keepers can
hardly sleep. It is recorded that one man — we sup-
pose, a new-comer — was so terrified on one occasion
that his hair turned suddenly white !

80 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

About eight or nine miles to the south-west lies a
dangerous mass of greenstone, called the Wolfs Crag
or Wolfs Rock, in the midst of an incessant swirl and
eddy of waters. At times the full force and fury of
the Atlantic beats upon it. Some years ago an attempt

WOLF'S CRAG LIGHTHOUSE.

was made to erect upon its summit the figure of an
enormous wolf in copper, made hollow within, and so
constructed that the mouth, on receiving the blasts of
the gale, should emit a loud hoarse sound to warn off

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 81

approaching vessels. The scheme was rendered abor-
tive, however, by the violence of the elements ; but a
beacon was afterwards set up and maintained here
until the erection of a lighthouse could no longer be
delayed. In 1862 the building was begun, from the
designs of Mr. James Walker; and in 1869 a noble
tower of granite, one hundred and ten feet high, rose
complete and stately above the waves. In its construc-
tion, which cost £62,726, about three thousand two
hundred and ninety-six tons of granite were made use
of. The tower exhibits one powerful light, white and
red alternately, revolving at intervals of half a minute,
and visible for sixteen miles.

LIZARD POINT LIGHTHOUSE.

LIZARD POINT is the southernmost promontory of
England, and at the entrance to the Channel mounts
guard with two large and massive lighthouses, situated
east and west, at a distance of two hundred and twenty-

(241) 6

82 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

two feet apart. Each tower is of brick, sixty-one feet
high, and perched on a mass of serpentine one hundred
and sixty-eight feet above the sea. Between the two —
one of which was erected in 1752, and the other rebuilt
in 1878 — are situated the keepers' dwellings and offices.
Coal -fires were burned here down to January 16th, 1812,
when oil was substituted ; but the electric light, on Dr.
Siemen's system, was introduced on the 29th of March
1878. It is visible for twenty-one miles. This is also
a fog-siren station.

Continuing our course along the south coast, we
come in sight of St. Anthony's Point, Falmouth, lat.
50° 8' 39", where an octagonal tower of gray granite,
sixty-three feet high, was erected in 1835 from Mr.
James Walker's designs. It shows an upper light,
white, revolving every twenty seconds ; and a lower
light, white; fixed, which is exhibited to clear the
Manacle rocks. . Both have a fair-weather range of
thirteen miles.

We now see before us the most celebrated of British
lights —

The EDDYSTONE, on the Eddystone rock, lat. 50° 10'
49", long. 4° 15' 53", about fourteen miles south-west
of Plymouth.

The first lighthouse of a regular character erected on
our English coast seems to have been that of Lowestoft,
in 1609. Among its successors were those of Hun-
stanton Point, 1665, and the Scilly Islands, 1680. To

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 83

the same period belong the lights at Dungeness, Orford-
ness, and the Eddystone — the last-named being the
most important, the most remarkable, and the most
interesting. All these were at first coal-fires.

1. The reef of rocks, of which the highest summit
is called the Eddystone, being in a line with the
Lizard in Cornwall, and Start Point in Devonshire,
lies across the track not only of vessels bound for the
great seaport of Plymouth, but of vessels beating up
and down the Channel. At high water its craggy tops
are hardly visible, and their position is discernible only
from the waves which " eddy " and seethe above them ;
at low water, several broken and irregular ridges of
gneiss are exposed. When a gale blows up from the
south-west, they become the centre of a chaos of heav-
ing and hurtling billows, in which no ship could hope
to escape destruction. To avoid them, therefore, ves-
sels were accustomed to enter the Channel in a much
more southerly latitude than is now the case ; but in
doing so they frequently exposed themselves to dangers
not less formidable, and hence the numerous wrecks
which occurred on the French coast, and upon the
rocks surrounding the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and
Alderney. It was a matter, therefore, of national in-
terest when, in 1696, a private gentleman, Mr. Henry
Winstanley of Littlebury, in Essex, resolved to plant
a lighthouse on the Eddystone. and, having obtained
the necessary Parliamentary powers, plunged into his
philanthropic enterprise with characteristic energy.

84 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

He was a man with an inventive turn of mind, but
hitherto had employed his ingenuity chiefly in the
preparation of elaborate practical jokes. If a guest at
his house, on retiring to his bedroom, removed an old
slipper which was lying in his way, immediately a
ghost started up before him. Or if he threw himself
into an easy-chair, the two arms suddenly closed in
and held him prisoner. Or if, in the garden, he sat
clown on an arbour seat, he was swiftly set afloat in the
middle of the neighbouring fish-pond.

Mr. Winstanley's innate eccentricity was conspicuous
enough in the fantastic design of the first Eddystone
Lighthouse, which had all sorts of projections and
quaint contrivances, as if intended to catch every wind
that blew. Its erection was begun in 1696. In the
first summer — and of course the work could be carried
on only during the summer months — twelve holes were
excavated in the rock, and iron fastenings secured in
them, to receive and hold the substructure. The pro-
gress was very slow, for, though it was summer, the
weather, according to Winstanley, proved at times of
exceeding violence, and for ten or fourteen days con-
secutively the sea, agitated by " out-winds and the in-
rush of the ground-swell from the main ocean," raged
and leaped upwards with such fury as completely to
bury the works and prevent all approach to them.
The second summer was spent in the construction of a
solid circular pillar twelve feet in height and fourteen
feet in diameter. In the third year the base of the

WINSTANLEY'S LIGHTHOUSE AT THE EDDYSTONE.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 87

pillar was enlarged two feet, and the edifice raised to a
height of sixty feet.* " Being all finished," says Win-
stanley, " with the lantern, and all the rooms that were
in it, we ventured to lodge there soon after midsummer,
for the greater despatch of the work. But the first
night the weather came bad, and so continued that it
was eleven days before any boats could come near us
again; and not being acquainted with the height of
the sea's rising, we were almost drowned with wet, and
our provisions in as bad a condition, though we worked
night and day as much as possible to make shelter for
ourselves. In this storm we lost some of our materials,
although we did what we could to save them ; but the
boat then returning, we all left the house to be re-
freshed on shore. And as soon as the weather did per-
mit we returned and finished all, and put up the light
[a coal-fire] on the 14th November 1698 ; which being
so late in the year, it was three days before Christmas
before we had relief to go on shore again, and were
almost at the last extremity for want of provisions;
but, by good Providence, then two boats came with
provisions and the family that was to take care of the
light ; and so ended this year's work."

The fourth and last year was devoted to strengthen-
ing the foundations and enlarging the accommodation
of the lighthouse, which, when completed, resembled

* See Smeaton's "Narrative of the Building of the Eddystone Light-
house " (ed. 1791) ; " Smeaton and Lighthouses " (ed. 1844) ; Dr. Smiles's
"Lives of the Engineers."

88 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

nothing so much as " a Chinese pagoda." The gallery
around the lantern was so wide and open that it was
possible, when the sea ran high, for a six-oared boat to
have been lifted by the waves and driven through it.
If Mr. Winstanley had possessed a practical knowledge
of the profession into which he had obtruded himself
with so much self-confidence, he would have known
that the quaint fabric he had raised was singularly ill
adapted to bear the pressure of wind and wave that
would inevitably be brought to bear upon it ; but he
was so proud of his work, and so convinced of its
solidity, that he expressed a wish to be beneath its
roof in the greatest storm that ever blew under the
face of heaven, convinced that it would not shake one
joist or beam. His presumptuous egotism was severely
punished. With his workmen and keepers he had
taken up his residence in the lighthouse, when a ter-
rible gale arose, and on the 26th of November de-
veloped an almost exceptional force. All through the
night raged the destroying angel ; and when morning
came the crowds that flocked to the shore at Plymouth
discovered that the lighthouse on the Eddystone was
gone ! No trace was ever found of the unfortunate
occupants.

2. Whatever may be our opinion of the temerity and
unwise self-confidence of Winstanley, we must needs
admit that he at least demonstrated the feasibility of
the erection of a lighthouse on the Eddystone rock,
and that his achievement deserves to be recorded as

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 89

one of the most generous enterprises which any phil-
anthropist has ever undertaken.

After an interval of three years the task of building
a new lighthouse was taken up by a Captain Lovet,
who obtained a ninety-nine years' lease from the
Trinity Corporation, and engaged as architect and en-
gineer a Ludgate Hill silk-mercer, named John Rud-
yerd. The reasons which determined Lovet in his
apparently curious choice are unknown ; at all events,
it turned out sufficiently fortunate. Rudyerd laid
down an elegant and effective design: instead of a
polygon, he chose a circle for the outline ; and instead
of the projections and ornaments with which Win-
stanley had encumbered his building, he aimed at the
most absolute simplicity of construction. In preparing
his foundation, he showed considerable ingenuity. He
divided the irregular area of the rock into seven rather
unequal stages, in which he cut six-and-thirty holes to
the depth of from twenty to thirty inches. These
holes measured six inches square at the top, gradually
narrowed to five inches, and again expanded to nine
inches by three at the bottom. Into these were keyed
stout bolts or branches of iron, each bolt being exactly
fitted in size to the hole it was intended for, and accord-
ing to its dimensions and form weighing from two to
five hundredweight. These bolts having been securely
fastened, Rudyerd proceeded to lay a course of squared
oak timbers lengthwise on the lowest stage, so as to
reach the level of the stage next above. Another set

90 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

of timbers was laid diagonally, so as to cover the first
course and raise the level to the surface of the third
stage. Alternate diagonal and longitudinal courses
were thus placed until a foundation of solid wood had
been obtained, two courses higher than the topmost
point of the rock, all being firmly fitted to each other and
to the rock by the aforesaid iron bolts, and all being
exactly trenailed where they intersected one another,

Rudyerd's lighthouse we have frequently seen de-
scribed as " a wooden structure ; " but, in reality, it
consisted of a combination of timber and masonry, in
the proportion of two courses of timber to five courses
of granite, so far as the basement was concerned. It
is true that upon this basement or pedestal, which
measured twenty-three feet in height, a column of
timber was raised for a further height of sixty-nine
feet, giving a total of ninety-two feet. The interior
was divided into four rooms or stories, above the
uppermost of which rose the lantern, an octagon of
ten and a half feet, crowned with a ball of two and a
fourth feet in diameter. The building was completely
finished in 1709.

A couple of anecdotes may be told in connection
with Mr. Rudyerd's lighthouse. England and France
were at war while it was in course of construction ;
and a French privateer sent an armed boat's crew to
make a descent upon the rock and carry, off the work-
men. As soon as their capture was made known to
Louis XIV., he ordered their immediate release, and

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 91

that they should be sent back to their work, with some
presents to compensate them for the loss and inconve-
nience they had sustained. " Though at war with En-
gland," said the king, " I am not at war with mankind."

Some visitors to the lighthouse, after inspecting its
internal arrangements, remarked to one of the keepers
that they thought it quite possible for them to live very
comfortably in their enforced seclusion. " That might
be," said the man, " if we had but the use of our
tongues ; but it is now fully a month since my partner
and I have spoken to each other."

Rudyerd's lighthouse did not have the good fortune
to celebrate its jubilee. On the 2nd of December 1755,
through some cause unknown, it caught fire. Three
keepers were on the rock at the time ; and when one
of them, whose turn it was to watch, entered the lan-
tern, at about two in the morning, to snuff the candles,
he discovered that it was filled with smoke, and on
his opening the door which led to the balcony flames
immediately burst forth. He at once alarmed his com-
panions, and they used every exertion -to extinguish
the fire ; but owing to the difficulty of raising a suffi-
cient supply of water, and the dryness of the wood-
work, its ravages could not be checked, and they were
compelled to retreat downwards from story to story.
Happily, at dawn the burning lighthouse was descried
by some fishermen, who hastened with the news to
shore, and a well-manned boat was instantly put off to
the rock. It reached the Eddystone at ten o'clock,

92 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

when the fire had been burning for eight hours, and
the keepers, half-dazed with terror, were found in a
hollow on the east side. No sooner were they landed
at Plymouth than one of them, strange to say, imme-
diately made oft and was never heard of again. So
singular a circumstance gave rise to the suspicion that
he had originated the fire; but when we remember
that a lighthouse supplies its occupants with no means
of retreat, and that the probability is they will perish
with it, we can hardly believe it to be the place an
incendiary would choose for the practice of arson. The
man's flight seems to us more easily and reasonably
explained by the demoralizing influence of panic-
terror ; he had lost control over himself, and fled pre-
cipitately in the hope of escaping from his fears.

Henry Hall, one of the other two keepers, met with
a remarkable death. While engaged in throwing water
against the burning roof of the cupola, he happened to
look upwards, and a quantity of molten lead dropped
on his head, face, and shoulders, scalding him most
severely. His mouth was open at the time, and he
asserted that a portion of the lead had gone down his
throat. The physicians who attended him regarded
his story as incredible ; but the man continued to grow
worse, and on the twelfth day of his illness, after some
violent spasms, expired. A post-mortem examination
revealed the truth of his statement, for in the stomach
was found a flat oval lump of lead weighing about
nine ounces.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND 93

In the course of its brief history, Ruclyerd's light-
house was the scene of a tragical episode. For some
years after its establishment, it was in the charge of
two keepers only, who were on duty four hours alter-
nately. Each, when his watch ended, was bound to
call the other, and see him installed in the lantern
before he himself quitted it. On one occasion, when
the keeper going off duty went to call his colleague, he
found him dead. At once he hoisted his flag on the
balcony, whence it was visible at the Rame Head, near
Plymouth, and waited eagerly for the assistance it was
understood to summon. Unfortunately, the weather
became so violent that no boat could put off from the
shore, and the lonely keeper was left to the miserable
companionship of a dead body. It is not easy to im-
agine a more painful situation, as the poor man was
afraid to fling the corpse into the waves, lest he should
be charged with the murder of his companion, and yet
the stench proceeding from it threatened him with
serious illness. At length he contrived to drag it up
to the balcony, and to fasten it there. It was nearly a
month before relief arrived, and then the dead body was
found in such a condition that it could not be removed
to Plymouth for interment, but without further delay
was consigned to the deep. Thenceforward three
keepers were always employed, so that in case one
should fall ill or die, two might still be on duty.

3. The great usefulness of a lighthouse upon the
Eddystone had by this time been so abundantly de-

94 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

monstrated that the proprietors took immediate steps
to replace Mr. Rudyerd's building. For this purpose,
at the instigation of Mr. Robert Weston, one of their
number, they called into requisition the services of Mr.
John Smeaton, a mathematical instrument-maker by
profession, but a man of remarkable capacity, who had
already given proofs of mechanical inventiveness and
resource. He was, in truth, a mechanic born : in his
childhood mechanical tools were his playthings, and
before his sixth year he had designed a windmill and
the model of a pump. When at school he occupied
his holidays with mechanical pursuits. At the age of
fourteen he was an adept with the smith's hammer and
the turner's lathe. He forged his iron and steel and
melted his metal. These tastes still clung to him
when he became a mathematical instrument -maker.
He invented a machine to measure a ship's way at sea,
as also a compass of peculiar construction, besides
submitting to the Royal Society some improvements
which he had contrived in the air-pump, and experi-
ments on the natural power of water and wind to turn
mills and other machines dependent upon circular mo-
tion. But the true extent of his remarkable abilities
might never have been known if he had not been in-
trusted, at the age of thirty-two, with the erection of
the third lighthouse upon the Eddystone.

On examining into the nature of the work before
him, he came to the conclusion that both Winstanley
and Rudyerd's lighthouses had been deficient in iveight

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 95

and strength ; and he resolved to build a structure of
such solidity that the sea should give way to the light-
house, not the lighthouse to the sea. He determined,
therefore, that the building should be entirely of stone ;
and to secure stability, he proposed, while retaining
the idea of a cone, to enlarge the diameter of the base,
and, generally speaking, to take as his model " the
natural figure of the waist or bole of a large spreading
oak."* ''Connected with its roots," he says, "which
lie hid below ground, it rises from the surface thereof
with a large swelling base, which at the height of one
diameter is generally reduced by an elegant curve, con-
cave to the eye, to a diameter less by at least one-third,
and sometimes to half, of its original base. From thence,
its taper diminishing more slowly, its sides by degrees
come into a perpendicular, and for some height form a
cylinder. After that a preparation of more circum-
ference becomes necessary, for the strong insertion and
establishment of the principal boughs, which produces
a swelling of its diameter. Now we can hardly doubt
but every section of the tree is nearly of an equal
strength in proportion to what it has to resist; and
were we to lop off its principal boughs, and expose it
in that state to a rapid current of water, we should
find it as much capable of resisting the action of the
heavier fluid when divested of the greatest part of its
clothing, as it was that of the lighter when all its

* This is Smeaton's own statement, though criticised sharply by Mr.
Alan Stevenson in his "Treatises on Lighthouses," p. 98.

96 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND

spreading ornaments were exposed to the fury of the
wind ; and hence we may derive an idea of what the
proper shape of a column of the greatest stability ought
to be, to resist the action of external violence, when
the quantity of matter is given whereof it is to be
composed."

The first work done on the rock was in August 1756 ;
but the autumn months were mainly occupied in the
transport and preparation of the granite and other
materials, and in excavating the steps or stages for the
reception of the foundation.

Early in June 1757, Mr. Smeaton resumed opera-
tions. On the 12th, the first stone, weighing two tons
and a quarter, and inscribed with the date in deep
characters, was set in its place. Next day the first
course was finished, consisting of four stones, so in-
geniously dovetailed together and into the rock as to
prove a compact mass, from which it was impossible to
separate any particular stone. The sloping form of the
rock rendered only this small number of stones neces-
sary for the first course ; but the diameter of each course
increased until the top of the rock was reached — so
that the second course, laid on June 30th, consisted of
thirteen stones ; the third, on July 12th, of twenty-five ;
the fourth, on July 31st, of thirty-three. The sixth
course was laid on August llth, and rose above the
general wash of the tide ; and Smeaton was able to
congratulate himself on having completed the initial
stage of his enterprise.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 97

Up to this level, in every course, the stones had not
only been securely dovetailed into the rock, but also
made fast by oaken wedges and cement. To receive
these wedges, a couple of grooves were cut in the waist
of each stone, from the top to the bottom of the course,
an inch deep and three inches wide. We borrow from
Smeaton's own narrative his description of the manner
in which each stone was laid : —

" The stone to be set being hung in the tackle, and
its bed of mortar spread, was then lowered into its
place, and beaten with a heavy wooden mall, and
levelled with a spirit-level ; and the stone being ac-
curately brought to its marks, it was then considered
as set in its place. The business now was to retain it
exactly in that position, notwithstanding the utmost
violence of the sea might come upon it before the
mortar was hard enough to resist it. The carpenter
now dropped into each groove two of the oaken
wedges, one upon its head, the other with its point
downwards, so that the two wedges in each groove
would lie heads and points. With a bar of iron about
two inches and a half broad, a quarter of an inch thick,
and two feet and a half long, the ends being square,
he could easily (as with a rammer) drive down one
wedge upon the other ; very gently at first, so that the
opposite pairs of wedges, being equally tightened, they
would equally resist each other, and the stone would
therefore keep place. A couple of wedges were also,
in like manner, pitched at the top of each groove ; the

(241) 7

98 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

dormant wedge, or that with the point upward, being
held in the hand, while the drift-wedge, or that with
its point downward, was driven with a hammer. The
whole of what remained above the upper surface of
the stone was then cut off with a saw or chisel ; and,
generally, a couple of thin wedges were driven very
moderately at the butt-end of the stone ; whose tend-
ency being to force it out of its dovetail, they would,
by moderate driving, only tend to preserve the whole
mass steady together, in opposition to the violent agi-
tation that might arise from the sea."

The stone having been securely set, a certain quan-
tity of mortar was liquefied ; and after the joints had
been carefully pointed, this liquid mortar or cement
was poured in with iron ladles so as to fill up every
void. The more consistent parts of the cement natur-
ally fell to the bottom, while the stone absorbed the
watery ; the vacancy thus created at the top was re-
peatedly filled up until the whole was entirely solid ;
the top was then pointed, and, where necessary, de-
fended by a layer of plaster.

To insure the solidity of the superstructure, some
other means, however, was necessary. Accordingly, a
hole one foot square was cut right through the
middle of the central stone in the sixth course, and
at equal distances in the circumference were sunk
• •i.Ljlit other depressions of one foot square and six
inches deep, for the reception of eight cubes of
marble, in masonry called joggles. A strong plug

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 99

of hard marble, from the rock near Plymouth, one
foot square and twenty -two inches long, was set
with mortar in the central cavity, and driven firmly
into it with wedges. As this course was thirteen
inches high, it is evident that the marble plug which
reached through it rose nine inches above the sur-
face. Upon this was fixed the central stone of the next
course, having a similar bore in the middle, bedded
with mortar, and wedged as before. By this means
no pressure of the sea acting horizontally upon the
central stone, unless it was able to cut in two the
marble plug, could move it from its position; and the
more effectually to prevent the stone from being
lifted, in case its mortar -bed should accidentally be
destroyed, it was fixed down by four trenails. The
stones surrounding the central were dovetailed to it
in the same manner as before ; and thus one course
rose above another, with no other interruption than
the occasional violence of the waves or the inclemency
of the weather.

In every stage of the laborious and difficult work
Smeaton made his personal energy distinctly felt.
When the solid tower had risen high enough to assume
the form and appearance of a level platform, he pro-
posed to enjoy the limited promenade which it af-
forded ; but making a false step, and failing to recover
himself, he fell over the brink of the work and among
the rocks on the west side. The tide having retired,
he sustained no very serious injury ; but he dislocated

100 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

his thumb, and as no medical assistance was possible,
" laid fast hold of it with the other hand and gave it a
violent pull, upon which it snapped into its place " —
an instance both of the promptitude and resolution of
the man.

The ninth course was laid on the SOth of September,
and operations were suspended for that year. The
following winter proved to be exceedingly tempestuous
and protracted, so that it was May 12th before he and
his gallant little company of artificers again saw the
Eddystone. To their great satisfaction they found the
entire work in exactly the same condition as when
they left it. The cement had grown as hard as the
stone itself, and the whole was concreted into one solid
mass. Thenceforward the operations of the builders
made rapid progress, and by September the twenty-
fourth course was laid, completing " the solid " part of
the structure, and forming the floor of the store-room.
But as Smeaton fully understood how great would be
the gain to navigation if a light could be shown that
winter, he resolved on a vigorous effort to finish the
store-room and erect a light above it. The building
had been carried up solid as high as there was any
reason for supposing it would be subjected to the rush
of the waters — that is, to thirty-five and a quarter feet
above its base, and twenty-seven feet above the top of
the rock. At this elevation the diameter was reduced
to sixteen feet eight inches; and it became necessary
to make the best possible use of this space, consistent

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 101

with a due regard to the primary and indispensable con-
dition of strength. The rooms, therefore, were restricted
to a diameter of twelve and a quarter feet, leaving
for the walls a thickness of two feet two inches. These
walls were constructed of single blocks of granite, in
such wise that a complete circle was formed by sixteen
blocks, which were cramped together with iron, and
also secured to the underneath course by marble plugs
as before. To prevent the water from penetrating
through the vertical joints, flat stones were inserted
into each, so as to be lodged partly in one stone and
partly in another. With all these ingenious devices,
course the twenty-eighth was completely set on Satur-
day, September 30th. This and the next course re-
ceived the vaulted floor — the vaulted floor of the
upper store-room, but also the ceiling of the lower
store-room, for it answered both purposes. Smeaton
then rapidly proceeded with arrangements for a tem-
porary light-room and keepers' accommodation, when,
on October 10th, a prohibition arrived from the Trinity
Corporation based upon certain legal difficulties, and
he terminated operations for the season.

The work wa>s resumed for the fourth and last season
on July 5th, 1759. The second story was finished by
the 21st ; the third, by the 29th ; and on August 17th
the column or shaft of Smeaton's noble and graceful
structure — upon which all later rock lighthouses of the
first class have more or less directly been modelled —
was completed (forty-six courses of masonry, and a

102 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

height of seventy feet). The dimensions were as fol-
low: —

Feet. In.

The six foundation courses to the top of the rock ........... 8 4^

The eight courses to the entry-door .............................. 12 0-g

The ten courses of the well -hole to the store-room floor... 15 2J

The height of the four rooms to the balcony floor ........... 34 4^

Height of the main column

The lantern was then erected, and on the last stone
set, that over the door of the lantern on the east side,
was engraved the inscription — "24th August 1759.
LAUS DEO." On the course under the ceiling of the
upper store-room Srneaton traced, in grateful acknow-
ledgment of the protection of Providence, the verse
from Psalm cxxvii., " Except the Lord build the house,
they labour in vain that build it." The iron-work of
the balcony and the lantern were next set up, and the
whole was surmounted by a gilt ball.

The different rooms or stories of the lighthouse were
thus appropriated : —

First, the store-room, with entrance door. Second,
the upper store-room. Third, the kitchen, with fire-
place and sink, two settles with lockers, a dresser with
drawers, two cupboards, and a rack for dishes. Fourth,
the bedroom, with three cabin-beds, three drawers, and
two lockers. And fifth, the lantern, in which a seat
wai placed all round, except at the door, which opened
on the balcony or gallery.

In the upper store-room were inserted two windows,
ami four windows each in the kitchen and bedroom.

SMEATON'S LIGHTHOUSE AT THE EDDYSTONE.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 105

In fixing their bars an accident happened to Smeaton,
which was nearly attended with fatal results. " After
the boat was gone," he says, " and it became so dark
that we could not see any longer to pursue our occu-
pations, I ordered a charcoal fire to be made in the
upper store-room, in one of the iron pots we used for
melting lead, for the purpose of annealing the blank
ends of the bars; and they were made red-hot all
together in the charcoal. Most of the workmen were
set round the fire, and by way of making ourselves
comfortable, by securing ourselves and the fire from
the wind, the windows were shut, and, as well as I
remember, the cover or hatch put over the man-
hole of the floor of the room where the fire was — the
hatch above being left open for the heated vapour to
ascend. I remember to have looked into the fire at-
tentively to see that the iron was made hot enough,
but not overheated ; I also remember I felt my head a
very little giddy ; but the next thing of which I had
any sensation or idea was finding myself upon the floor
of the room below, half drowned with water. It seems
that, without being further sensible of anything to
give me warning, the effluvia of the charcoal so sud-
denly overcame all sensation, that I dropped down
upon the floor; and had not the people hauled me
down to the room below, where they did not spare for
cold water to throw in my face and upon me, I cer-
tainly should have expired upon the spot."

The glazing of the lantern having been completed, a

106 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

light was once more shown from the Eddystone rock
on the night of Tuesday, October 16th. According to
our present ideas of lighthouse illumination, its power
was inadequate and unsatisfactory, for it consisted only
of four -and -twenty candles, arranged in a couple of
iron circles, suspended from the roof of the lantern
like chandeliers ; but it was a great improvement
upon anything which had previously been attempted.
Oil lamps were substituted about 1810, and in 1845
Fresnel's dioptric system, with a four-wick lamp, yield-
ing a beam of light visible at a distance of thirteen
miles.

For a hundred years Smeaton's lighthouse gallantly
withstood the fury of wind and wave, — a noble monu-
ment to the genius of its architect and builder. But,
latterly, reports reached the Trinity House authorities
that the main tower had begun to oscillate and vibrate
to such an extent as greatly to alarm the keepers,
and, accordingly, workmen .were at once employed to
strengthen it. The precautionary measures taken
failed, however, to restore the stability of the building ;
and in 1877, a close examination revealed the unsus-
pected fact that the source of weakness was not in
Smeaton's tower but in the rock itself, which had be-
come undermined by the action of the waves. It was
found necessary, therefore, to provide at once for the
erection of a new lighthouse on a foundation of a more
p'Tmanent character; and into this new structure it
was resolved, of course, to introduce all the improve-

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 107

ments which engineering science had devised since the
completion of Smeaton's work.

This great undertaking was intrusted to Sir James
Douglass, the engineer to the Trinity House Corporation
— no unworthy successor, be it said, to John Smeaton.
After surveying the spot, he chose as a suitable site for
the projected building a rock situated about forty yards
from the old Eddystone in a south-south-east direction;
and the necessary preparations having been made, the
workmen effected their first landing on July 17, 1878.
As the foundation had to be laid below the level of low
water, a coffer-dam had to be constructed for the pro-
tection of the men while working, and the rock to be
cut away for the reception of the foundation courses of
masonry. By the 21st of December, when operations
were suspended for the winter, one-fourth of the dam
had been completed, and 1,500 cubic feet of rock
excavated. Mr. Edwards describes this period, while
the men were at work below low-water mark, as the
most perilous.* " Not more than three hours at a time
could be spent on the rock by the working party.
From about three-quarters ebb to about three-quarters
flood tide was the limit of their stay, and during that
interval the utmost energy of all had to be exerted.
With a rough sea, landing on the rock was simply out
of the question ; but often when at work, the party

* Edwards, "The Eddystone Lighthouses," ed. 1882, from which, and
from articles in the Times and other daily papers, the following account
is compiled.

108 LKSimnnJHKH OF lisa LA M> A.\'l> WHtTLA M>.

having perhaps « -.fleet. -A an easy landing, the sea would
W.I up, and then it would be necessary for all to sei/e
their tools and hurry off to the boats as quickly as
possible Delay would probably mean being hauled off
through the water, for no boat could venture near the
rooh while the, seas were breaking upon them. Occa-
sionally with a smooth sea there is a kind of under
swell which breaks with great force upon any obstacle
interposed in its path. These 'rollers,' as they are
called, .'ire ::iippo:-;ed to b" caused by some disturbance
in mid-ocean, and at times three or four will follow
ear-h other cjiiicUy. The look-out man, or ' crow,'
wji.f-f.hes for any indications of the :ing up or

of rollers' coming along, and shouts a warning to the
men. The roller:-; break completely over the rock, and
Hie men, each wearing a life belt, have, .simply to hold
on to iron stanchions until they have passed, taking
Care at the same time, that they dd not lose their
tools."

Operations were resumed on I'Vbrnary iM-th, Is?!).
The coffer dam \v;is finished early in June, and then
i the worl. of laying the, masonry. On August
HM- IDtli the foundation stone \\/;is laid, with due,
Masonic ceremonies, by H.IUI. the Duke of Kdin
burgh, Master, ,f the Trinity House, in the p rescue,- o|
Hie I Vine,- ,,f Wales, mid many other " Klder Uivthivn

of ttat distinguished corporation. Before the termina-

LIGHTHOUSE AT THE EDDYSTONE.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. Ill

was completed up to the thirty-eighth course. On June
1st, 1881, the Duke of Edinburgh laid the top stone
of the tower, in the construction of which 2,171 stones
had been used, equal to 4,668 tons, or about five times
the weight of Smeaton's building. Sir James Douglass's
tower differs from Smeaton's in other and important
respects. It is planted on a cylindrical base, which
offers advantages for landing from a boat, and supplies
the keepers at low water with a pleasant promenade.
Up to a height of twenty-five and a half feet above
high-water mark the tower is solid, with the exception
of a large water tank let into the solid. Whereas in
Smeaton's tower there were only four living-rooms,
besides the lantern, in the new tower there are nine,
each loftier and more commodious than any of
Smeaton's. All have domed ceilings, with an elevation
of nine feet nine inches from the floor to the apex of
the ceiling. The diameter of the rooms is fourteen feet,
except the lower oil-room, which is twelve feet nine
inches, and the entrance-room eleven feet six inches.

The lowest story or compartment is the water tank,
which can contain three thousand five hundred gallons.
The relieving vessel, which visits the lighthouse once a
fortnight, brings a supply of fresh water, with other
stores.

The entrance story communicates with the entrance
doors, which are made of gun-metal and weigh one ton.
These are approached from outside by a ladder, formed
by gun-metal rungs inserted into the masonry.

112 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Next we ascend into the lower and upper oil-rooms,
where, in eighteen huge cisterns, two thousand six
hundred and sixty tons of rape or colza oil are stored.
This quantity will feed the light for about nine
months.

On the fifth story we enter the store-room, which
contains a stock of all the materials requisite for main-
taining the lighting apparatus and the establishment
generally in perfect cleanliness and good order. A sup-
ply of coals (four tons) is kept in a coal-bunker here.

In the crane -room is fitted up the crane, which
works a winch in the store-room below, this winch
being used to hoist up the supplies brought by the
relieving vessel. This room is also fitted up with cup-
boards for the reception of provisions, medicines, and
dry stores.

The living-room occupies the next story. It is
provided with a cooking-range, table, chairs, carpet,
curtains, and various comforts and conveniences ; and
a cupboard is stocked with crockery and culinary
utensils on an ample scale.

Then comes the low-light chamber, from which a
white, fixed, subsidiary light is shown so as to mark
some dangerous rocks known as the Hand Deeps. The
light is produced by a simple arrangement of two large
Argand lamps with reflectors.

In the bedroom five berths are fitted up round the
room in two tiers, three being reserved for the keepers,
and two being held available for officials or workmen

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 113

who may at any time be detained in the tower. Here
also is accommodation for the wardrobes and personal
effects of the keepers.

On the story next above we find the service-room,
or office, where are kept all official books and papers,
timepiece, barometer, thermometer, and other apparatus
and appliances. A careful record of the weather is
kept daily, also of the expenditure of oil and stores,
and of any incident which may present itself to the
notice of the keeper on duty. Necessarily, the most
important part of the keepers' work is done at night.
Each of the three keepers is on watch for a period of
four hours, during which period he must remain either
in the service-room or the lantern. Throughout the in-
terior of the tower passes a central iron column, which
is hollow, and contains the weight and chain necessary
to set in motion the clock-work machinery for produc-
ing and regulating the rotation of the glass lens ap-
paratus around the burners, by which the light exhibits
two successive flashes every half -minute. The weight
is contained in that part of the column which traverses
the two lowest rooms, the fall being fifteen and a half
feet altogether. The column passing through the two
uppermost rooms holds the machinery for winding up
this weight, to do which (and it is no light task, the
weight being equal to one ton) is part of the watch-
man's duty, and has to be performed every hour, or if
the bell be sounding, as is always the case in foggy
weather, every forty minutes.

(241) g

114 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Lastly, we arrive at the lantern, " a splendid piece of
work," cylindrical in shape, with an elevation of six-
teen and a half feet, and a diameter of fourteen feet,
constructed by Messrs. Chance of Birmingham. The
light is furnished by two concentric six-wick burners,
each wick producing a flame with a diameter of four
and a half inches, equal in intensity to that of seven
hundred and twenty - two standard sperm candles.
These burners are superposed one upon the other, with
a vertical distance between the two of six and a half
feet. With both lamps burning, the combined illumin-
ating power is said to be equal to a quarter of a million
of candles, or about six thousand times the strength of
Smeaton's light. They are used only in foggy weather,
when it is desired to send forth flashes of enormous
intensity.

The glass apparatus by which this result is accom-
plished consists of "a twelve -sided drum, each side,
also called a panel, six feet three inches in height and
one foot eight inches in width, being formed by a
central lens, or, as it may popularly be called, a bull's
eye, and surrounded by concentric rings of larger bull's
eyes, by which the same effect is obtained as though a
portion of one huge lens of great thickness and weight,
as large as the whole panel, were employed. For pur-
poses which will presently be apparent, the two bull's
eyes of adjoining panels are brought close together,
very much as though they were two eyes squinting, so
that only lengthways they are in the middle of the

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 115

panel. On the rotation of this twelve-panelled drum,
with the inside central light burning, each bull's eye
with its surrounding rings carries round a concentrated
beam of light, which becomes visible to the outside
observer as soon as by a rotation of the apparatus the
focus of the bull's eye falls upon him. Now two bull's
eyes are, as has been stated, brought close together — so
close indeed that a small portion of each is cut off; con-
sequently a very short interval occurs between the flash
of the first and that of the second reaching the ob-
server. Thus it will be seen the two flashes occur in
quick succession, and then nearly half a minute elapses
before another pair of squinting eyes come round and
discharge their two flashes. This description applies
to one light only; with the two lamps one over the
other, two drums superposed are employed, one for
each light, the two being identical in all respects, and
arranged so as to coincide exactly with each other.
The height of the whole apparatus is consequently
twelve and a half feet, and with both lights burning a
magnificent effect is obtained."

The new Eddystone is equipped with a couple of
large bells, suspended under the lantern gallery, each
weighing two tons. In foggy weather these are rung
automatically, so as to give two sounds every half
minute. Due provision has been made against risk
from lightning, a conducting rod being led down the
tower and attached to the rock, with its extremity
some feet below the level of low water.

116 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

The cost of the entire structure was estimated at
£78,000.

The next object of interest in our coast-survey is
Start Point, in lat. 50° 13' 18", where, at a height of
two hundred and four and one hundred and eighty-
one feet above the sea respectively,* two lights are
shown, from a white circular tower, erected in 1836.
The upper revolves at one minute intervals ; the lower,
twenty-three feet below the lantern, is a fixed white
light, indicating the Skerries bank. A fog-siren is
established here, giving three strident blasts in swift
succession every three minutes.

Mr. Walter White, in one of his pleasant records of
home-travel, graphically describes the Start Point Light-
house : — " A substantial house, connected with the tall
circular tower, in a walled enclosure, all nicely whitened,
is the residence of the light-keepers. The buildings
stand within a few yards of the verge of the cliff, the
wall serving as parapet, from which you look down on
the craggy slope outside and the jutting rocks beyond—
the outermost point. You may descend by the narrow
path, protected also by a low white wall, and stride
and scramble from rock to rock with but little risk of
slipping, so rough are the surfaces with minute shells.

* That is, measuring from high-water mark to centre of lantern. The
tower itself is ninety -two feet high, and was built from the designs of
th" l.i tr .Fames Walker, at a cost (including the adjoining buildings) of
lT«,S'.ii 13s. The lantern is twenty-four and a half feet high, with a
diameter of fourteen feet.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 117

" A rude steep stair, chipped in the rock, leads down
still lower to a little cove and a narrow strip of beach
at the foot of the cliffs. It is the landing-place for the
lighthouse-keepers when they go fishing, but can only
be used in calm weather.

"The assistant -keeper spoke of the arrival of a
visitor as a pleasure in the monotonous life of the
establishment. Winter, he said, was a dreary time, not
so much on account of cold, as of storms, fogs, and wild
weather generally. In easterly gales the fury of the
wind would often be such that to walk across the yard
was impossible ; they had to crawl under shelter of the
wall, and the spray flew from one side of the Point to
the other. But indoors there was no lack of comfort,
for the house was solidly built and conveniently fitted,
and the Trinity Board kept a small collection of books
circulating from lighthouse to lighthouse."

The narrow pebbly ridge of Hurst Point, opposite
Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, with its block-house
or fort of the time of Henry VIII., is well known to
the yachtsmen of the Solent. It exhibits a couple of
guiding lights in its two towers. The Low Tower, on
the beach, fifty -two feet in height, is built of brick
coated with cement, and was erected in 1812, from
the designs of R. Jupp of London ; it shows a fixed
white light, with a range of ten miles. The High
Tower, two hundred and two yards to the north-east,
also designed by Mr. Jupp, dates from 1812, and

118 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

measures eighty-seven feet from base to vane. Like
the Low Tower, the material employed in its construc-
tion is brick.

On the lofty chalk cliff of Portland Bill a coal-fire
was exhibited as early as 1716, for which an oil-lamp
was substituted in August 1788. The two lighthouses
are both circular in shape, and built of stone. They
are five hundred and three yards apart. The higher,
measuring fifty feet from base to vane, shows its light
at an elevation of two hundred and ten feet above the
sea; the lower, fifty -five feet from base to vane, is only
one hundred and thirty-six feet above high-water mark.
In both the illuminating apparatus is first-order diop-
tric, with fixed white lights, visible twenty-one and
eighteen miles respectively.

We pass the Minqniers lightship (lat. 50° 35' 30"),
and Anvil Point Lighthouse, with a white light flashing
every ten seconds, and come to the Needles Point, the
bold westernmost extremity of the Isle of Wight, a
narrow chalky peninsula, nearly severed from the mass
of the island by the small stream of the Yare, which
flows into the Solent at Yarmouth. On the summit
of the glittering cliff, at an elevation of four hundred
and seventy-four feet above the sea, a light was first
shown on the 29th September 1786. Notwithstanding
its great elevation, we find it recorded — though the
statement seems to us incredible — that its windows
were sometimes broken by stones hurled against them

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 119

by the raging billows. It had ten Argand lamps, and
the same number of plated reflectors, and its light, in
clear weather, could be seen eleven miles off. Seven
hundred gallons of oil were annually consumed. On
windy nights the blaze attracted numbers of small
birds, which dashed themselves against the lantern
panes and were killed.

Owing to its exceptional elevation, and the mists
and sea -fogs which constantly encompassed it, this
lighthouse, which was rebuilt in 1854, proved to be of
little service to mariners ; and therefore, in 1859, the
Trinity House resolved that a new one should be con-
structed on the outermost of the celebrated chalk rocks,
called the Needles, which form the seaward prolonga-
tion of the point. Whether the Needles derive their
name from their wedge-like shape and acute apex, or,
as it has ingeniously been suggested, from the German
nieder fels, " under cliff," we will not here attempt to
determine ; but their picturesque conformation is well
known to visitors to the Isle of Wight. And seamen
are well aware of the danger of their proximity in
foggy weather. To obtain a foundation for the new
building, the rock was cut away almost to the water's
edge ; cellars and storehouses were also excavated from
the chalk. The new lighthouse, designed by the late
James Walker, and erected at a cost of £19,850, 5s., is
about one hundred and nine feet in height from the
base to the top of the ball. It shows an occulting
light every minute, with white, red, and green sectors

120 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

in succession, the white in the direction of the Solent,
and is visible (red) nine and (white) fourteen miles. A
fog-bell rings in stormy weather through mechanical

NEEDLES LIGHTHOUSE.

agency; its sounds can be heard at a distance of five
miles. The total height of the lantern is twenty-eight
and a half feet ; diameter, fourteen feet.

But this is not the only lighthouse in the Wight.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 121

Dropping down its southern coast we come in sight of
a picturesque green ascent, known as St. Catherine's
Hill, which rises seven hundred and sixty-nine feet
above the sea-level, and commands the rock-bound
sweep of Chale Bay, where shipwrecks have unhappily
been numerous. As far back as 1323, one Walter de
Godyton erected on the summit of this hill a small
chantry, which he dedicated to the patron saint of hills
and high places, St. Catherine. He also provided an
endowment for a priest to chant masses and keep a
light burning throughout the hours of darkness for the
assistance of mariners approaching the south coast of the
island. These duties were faithfully performed until
Henry the Eighth's suppression of the smaller religious
houses in 1536, when the priest and his endowment
disappeared, though the strong -built walls of the
chantry remained, and, some years ago, were carefully
repaired on account of their value as a sea-mark. It
is octagonal in form, and thirty -five and a half feet in
height.

In 1785 a lighthouse was erected on this height,
though promptly discontinued when it was found that
the mists which so frequently encompass the summit
rendered the light of comparatively little service. But
the dangerous nature of the coast being emphasized by
repeated disasters, the Trinity Board felt it necessary
to provide for its better protection; and in 1888 the
erection of a lighthouse was begun on St. Catherine's
Point, which projects from the southern spur of the

122 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

hill. Its lantern was lighted up for the first time on
the 1st of March 1840. Dimensions of the tower: —
From the terrace to the top of the stone- work, one
hundred feet. Height of lantern and pedestal, one and
a half foot. Extension of glass frame, ten feet. Hoof,
ball, vane, and lightning conductor, eleven and a half
feet. Total elevation of tower, one hundred and twenty-
three feet. It is an exceedingly graceful octagonal struc-
ture, with turreted parapet, designed by the late James
Walker ; and the traveller who, rounding the base of
the hill, comes suddenly upon it, and sees its white and
shapely form springing up against the azure sky, is
sensible of an impression of surprise and pleasure.*

The interior measures fourteen feet in diameter,
and one hundred and fifty- two steps lead up to the
lantern-room. Formerly, the illuminating apparatus
consisted of a lamp three and a half inches in diameter,
with four concentric wicks, reflected through a lens
surmounted by two hundred and fifty mirrors ; but in
1887 this was replaced by the electric arc light, which
shows a flash every half minute. There is also a fog-
siren at this station.

Off Bembridge Point, and at the western entrance to
the Solent, is moored the Nab lightship (lat. 50° 42'
15"), carrying a white light, with a double flash every
forty-five seconds. From this post can be heard the
gong of the Warner lightship (lat. 50° 43' 40"), farther

* Cost of lighthouse and adjoining buildings, £7,673, 17s. 2d.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 123

up the Solent, and the light of the Owers is visible in
clear weather.

The Owers lightship lies in lat. 50° 38' 35"; its
record dates from 1788. It is distinguished from
neighbouring sea-marks by its revolving light, with its
half-rninute flash; red and white alternately. When
the commissioners visited it in 1858, the master
stated that his father had served on board it exactly
half a century, and he himself for forty-two years.
How strange an existence ! and surely, at times, not
altogether a pleasant one, seeing that, in bad weather,
the vessel occasionally rode so heavily that the master
could not lie on the floor of his cabin " without holding
on to the legs of the table."

On Beachy Head, the seaward termination of the
Sussex Downs, — memorable in our naval history in
connection with the indecisive engagement, on June 29,
1690, between Admiral Torrington's fleet and the
French, fought in the neighbouring waters, — or, more
strictly speaking, on Belle Tout, the second cliff west-
ward of the great high promontory, than which it is
three hundred feet lower, is planted a circular white
tower of stone, with a facing of granite, designed by
James Walker, forty-seven feet high. The light is two
hundred and eighty-five feet above the sea, and the
apparatus displays a flashing light every fifteen seconds,
visible over three-and-twenty miles. As early as 1670
a light was exhibited from this station.

124 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Passing the Royal Sovereign lightship, on the Royal
Sovereign shoals, in lat. 50° 41' 40", with a light which
shows three quick flashes every forty-five seconds,* and
the lights of Eastbourne, Hastings, and Rye, we come
to Dungeness, the southernmost point of Kent, where
there are two lighthouses. The principal one, a circular
tower, ninety-two feet high, is painted with horizontal
bands of red and white. It was built by Wyatt in
1792, after the model of Smeaton's Eddystone, and at
the expense of the Earl of Leicester, in the place of a
quaint old building erected in the reign of James the
First by a goldsmith named Allen. It shows a fixed
white light, with red sector, visible fifteen miles. The
second station, dating from 1875, is on the very edge of
the shore, about a furlong from the former, and is
equipped with a white light, which emits flashes of
two seconds' duration at intervals of five seconds. It is
also provided with a fog-siren.

This is a dangerous part of the coast, where wrecks
have been frequent. The Varne shoal, since 1860, has
been indicated by a lightship, which has a red light,
revolving every twenty seconds.

The South Foreland is the nearest point to the
French coast, and on a clear night commands a distinct
view of the lights of Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne.
It is a noble promontory of chalk, with an elevation of

* On board this vessel, in 1875, was displayed the first group-flashing
floating light, showing three successive flashes, as above described.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 125

three hundred feet above the sea; and is surmounted by
two lighthouses, of which the upper, erected in 1843,
on the site of a structure built by Sir John Meldrum
in 1634, is a square tower of stone sixty feet high, and
the lower, three hundred and eighty-five yards distant,
an octagonal structure of stone, forty-nine feet high,
erected in 1846. Both were designed by the late James

THE LOWER SOUTH FORELAND LIGHTHOUSE.

Walker, and cost £4,409, 4s. 3d. Several important
experiments in the illumination of lighthouses have
been tried here. The strongest artificial light known
up to that time, and obtained from Professor Holmes's
magneto-electric apparatus, was introduced on Decem-
ber 8th, 1858. In 1861 were tested, but unsuccessfully,
the illuminating properties of the Drummond or lime-
light. In 1872, the electric system was permanently
established, Holmes's machines being at first adopted.

126 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

But the simultaneous discovery by the late Dr. Siemens
and Sir Charles Wheatstone, that induced electricity
could actively be generated without the use of perma-
nent magnets, led to the construction of dynamo-electric
machines; and these being tested at the South Fore-
land, in 1876-7, it was conclusively proved that they
furnished a much superior illumination to that of any
magneto-electric machine. Lastly, in 1884-5, exhaust-
ive experiments were conducted here with a view to
decide whether gas or electricity is, for lighthouse pur-
poses, the better illuminant.

Experiments have also been made at the South
Foreland on the value of the siren and the utility of
gun-discharges as signals in foggy weather.

Few spots along our island shores are more dreaded
by seamen, or invested with gloomier associations, than
the Goodwin Sands, which lie outside the sheltered
channel of the Downs, at a distance from the shore
of three to seven miles. They measure ten miles in
length and nearly two miles in breadth, and at low
water present a surface so hard and firm that pleasure
parties often land, and cricket matches have been
played upon them. Anciently, they were known as
Lomea (that is, loam-ey). Their modern name, accord-
ing to an old tradition, originated in the fact that they
represent a tract of land which once belonged to Earl
Godwin, and by William the Conqueror was afterwards
given to the monks of St. Augustin, Canterbury ; but

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 127

as they neglected to keep in repair the sea-wall, the
whole tract was submerged in an irruption of the sea
that occurred about 1099. It is, or was, a belief among
seamen that a ship of the largest size, if she struck
upon the Goodwins, would be swallowed up by the
quicksands in a few days. There are, however, only
fifteen feet of sand lying here upon a bed of blue clay.

Many a goodly vessel has perished on these fatal
sandbanks. The worst calamity connected with them is
the loss of a squadron of thirteen men-of-war, under
Rear-Admiral Beaumont, in the night of November
26th, 1703. On December 21st, 1805, the Aurora
transport was wrecked here, and three hundred soldiers
and seamen perished. All on board the British Queen
packet were drowned, on the 17th of December 1814.
To prevent these disasters, several attempts were made
to erect a permanent lighthouse ; but in the earlier years
of the present reign two beacons and a lighthouse were
destroyed in succession. Their dangers are now indicated
by four lightships, — the East Goodivin, the South Sand
Head, the Gull Stream, and the North Sand Head.

The East Goodwin is moored in lat. 51° 18' 30". It
has one green light, revolving, with fifteen seconds'
interval, which is visible ten miles. This lightship
was stationed here in 1874.

The South Sand Head, in lat. 51° 9' 35", was moored
in 1832, and replaced in 1884. It has a white flashing
light, visible ten miles, and carries also a fog-siren.

The Gull Stream, in lat. 51° 16', fixed in 1800, has a

128 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

white light, revolving every twenty seconds, and visible
ten miles.

The North Sand Head, in lat. 51° 19' 23", moored in
1703, has a white light, with three flashes every minute,
visible ten miles.

LIGHTSHIP ON THE GOODWIN SANDS.

On board the Gull Stream lightship, some years ago,
Mr. R. M. Ballantyne, well known as a literary caterer
for the young, spent a night, of which he furnished an
account to the Edinburgh Scotsman. A little before
midnight, when he was lying half -asleep, and more than

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 129

half sea-sick, he was roused into activity and convales-
cence by a cry from the watch on deck to the mate,
" South Sand Head light is firing, sir, and sending up
rockets." The mate was soon on deck, followed by his
visitor. They found the two men on duty actively at
work ; the one loading the lee gun, the other adjusting
a rocket to its stick. The mate's few rapid questions
elicited all that was needful to be known. The flash
of a gun and the glint of a rocket from the South Sand
Head lightship, about six miles distant, had indicated
that a vessel had got upon the fatal Goodwins. " While
the men spoke," says Mr. Ballantyne, " I saw the bright
flash of another gun, but heard no report, owing to the
gale carrying the sound to leeward. A rocket followed,
and at the same moment we observed the light of the
vessel in distress, just on the southern tail of the sands.
By this time our gun was charged and our rocket in
position. ' Look alive, Jack ; get the poker,' cried the
mate, as he primed the gun. Jack dived down the
companion -hatch, and in another moment returned
with a red-hot poker, which the mate had thrust into
the cabin fire at the first alarm. Jack applied it in
quick succession to the gun and the rocket. A blinding
flash and deafening crash were followed by the whiz of
the rocket, as it sprang with a magnificent curve far
away into the surrounding darkness. This was our
answer to the South Sand Head light, which, hav-
ing fired three guns and three rockets to attract our
attention, now ceased firing. It was also our note

(241) 9

130 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

of warning to the look-out on the pier of Ramsgate
Harbour. 'That's a beauty,' said our mate, referring
to the rocket ; ' get up another, Jack ; sponge her well
out, Jacobs; we'll give 'em another shot in a few
minutes.' Loud and clear were both our signals, but
four and a half miles of distance and a fresh gale
neutralized their influence. The look-out did not
see them. In less than five minutes the gun and
rocket were fired again. Still no answering signal
came from Ramsgate. ' Load the weather-gun,' said
the mate, Jacobs obeyed ; and I sought shelter under
the lee of the weather bulwarks, for the wind appeared
to be composed of penknives and needles. Our third
gun thundered forth, and shook the lightship from
stem to stern ; but the rocket struck the rigging and
made a low wavering flight. Another was therefore
sent up ; but it had scarcely cut its bright line across
the sky when we observed the answering signal — a
rocket from Ramsgate Pier."

Their work was done, and the mate went below,
while the watch resumed their active perambulation of
the deck. Mr. Ballantyne felt somewhat disappointed
at the sudden termination of so exciting a scene. He
was informed that the Ramsgate lifeboat could not
well come to the rescue in less than an hour; and it
seemed to him a terrible thing that human life should
be held so long in jeopardy, and he asked himself if it
were not possible that the delay might be prevented.
There was no remedy, however, but patience ; and he

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 131

wisely turned into his berth, with orders that he should
be called as soon as the lights of the steam -tug became
visible. It seemed but a few minutes after when the
voice of the watch was again heard, shouting, " Life-
boat close alongside, sir. Didn't see it till this moment.
She carries no lights." Mr. Ballantyne did not wait
for coat, hat, or shoes, but hastily scrambled on deck
just in time to see the Broadstairs lifeboat sweep past
before the gale. " What are you firing for ? " cried her
coxswain. " Ship on the sands, bearing south," shouted
Jack, at the full pitch of his stentorian voice. The
boat did not pause. With a rush like that of a race-
horse it drove into the darkness. The reply had been
heard, and straight as an arrow the lifeboat made for
her quarry. Then, once more, silence reigned on board
the lightship. But not for long. " Tug's in sight, sir,"
exclaimed the watch ; and soon the sturdy little steamer
appeared, with the Eamsgate lifeboat in tow far astern.
As she passed, the brief question and answer were
repeated ; and Mr. Ballantyne had just time to observe
that every man, except the coxswain, lay flat on the
thwarts. And no wonder ! It is no easy matter to sit
up in a gale of wind, with freezing spray and some-
times great billows sweeping over you. " They were
doubtless wide awake and listening; but, as far as
vision went, that boat was manned by ten oilskin coats
and sou'-westers. A few seconds took them out of
sight ; and thus, as far as the Gull lightship was con-
cerned, the drama ended." But next morning the

132 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

wrecked ship lay, bottom up, high on the Goodwin
Sands. It was the Germania of Bremen.

The lights of Kamsgate Harbour now rise into view,
and shortly afterwards we double the North Fore-
land, the extreme north-eastern point of Kent — the
Cantium Promontorium of Ptolemy. The lighthouse

NORTH FORELAND LIUHTHOUSE.

here occupies the site of a wooden structure, surmounted
by a glass lantern, built by Sir John Meldrum in 1634,
and burned down in 1683. An octagonal tower, two
stories high, was then erected, and on the top was set
an open iron grate or chauffer, fed with coals, the fire
being kept alive at night by the action of a pair of

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 133

bellows. In 1790 two stories of brick were added, and
oil lamps introduced. In 1884 the building was restored
and improved. It is nowr eighty -five feet in height,
and provided with a white light, occulting every half
minute for five seconds ; is octagonal in shape, and
built of stone. It was purchased in 1832, with the
two South Foreland lighthouses, for £8,399, 16s.

Reference may be made to the Nore lightship (lat.
51° 29') in the mouth of the Thames, because she is so
well known — steamboat excursionists to Margate and
Ramsgate, and passengers on board deep-sea steamers,
sailing within sight of her where she lies at her lonely
moorings. She carries a white light, revolving every
thirty seconds, and visible for ten miles. Stationed at
the Nore in 1732, she was the first of these aids to
navigation ever used. Her illuminating apparatus con-
sisted of a small lantern provided with flat wick oil
lamps ; but afterwards Argand burners, aided by para-
boloidal silvered reflectors, were introduced, each re-
flector and lamp being properly gimballed to insure the
horizontal direction of the beam during the pitching
and rolling of the vessel.

The intricate navigation of the estuary of the Thames
is also assisted by the Tongue lightship, on the north
side of the Tongue sandbank, which displays a red and
white flash in quick succession every half minute, and
is provided with a fog- siren; the Princes Channel
lightship, which has a red light, revolving every twenty

134 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

seconds ; and the Girdler lightship, lat. 51° 29', with a
white light, revolving at half-minute intervals. In
Sea Reach we find pile lighthouses erected on the Chap-
man bank and Mucking flat — the former, seventy -four
feet high, rebuilt in 1881, showing an occulting light,
with white and red sectors ; and the latter, seventy-one
feet high, also rebuilt in 1881, displaying the same
lighfc. Iron tressle-work towers, painted red, were
erected in 1885 at the end of Broadness and Stoneness.
Each is forty-four feet from base to vane, and thirty-
eight feet above high -water mark to centre of lantern.
The Mouse lightship, moored in 1838, lat. 51° 32', is at
the west end of the sandbank so called, and hoists a
green light, revolving every twenty seconds.

On the south-east edge of Maplin Sands was erected
in 1838-41, from the designs of Mr. James Walker, C.E.,
the Maplin Lighthouse, at a cost of £4,948, 6s. 9d. It
stands upon nine piles of wrought iron, each twenty-six
feet long and five inches in diameter ; these are screwed
into the sand fourteen feet six inches deep, and secured
(on Alexander Mitchell's system) by cast-iron screw-
blades, each four feet in diameter. One pile forms the
centre of an octagon, the others being placed one at
each of the eight angles. To the tops of the piles
are firmly fitted hollow columns of iron, the central
being perpendicular and the others bent, so that they
incline inwards ; all are braced together by radiating,
diagonal, and horizontal rods. Each terminates at the
top in a socket, into which is fitted a timber-post, about

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 135

one foot square. The posts are braced together like the
columns, and support the platform on which is con-
structed the lighthouse with its lantern.

MAPLIN SANDS LIGHTHOUSE.

The principal measurements are: depth of screw-
blades below the sand, 14} feet ; depth of the screw-
blades below spring-tide low-water mark, 21 feet ; rise
of spring-tides, 15 feet; height from spring-tide high-

136 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

water mark to floor of house, 20 J feet; height from
high- water mark to floor of light-room, 29 J feet ; height
from high-water mark to lamp, 38 £ feet ; height from
high -water mark to top of vane spindle, 54 feet;
diameter of floor of house, 27 feet; diameter of plat-
form, 21 feet ; diameter of light-room, 12 feet.

A lighthouse of this construction is of special utility
in localities where the shifting and uncertain bottom
does not permit of the erection of a mass of masonry,
and the light is not required to extend to any great
distance. The piles offer but slight resistance to the
waves, which pass through the open spaces, and rise no
higher than they do at sea.

The Maplin shows an occulting red light, with white
sector, at half-minute intervals, visible for ten miles.

The Swin is marked by a lightship with a white
revolving light. On the Gunfleet sand is a screw-pile
lighthouse, dating from 1856, which is seventy-two
feet high, built of iron, and six-sided; was designed
by James Walker, and cost £14,567, 7s. 5d. It has a
red light, revolving every half-minute. The Long
Sand lightship, in lat. 52° 48' 16" (stationed in 1883),
carries a white light, double -flashing— a flash of three
seconds, eclipsed for six seconds ; a flash of three seconds,
eclipsed for thirty seconds. On the east side of the
Kentish Knock sandbank, the lightship, first moored
there in 1840, exhibits a white light, revolving every
minute. Between the Gunfleet pile lighthouse and the

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 137

Long Sand lightship is placed, in lat. 51° 30' 40", the
Sunk lightship, showing a red and white light alter-
nately, revolving in forty-five seconds. To this last-
named vessel an electric cable has for some time been
attached, connecting it with the post-office at Walton-
on-the-Naze, and in February 1887 the Board of Trade
appointed a committee (the Earl of Crawford ; Colonel
King Harman, M.P. ; Sir Edward Birkbeck, M.P. ; Rear-
Admiral Sir George Nares ; Mr. Cecil Trevor, assistant-
secretary to the Board of Trade; Mr. Thomas Sutherland,
M.P. ; Captain J. Sydney Webb, deputy -master of
Trinity House ; Captain Hozier ; and Mr. Alfred Holt)
to inquire whether a system of electrical communica-
tion should be applied to outlying lighthouses, whether
the experience gained by laying the present cable to
the Sunk light-vessel has proved sufficient to justify
the cost, whether the system should be further ex-
tended, and whether it is desirable that any of the
stations to which it is applied should also be used as
signal-stations for commercial purposes. It might be
thought that the electric connection of our lighthouses
and lightships with the nearest lifeboat station would
prove of greater service in the rescue of life and the
relief of suffering than the most elaborate apparatus
of gun and rocket signals, as it would virtually be
independent of all conditions of the atmosphere; but
the decision of the committee was not in favour, how-
ever, of any extended application of the system, owing
to certain practical difficulties in the way of its working.

138 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

The foregoing enumeration will impress the reader
with an idea of the fulness and efficiency with which the
navigation of the Thames estuary and its approaches
is protected. We must add ±o it due record of the
Galloper light- vessel, in lat. 51° 45', which has a fixed
white light, set horizontally ; the lights at Clacton-on-
Sea, Harwich, and Woodbridge Haven ; the Cork light-
ship, in lat. 51° 55' 55", displaying a white light,
revolving every half -minute; the Shipwash lightship
(1883), with its triple-flashing half -minute light ; and
the lighthouses on the low flat projection of Orfordness.
The higher of these is a circular tower, ninety-nine
feet high, erected in 1792 ; the lower, a quaint .sixteen-
sided building, seventy- two feet high. They are dis-
tant from each other about three-quarters of a mile
(1,439 yards).

Passing Southwold and Pakefield — Lowestoft, where
a lighthouse was erected on the cliff as early as 1609
(rebuilt 1628 and 1676), and one on the low ness or
projection in 1609, restored in 1832, and improved in
1881 ; the former with a revolving white and a fixed
red light, the latter displaying an occulting light, with
red and white sectors — we come to three lightships in
succession: the Gorton, outside Gorton Sands, with a
red light, revolving every twenty seconds ; the Hewett
Channel or St. Nicholas Gat, in lat. 52° 34' 40", exhibit-
ing a fixed white light, and, near the vessel's stem, a
red light, flashing every ten seconds ; and the Middle
Cross Sand, lat. 52° 38' 15", with its double-flashing

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 139

white light. A singular accident occurred on board
the St. Nicholas lightship on Saturday morning, Feb-
ruary 19th, 1887. The attention of the crew having
been directed to a vessel in dangerous proximity to
Scroby Sand, a gun was fired to warn those in charge
of her. As it did not seem to have the desired effect, a
rocket was sent up. Some sparks descending from it
unfortunately fell into a store of gunpowder on the
deck of the lightship, and an explosion occurred, which,
however, serious as it was, caused no loss of life. Two
or three of the crew were slightly injured, and one
received wounds which necessitated his removal to the
hospital.

Leaving behind us the lights of Yarmouth, we sight
the Cockle lightship, moored on the eastern side of the
north entrance to the Yarmouth Roads — a frequent
rendezvous of our fleet in the great Revolutionary
War. The white light revolves every minute, and is
visible for ten miles. When she was visited by the
Royal Commissioners in 1859, the master stated that
she had twice drifted from her moorings in a north-
westerly gale — namely, in 1849 and 1856 — but on each
occasion was brought up almost immediately with a
spare anchor, or she would have been lost on the sands.
In similar weather, with a lee-tide, the master and one
of the crew always remained on deck, with axes ready,
to cut the spare anchor adrift.

"This light is revolving. She has four reflectors,
which were in such good order that the lamplighter

140 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND,

was requested to show his process of cleaning them.
He first put on a canvas apron ; he then selected from
a particular box a clean white cloth, with which he
wiped the inside of the reflector, which he held against
his breast, carefully avoiding to touch the silver with
his hand. He next dusted some rouge over the silver
from a linen bag, which acted as a kind of sieve, and
the cleaning was finished with a leather, taken from
another box used for that purpose only. There was
nothing peculiar in the process, and the man could
see no reason why reflectors should be more scratched
at sea than on land. Many vessels run foul of the
Cockle"

At Winterton (lat. 52° 43'), the lighthouse, erected in
1790, is sixty-nine feet in height, and built of brick,
coated with cement.* It shows a fixed white light,
visible at fourteen miles. We particularize this spot
simply because the building (erected about 1615) which
preceded the present is mentioned in Defoe's immortal
"Robinson Crusoe." The young sailor is describing
the escape of his comrades and himself from their
foundering ship. " Partly rowing and partly driving,
our boat went away to the northward, sloping towards

the shore almost as far as Winterton Ness While we

were in this condition, the men yet labouring at the
oars to bring the boat near the shore, we could see,
when, our boat mounting the waves, we were able to

* It was purchased (with the two Orford lights) from the lessee in
January 1857, for £37,806.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 141

see the shore, a great many people running along the
shore to assist us when we should come near. But we
made but slow way towards the shore ; nor were we
able to reach the shore, till, being past the lighthouse
at Winterton, the shore falls off to the westward
towards Cromer, and so the land broke off a little the
violence of the wind."

As we continue our course northward, we descry
quite " a lane " of lightships between Winterton Ness
and the mouldering cliffs of Cromer, which encircle the
dangerous bay expressively named "The Devil's Throat."
We pass, in succession, the Newarp, near North Cross
Sand, with a triple-flashing white light (every minute) ;
Smith's Knoll, one mile eastward of the shoal, with a
red and white double-flashing light, and a fog-siren;
the Would, off the south end of Hasborough Sand,
with a white light, flashing every five seconds; the
Hasborough, near the north end of the sandbank, with
a fixed white light, set horizontally ; and the Leman
and Ower, between the two sandbanks so called, show-
ing two flashes of white light every half minute. The
Hasborough lighthouse must be mentioned here: it
stands on the cliff, in lat. 52° 40' 12"; was erected
originally by Wilkins and Norris, in 1791, and rebuilt
by Sir James Douglass in 1884; is eighty -five feet
high, and displays a white light, occulting every half
minute.

The Cromer lighthouse is an octagonal structure of

142 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

brick and stone, fifty-eight feet in height, erected by
Mr. James Walker in 1823, and furnished with a re-
volving white light, visible twenty-three miles. The
cliffs are here about two hundred feet above the sea.
A coal-fire was lighted at this station in 1729, and
replaced by oil lamps in 1792.

On Hunstanton Point a coal-fire was established in
1G65. The present building, designed by James Walker,
is a circular tower of brick, coloured white, and sixty-
three feet from base to vane, with a white occulting
light, visible for twenty-four seconds, then eclipsed for
two, visible for two, and eclipsed for two. Visible
sixteen miles. Cost of tower and residence, £2,C96,
13s. 4d.

The Lynn Well lightship, off the Hook of Long
sandbank, has a white light, with a flash every ten
seconds. The Bar Flat, first moored in 1878, was built
for the King's Lynn corporation, at a cost of upwards
of £2,000. The hull is of iron, and divided into three
water-tight compartments. Upon her one mast, at a
height of forty feet above water-level, is the lighting
apparatus, consisting of dioptric lanterns arranged on a
triangular frame, the three lights apparently blending
into one at a distance, and being visible at all points of
the compass within a radius of seven nautical miles.

Crossing the Wash, we pass the mouth of the Witham,
and descry the twinkling lights of the busy port of
Boston. Beyond Skeyness may be seen the flashing
light, white and red alternately, of the Dudgeon light-

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 143

ship (lat. 53° 13' 40"). Then the Inner Dowsing and
the Outer Dowsing lightships, the former with a green
light, revolving every twenty seconds, and the latter
with a red light, revolving every half minute, and a
fog -siren, uttering its gruesome blasts every two
minutes.

We now arrive off the estuary of the Humber, one
of the great water-ways of the kingdom, possessing a
navigable channel for large ships for twenty miles up to
Hull. We may take as its northern boundary the cliffs
of Spurn Head, in lat. 53° 34', and as its southern,
Faxfleet Ness, beyond Whitton. Two lighthouses are
situated on Spurn Head, erected in 1776 and 1852
respectively. The high tower, designed by Johij.
Smeaton, and built of red brick, is enclosed within a
circular wall, along with the keepers' residence, a paved
court, and neatly-kept gardens. It measures one. hun-
dred and twelve feet from base to vane. Lights were
first shown here in April 1675. The Trinity House
bought up the buildings and the tolls in 1841, for the
large sum of £309,531, 4s. The low tower, one hun-
dred and fifty-eight yards distant, designed by James
Walker, and built of brick, is seventy-six feet high,
and coloured white. It stands within high-water mark,
on a foundation of piles and concrete. Both are situ-
ated on a long spit of sand overgrown with bent. To
seaward, a strong chalk wall has been raised to prevent
the encroachment of the waves. The dwelling-houses
are large, roomy, and kept in excellent order, the light-

144 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

towers scrupulously clean, every bit of metal shining
like a schoolboy's newly- washed face. There are three
keepers, and the one on watch walks from tower to
tower during the night. The high light is red and white,
occulting every thirty seconds ; the low, a fixed white.

The Spurn lightship, off the point, carries a revolving
white light; the Bull Sand, a fixed white light; the
Grimsby, a fixed red. There are two lights at
Narsham Booth, erected in 1880. At Killingholm,
the high lighthouse, painted red, is seventy-seven feet
high ; north tower, also red, forty-five feet : and south-
east tower, white, forty-five feet high. These are
furnished with white fixed lights, visible eleven miles,
which lead over the dangerous Holme and Paull sands.
The old Paull lighthouse is now disused ; but at Thorn-
gumbald Clough, half a mile to the south, two light-
houses were erected in 1870— the high lighthouse, red,
fifty feet high, the low lighthouse, a circular tower,
yellow, thirty feet high. These show a fixed white
light. There are also lights at Salt End, Storsle,
Chaldersness, Ferrily Shine Haven, Wiriteringham, and
Brough. There is a lightship (white and red lights)
off Whitton. The lights at Walker Dyke and Flax-
fleet do not call for notice.

Keeping along the Yorkshire coast, with its gradu-
ally rising line of cliffs, we pass Withernsea, Hornsea,
and Bridlington, thirty miles from Spurn Point, before
we arrive at the bold and rugged promontory of Flam-
borough Head, with its precipitous cliffs and dark

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 145

caves. Its summit is crowned by a circular stone
tower,* eighty -seven feet high, with the centre of its
lantern two hundred and fourteen feet above high-
water mark. Its illuminating apparatus exhibits two
white faces and one red, each half a minute. During
thick weather an explosive rocket, reaching an altitude
of about six hundred feet, is discharged every ten
minutes. Flamborough Head is in north lat. 54° 7',
and west long. 0° 5' 0".

Whitby, besides its harbour lights, shows a couple of
powerful fixed white lights, visible for twenty-three
miles, on the summit of the Ling Hill, in lat. 54° 28'
40". The two are situated north and south, at a dis-
tance of two hundred and fifty-eight yards, and were
first shown on 1st October 1858. The buildings, de-
signed by Mr. James Walker, are octagonal in shape
and built of stone, the one sixty-seven feet and the
other forty-six feet high, while the elevation of the
centre of the lantern above high-water mark is, in each
case, two hundred and forty feet. Cost £5,256.

On the north side of the mouth of the Tees, lat. 54°
40', stand two circular stone lighthouses, the high light
half a mile inland, and the low light on the shore,
north of Seaton Carew (eleven hundred and eighty-
three yards from the other). Each is seventy feet

* Situated about four hundred yards from the extreme point of the
Head. Designed by Mr. S. Wyatt, the architect. Cost, with adjoining
buildings, £4,099.

(241) 10

146 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

high. The high light is white, the low, red ; both are
fixed, and were first exhibited in 1839.

On the Heugh at Hartlepool, a light-tower of solid
freestone (coloured yellow) was erected in 1847, from
the designs of Stephen Robinson. It is seventy-three
feet seven inches in height, and exhibits a white and a
red light, the latter twenty-four feet lower than the
former. The white light is visible for fifteen miles,
and the red light for four miles. Cost £3,644, and
lantern (which is fourteen feet in diameter by ten feet
in height), £460.

At Seaham, on Red Acre Point, a stone building was
erected in 1831. It is furnished with an upper light,
fixed white, and a lower one, red, revolving every half
minute. It was built by William Chapman, C.E.

Beyond Sunderland, and the mouth of the Wear, we
come to Souter Point, in lat. 54° 58" 10", and long. 1°
21' 30", where a handsome new lighthouse of the first
class, seventy-six feet high, was " inaugurated " in
1871, and equipped with the electric light, Holmes's
" alternating current " machines being made use of.
This was the third station at which electricity was
made available for lighthouse illumination. Two lights
are displayed in the lantern— a white light, with flashes
every half minute ; and from a window, twenty feet
lower, a fixed white light, with red sectors.

Coquet Island, in lat. 55° 20' 6", on the coast of

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 147

Northumberland, is a tract of rich green pasture, once
the site of a fortress, now, on its south-western shore,
of a lighthouse of substantial construction — a square
white tower of sandstone, with turreted parapet, and
walls three feet nine inches thick, seventy-two feet
in height, and exhibits white and red lights, inter-
mittent, suddenly disappearing for five seconds every
minute. Designed by Mr. James Walker, and first
lighted 1st October 1841. Cost (with keepers' dwell-
ings) £3,268, 5s. 2d.

Passing Wark worth, famous in ballad history, we
sight the lofty basaltic headland of Bamborough Castle,
off which lie the Fame and Staples islets, seventeen in
number, forming two picturesque groups, inner and
outer, whither the sea-birds resort to breed and bring up
their young. These islets render navigation, however,
both difficult and dangerous, and as an assistance to the
mariner a lighthouse was erected on the south-west
point of Fame Island* the largest of the cluster, as
early as 1776, when a coal-fire blazed on its summit;
rebuilt by Mr. Joseph Nelson in 1809-10, as a struc-
ture forty-three feet high, which now displays a flash-
ing light — two white flashes and one red, each lasting
twenty seconds, followed by an eclipse of the same
duration, visible fifteen miles. In 1811, a lighthouse,
designed by Mr. Joseph Nelson, was erected on the

* A patent was granted as early as December 1st, 1673, to Sir John
Clayton and George Blake to erect lighthouses on the Fame Islands. The
Trinity House purchased the two Fame lighthouses and the Longstone,
in December 1824, for £36,445, 13s. 2d.

148 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

north-west side — a low, white octagonal building of
rough stone, only twenty-seven feet high, with a fixed
white light, visible twelve miles. In 1826 it was found
advisable to construct another on the Longstone rock,
which lies just outside the Fame group, about six miles
from the mainland, and, as it is only four feet above
high-water mark, is swept in every gale with fierce
rushing drifts of spray and foam. The tower, coloured
red for the sake of distinction, is eighty-five feet in
height from base to vane. It carries a white light,
revolving every thirty seconds, and has of late been
furnished with a fog-siren, which, in bad weather,
utters two blasts in quick succession every two minutes.
Architect, Joseph Nelson. Light first exhibited 15th
February 1826.

In 1838 the keeper in charge was named Darling;
and he had a daughter, Grace, who lived with her
parents on this lonely, water-bound islet — a quiet,
unassuming, well -principled girl, who, to all appearance,
had nothing of the heroic in her. It happened that,
on the 6th of September, the steamer Forfarshire,
from Hull to Dundee, was driven by a violent storm
on the rocks in the neighbourhood of the Longstone,
and soon became a total wreck. At the time most of
the passengers were below, and as the vessel filled
rapidly, they were, unhappily, drowned in their berths.
A portion of the crew contrived to escape in a boat ;
the rest, with the surviving passengers, sought a pre-
carious asylum in the fore part of the shattered ship,

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 149

over which the swirling waters poured with almost
irresistible violence. Desperate as was their situation,
they clung to life with all the energy they could com-
mand. Their hearts sank within them as they felt their
strength ebbing away, and their cries seemed to be
silenced by the roar of the billows ; but, happily, they
fell upon the quick ears of the daughter of the Longstone
lighthouse-keeper. Without hesitation she roused her
father, and as soon as the first faint gleam of morning
broke on the eastern horizon, launched the lighthouse
coble, to proceed, if possible, to the rescue of the suf-
ferers. The tide ran with such violence, and the wind
blew so tempestuously, that an attempt to reach the
wreck seemed impracticable as well as dangerous ; and
the old man at first recoiled from rushing, as he con-
sidered it, upon certain death.

After watching the wreck for some time they made
out that living beings were still hanging to it ; and the
heroic girl, with a courage that must be called chival-
rous, suddenly seized an oar and leaped into the coble.
This was sufficient ; her father followed, and the two
were soon pulling vigorously towards the rock.

By a desperate exertion, the lighthouse-keeper con-
trived to board the shattered vessel, while his daughter
skilfully backed the coble to prevent it from being
dashed into fragments. By watching for occasional
lulls in the fury of the gale, they at length succeeded
in taking off nine persons, and conveying them safely
to the lighthouse, where Grace Darling patiently and

150 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND

gently waited upon them for three days and three
nights. A four-oared boat from North Sunderland
reached the wreck later in the day, but found no
living person on board it. In attempting to return,
her crew were compelled to put in at the Longstone
lighthouse, and to remain there a couple of days and
nights in a temporary shelter, the waves occasionally
bursting in and driving them into the lighthouse-
tower, which was already occupied by Mr. and Miss
Darling, and the seamen and passengers they had so
gallantly saved.

Mr. Walter White, in his lively book of travel,
"Northumberland and the Border," describes a visit
which he paid to the lighthouse some time after Grace
Darling's premature death. Her sister, he says, a quiet-
looking, middle-aged woman, of respectful manner, wel-
comed him and his friends, and led the way up to the
sitting-room. It had a comfortable look and some-
thing more, with its collection of books, natural curi-
osities, engravings of Grace's memorable exploit, and
family portraits. Presently old Mr. Darling, Grace's
father, made his appearance, and proudly exhibited a
copy of the letter which he wrote the day after the
fatal wreck, to inform the secretary of the Trinity
House of the adventure which has made his daughter's
name illustrious among those of heroic women.

Mr. White afterwards went up to the lantern, and
out upon the gallery, whence, as the tower is sixty-
three feet high from the rock, an ample and richly-

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 151

varied view over the islands is obtained. The old
man pointed out to him the course which he and his
daughter took on their way to the wreck ; and ex-
plained that his wife had helped to launch the boat,
that Grace knew how to handle an oar, but that to
pull half a mile or more through a furious sea was
no easy task for a girl. Nor did he know how they
should have got the boat back to the lighthouse against
the tide, had not some of the men whom they saved
been able to row.

" My eye," says Mr. White, " roved over the scene as
we talked, looking down on the twenty-seven isles and
islets of the Fame group as on a panorama. There,
nearly six miles from the shore, the isolation appears
somewhat awful ; and we may think that the courage
of the residents was tried in the storm some years ago
which brought in such tremendous waves that they
had to seek the upper chambers of the lighthouse. The
Longstone, rising but four feet above high-water mark,
is swept by every gale with fierce drifts of spray and
foam ; hence its vegetation is of the scantiest, including
but five kinds of plants, among which the sea mat-
grass predominates. Far different from the present
scene: for now children are at play on the rock; the
poultry look as if the weather were always fine to
them ; and two boys, who have just come in from
fishing, are cleaning and washing their capture, throw-
ing the refuse over the stern of their boat, and the
young gulls, hovering round, dart down with a shriek

152 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

and seize the dainty morsels sometimes before they
touch the water."

Grace Darling lived but a few years after the event
which made her famous. She lies buried in Barn-
borough churchyard, where a monumental tomb was
erected to her memory in 1846. On this her effigy is
seen in a recumbent position, her hands crossed, and an
oar by her side which the right arm embraces. The
inscription was written by Wordsworth : —

The maiden gentle, yet at Duty's call

Firm and unflinching as the lighthouse reared

On the island -rock, her lonely dwelling-place;

Or like the invincible rock itself that braves,

Age after age, the hostile elements,

As when it guarded holy Cuthbert's cell."

When the Royal Commissioners visited the Long-
stone in 1859, they found William Darling still acting
as keeper, with his son as assistant. The whole estab-
lishment was in excellent order, and filled with memo-
rials of Grace. The old man repeated to his visitors
the story of the wreck, and from the tower pointed out
the different localities. He told them that his daughter
had died of a decline, and that in his opinion her end
had been accelerated by " anxiety of mind " — in other
words, " so many ladies and gentlemen came to see her
that she got no rest."

In July 1843, the Pegasus steamer, plying between
Leith and Hull, was wrecked in this dangerous neigh-
bourhood. She left Leith at half-past six in the even-

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 153

ing of the 19th, and at half -past ten was sighted off
Berwick Harbour. At midnight she passed Holy Island,
and steered for what is called the Fairway, a channel
between the Fame group of islets and the mainland.
It is about a mile wide, and deep enough for the largest
ships ; but its navigation is rendered difficult by the
numerous sunken rocks that lie in all directions.
Lights and buoys, however, are stationed at every
critical point ; and it appears that on the night we
are speaking of the buoy which marked the Goldstone
rock, as well as the Fame lights, were clearly dis-
cernible. Not the less, the Pegasus, while steaming
at full speed, struck upon the Goldstone, which at the
time was under water. Her captain and officers seem
then to have lost their heads ; the greatest confusion
prevailed on the wreck ; and of all on board only six
were saved.

SCOTLAND.

Passing Berwick, we enter upon a survey of the east
coast of Scotland at St. Abb's Head, a huge isolated
mass of trap rock, with a precipitous seaward front
nearly two hundred and fifty feet high. The light-
house erected here in 1862 is twenty-nine feet from
base to vane, exhibits a flashing white light every ten
seconds (visible twenty-one miles), and is furnished
with a fog-siren.

We sail past Coldingham ; Dunbar, with the ruins
of its historic castle, and its memories of the great
battle in which Cromwell defeated the Scotch army;

154 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND

North Berwick, easily recognized by the pyramidal
height of" the Law " which overlooks it ; and on the
rocky isle of Fiddra descry the tall brick tower, fifty-
six feet high, erected in 1885 to display a white light,
with two flashes every fifteen seconds — the first group-
flashing light in Scotland — visible in fair weather over
a range of seventeen miles. The Firth of Forth is
admirably lighted throughout the whole extent of its
tidal way. On the left bank we trace the lights of Port
Seton, Cockenzie, Fisherrow, Leith, Newhaven, Gran-
ton, the island of Inchkeith, the Oxcar Rocks, New-
halls, South Queensferry, Bo'ness, and Grangemouth.
Returning along the Fifeshire shore, we pass Alloa,
Charleston, North Queensferry, Inchgarvie (where the
famous Forth Bridge, the greatest triumph of engineer-
ing skill which the world has yet witnessed, now crosses
the noble river), Inverkei thing, St. David's, Burntisland,
Kirkcaldy, Dysart, West Wemyss, Buckhaven, Elie, St.
Monans, Pittenweem, Anstruther, and Cellardyke. With
the exception of that upon Inchkeith and on the Oxcar
Rocks, to which we shall hereafter refer, these are har-
bour lights, which do not fall within the scope of the
present volume.

We continue our imaginary voyage across the broad
estuary of the Forth, pausing at the long and narrow
rocky mass of —

The ISLE OF MAY, which commands the channel to
the well-known secure anchorage at St. Margaret's
Hope. So early as the year 1621 we find the better

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 155

navigation of the Forth made a matter of high con-
sideration ; and we find that the coal-masters on both
sides of the river, " for the credit of the country and
the safety of strangers trading to them for coal and
salt, undertook to put marks and beacons on all the
craiges and blind rocks within the Forth, above Leith
Road, upon their own charges." Not, however, until
fifteen years later was any attempt made to provide
for the guidance of mariners at night ; and then the
Scottish Parliament granted permission (April 22, 1636)
to James Maxwell of Innerwick, who was one of the
king's bedchamber, and James Cunninghame of Barnes
" to erect and maintain ane light upon the Isle of May,"
the toll from passing vessels to be " twa shillingis
Scottis, to be payit upon ye tun of all shippes and
veschelles coming within Dunnoter and St. Tobes Heid
be natives, and four shillingis money be strangers for
ilk veadge." The light (a coal-fire blazing in an open
chauffer) thus kindled in 1636 continued to burn nightly
till 1816. The tower and keepers' houses were prob-
ably built out of the ruins of the ancient monastery
that had formerly flourished on the island. The tower,
on the summit of which blazed the great bonfire nightly,
was forty feet in height, the fuel being hoisted up by
means of a pulley and box fitted outside it. The light
consumed about two hundred tons, and latterly four
hundred tons, annually, and was one of the best in
the kingdom. But the toll exacted from shipping for
maintaining it was thought too high by the Conven-

156 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

tion of Royal Burghs, and was accordingly reduced to
" auchtein pennis Scottis for natives, and three schil-
lingis Scottis for stranger " ships.

The lordship of the island and the valuable in-
come from the toll on passing ships passed through
various hands until it came to the Duke of Portland
by his marriage to Miss Scott of Balcona. When the
Northern Lighthouses Board was established in 1786,
the shipping interests evinced a strong desire that the
Isle of May light should be brought under the juris-
diction of that Board, and also that the penalty on
English ships as " strangers " should be abolished. The
Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce petitioned Miss Scott
to improve the light, as limekilns and other fires on the
Fifeshire and Berwickshire coasts were apt to be mis-
taken for the Isle of May light. The Trinity House
of Leith, at a later day, also urged that oil should be
substituted for coal ; but the recommendation was dis-
regarded, and the sole improvement vouchsafed was
the enlargement of the chauffer to thrice its original
dimensions. The light, however, still remained un-
certain in its character, subject to the conditions of the
weather, and liable to be mistaken for lights ashore.
In violent gales the fire kindled only on the leeward
side, and the keeper was accustomed to thrust his arm
through the windward bars of the chauffer to steady
himself when supplying fresh fuel, so that scarcely any
light was visible in the direction in which it was most
needed. Matters were at length brought to a climax

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 157

by the wreck of a couple of frigates in 1810, which
was mainly due to the inefficiency and the misleading
nature of the Isle of May light. Lord Melville, First
Lord of the Admiralty, then proposed its transfer to
the Commissioners, and negotiations were opened up
for the purchase of the light and of the Duke of Port-
land's interest in the toll on passing ships. In 1814
this purchase was authorized by an Act of Parliament,
which at the same time abolished the extra tax on
English shipping. For the sum of £60,000 the light
was transferred to the charge of the Northern Light-
houses Board, which proceeded to erect a substantial
tower, seventy-eight feet high, from which, on February
1, 1816, a new and powerful apparatus of Argand lamps
and silver-plated reflectors diffused its welcome radiance
across the waters. In 1844 a smaller tower was built
on the north-east side of the island, which directs a
broad beam of light towards North Carr Rock, to
guide vessels clear of that danger when doubling Fife-
ness. In 1887, however, a light-vessel was moored off
this rock, in lat. 56° 17' 30", with a white fixed light,
visible for ten miles.

The progress made in lighthouse illumination has
been very completely illustrated on the Isle of May.
First, there was the open coal-fire, with its continually
varying character and exceedingly limited efficiency.
Next, as we have seen, came reflectors and Argand
lamps, fed with sperm oil, and enclosed in a glazed
lantern. Fifty years ago these gave way to a dioptric

158 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

apparatus, with a central flame from a four-wick lamp.
Colza oil was afterwards substituted for sperm, and, in
1874, paraffin for colza, with the result that, at about
one-fifth of the cost, the intensity of the flame was
increased fully ten per cent. And lastly, in 1886, the
electric light was introduced. Now, the power of the
beam of light given out by the paraffin was equal to
nine thousand five hundred candles; whereas that of
the electric light, as now shown, is equal to about three
million candles, or more than three hundred times the
intensity of the paraffin light, and, moreover, in foggy
weather it can be increased, if desired, to six million
candles. This beam of light is one of the most intense,
if not the most intense, exhibited as yet from any light-
house, all the latest improvements, not only in the
electric but in the optical apparatus, having been
adopted. The erection of suitable buildings, dioptric
apparatus, steam-engines, and other appliances occupied
a period of eighteen months. The buildings consist of
dwelling-houses for the engineer and two keepers addi-
tional, an engine and boiler-houses, workshop, coal-store,
and offices. The walls are constructed of bricks set in
Portland cement and white-washed ; the roofs, as well as
those of the engine and boiler-houses, are of iron buckle
plates covered with Portland cement and Val de Tra-
vers, supported on iron beams. The material employed
for the other buildings is cement rubble concrete.

The new dwellings and engine-house are situated in
a ravine or gully which traverses the island diagonally,

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 159

at some distance from the light-tower. A small lake
at the northern extremity of this gully has been con-
verted into a reservoir, and the water is used for
condensation purposes. In the engine-house are two
engines, each of sixteen horse-power, for driving the
electric machines, and also the two machines. As a
rule, only one engine and one machine are used at a
time — the spare engine and machine being provided to
guard against accident, or to be brought into use along
with the other in very dense, foggy weather. The
machines are " alternate current " magneto-electric
machines of the largest size hitherto constructed,
having sixty permanent horse-shoe magnets arranged
round a centre, in twelve sets of five each, all with
their poles towards the centre. In the space left
between the poles is a central shaft, on which are
mounted five rings, on each of which are wound coils
of wire, forming the armature, and this revolves within
so as nearly to touch the poles of the permanent mag-
nets. The armature is driven by a belt from the
engine, through a counter-shaft, at a speed of ten
revolutions per second; and each coil as it passes the
poles of the permanent magnets produces an alternate
positive and negative current of electricity. The pulsa-
tions of electrical agency are taken off by collectors at
each end of the central shaft, and conveyed to the
lighthouse-tower by copper rods one inch in diameter.
These rods or conductors are placed in a groove in a
low wall of cement rubble concrete, which connects the

160 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

engine-house and the tower. Alongside this wall a path-
way has been formed. The engine-house and tower are
also placed in communication by telephone. The con-
ductors are led up the tower by the lamps inside the
dioptric apparatus.

The electric lamps are the best extant. One is always
in its place inside the dioptric apparatus, while another
is ready, with the carbons adjusted to the correct height,
to be shunted into the focus of the apparatus when
required. The carbons are fully one and a quarter inch
in diameter, and have a small core of pure graphite
running through the centre. These improved carbons
never fail to burn with great regularity and perma-
nence. At first it was intended to use continuous-
current electrical machines, but a trustworthy arc lamp
proved more difficult of construction than was imagined.
The dioptric apparatus is novel of construction, on the
condensing principle so successfully introduced into the
Scottish lighthouses by Messrs. Stevenson thirty years
ago. The Isle of May apparatus is so designed as to
give a group of four flashes in quick succession, with
intervals of darkness for half a minute, and condenses
the light which would spread over forty-five degrees
into three degrees or fifteen times. It has also been so
arranged as to admit of the beams of light being dipped,
to show near the lighthouse during dense fog, instead
of being sent to the horizon.

We may here bring together a few facts in illustra-

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 161

tion of the gradual lighting of the Scottish coast. One
of the earliest lighthouses erected seems to have been
that of Grass Island, in Harris, first shown on October
10th, 1789, on which day a light was also exhibited at
Pladda, a small island south-west of Arran, in the Firth
of Clyde. As a guide to the passage of the Pentland
Firth, a lighthouse was erected on the Pentland
Skerries in 1794. A light was shown on Start Point,
in the island of Sanday, on the 1st of January 1806 ;
on the Bell or Inchcape Eock, February 1st, 1811 ; on
the Skerry vore, February 1st, 1844. Of late years,
under the active direction of the Messrs. Stevenson, a
family with a traditional repute as lighthouse engineers,
the shores of Scotland, like those of England, have
completely been surrounded with efficient protection
for the mariner.

From the Isle of May a short voyage up the pleasant
Forth, passing the Fiddra light, brings us to the island
of Inchkeith, which lies nearly opposite the town of
Portobello on the south shore and Burntisland on the
north. A white light, revolving at intervals of a
minute, and visible one-and- twenty miles, has been
shown here since 1804.* The tower, designed by Mr.

* Inchkeith was originally a fixed light, and when it was changed to a
revolving one, a certain old lady, it is said, who had amused many a
sleepless hour by watching it, was much puzzled by its successive illum-
ination and eclipse ; so that in the morning she expressed great compas-
sion for the light-keeper, — "No sooner was his lamp lighted than it went
out; and if it had been lighted once, it had been lighted a hundred
times ! "

(241) 11

162 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Thomas Smith, is a handsome and well-built structure,
forty -five feet in height, with its base one hundred and
seventy-five feet above the sea. The dwelling-houses
are very comfortable, and kept with a good deal of
neatness. Farther up the river, in lat. 56° V 20",
on the Oxcar Rock, a tower of stone and brick,

INCHKEITH LIGHTHOUSE.

seventy-three feet high, was erected in 1886. It shows
a fixed red light, with white sectors, visible thirteen
miles.

Returning to the mouth of the Forth, and direct-
ing our course northward, we come in sight of a
lighthouse as famous in its way as the Eddystone — a
lighthouse interesting from its tradition, situation, and

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 163

difficulties of construction — the lighthouse on the BELL
ROCK.*

The Bell Rock, formerly known as the Scape and
the Inch Cape, is situated off the coast of Forfarshire,
in lat. 56° 26' north and long. 2° 23' west, about twelve
miles to the south-east of Arbroath. It lies in the
direct track of vessels entering either the estuary of
the Forth or that of the Tay, and therefore, in the old
times, was much dreaded by the mariner as the most
dangerous spot on the east coast of Scotland. In
length it measures about one thousand four hundred
and twenty-seven feet, of which at spring-tide ebbs a
portion about four hundred feet long by thirty feet
broad is uncovered to a height of about four feet ; but
at high water there is a depth of twelve feet over the
whole of the reef. Its sides are thick with tangle and
sea-weed ; at low water it is frequently visited by seals,
and, in larger numbers, by gulls, cormorants, and other
ocean birds. The old name, "Inch Cape," probably
refers to its situation as an " inch," or island, off the
Red Head promontory ; that of " the Bell Rock," by
which it is generally known, either to its bell-like con-

* It was in the "Album " of this celebrated lighthouse that Sir Walter
Scott, when he visited it in 1814, wrote the well-known lines : —

PHAROS loquitur.

" Far in the bosom of the deep
O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep,
A ruddy gem of changeful light,
Bound on the dusky brow of Night :
The seaman bids my lustre hail,
And scorns to strike his timorous sail."

164 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

figuration, or, more probably, to the circumstance that
a bell with a float was fixed upon it by one of the
abbots of Arbroath, in such a manner that it was
tolled by the waves when they covered the rock. A
tradition exists that the bell — "once upon a time"-
was wantonly cut adrift by a Dutch pirate, whose
vessel was soon afterwards dashed to pieces on this
very reef; an incident which suggested to Sou they his
fine ballad of " Sir Ralph the Rover " :—

" No stir in the air, no swell on the sea,
The ship was still as she could be ;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

" With neither sign nor sound of shock,
The waves flowed o'er the Inchcape Rock ;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

" The pious Abbot of Aberbrothock *
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock ;
On the waves of the storm it floated and swung,
And louder and louder its warning rung.

" When the rock was hid by the tempest swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell ;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blessed the Abbot of Aberbrothock."

It is a bright summer's day, and Sir Ralph the
Rover walks the deck of his ship with a heart " mirth-
ful to excess." But his mirth was the mirth of a wicked
heart, and for lack of other mischief he resolves to
"plague the priest of Aberbrothock." He orders his

* The ancient name of Arbroath.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 165

boat to be lowered, and rows for the Inch Cape
Hock '

" Sir Ralph leant over from the boat,
And cut the bell from off the float.

" Down sank the bell with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles rose and burst around ;
Quoth he, ' Who next comes to the rock
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothock.' "

Then Sir Ralph sailed away and scoured the sea in
quest of booty, until, having loaded his ship with
plundered store, he turned his prow homeward. When
off the coast of his native country, a thick mist arose,
so that the pilot knew not which way to steer. The
wind blew a gale all day, but sank into silence at
eventide ; and Sir Ralph stood upon the deck, vainly
looking out into the dark to catch sight of land.

" Quoth he, ' It will be brighter soon,
For there's the dawn of the rising moon.'

" ' Canst hear,' said one, 'the breakers roar?

For yonder, methinks, should be the shore.'
' Now where we are I cannot tell —
I wish we heard the Inchcape Bell ! '

" They hear no sound — the swell is strong ;
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock —
' O Heaven ! it is the Inchcape Rock ! :

" Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
And cursed himself in his despair.
The waves rush in on every side ;
The ship sinks fast beneath the tide !

" Down, down they sink in watery graves,
The masts are hid beneath the waves !
Sir Ralph, while waters rush around,
Hears still an awful, dismal sound,—

166 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

" For even in his dying fear
That dreadful sound assails his ear,
As if below, with the Inchcape Bell,
The devil rang his funeral knell."

When Mr. Robert Stevenson made his first landing
on the rock in 1800, he discovered in almost every
chink and cranny painful proofs of the sad disasters
of which it had been the cause, — such as bayonets,
musket-balls, and innumerable fragments of iron. All
the more perishable materials had been swept away ;
and a silver shot-buckle was the only vestige of wear-
ing-apparel to speak of the loss of many who had here
met their unexpected doom. Nor was it simply on the
unbeaconed and unlighted rock that ships were de-
stroyed ; not a few were cast on the neighbouring
shores, from the anxiety of their pilots to avoid the
dreaded danger. Mr. Stevenson records a melancholy
example. During a three days' gale in 1799 a large
fleet of vessels were driven from their moorings in the
Downs and Yarmouth Roads, and from their south-
ward courses. Borne north by the fury of the blast,
these ships might easily have reached the anchorage of
the Firth of Forth, for which the wind was favourable ;
but night came on, and fearing the Bell Rock, their ill-
fated steersmen resolved to keep at sea, but drifting
before a pitiless storm on a dark December night, they
lost their reckoning and were hopelessly wrecked, two
of them on the Bell Rock, and about seventy on the
eastern shores of Scotland, where, alas ! many of their
brave crews perished. This fatal catastrophe, says Mr.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 167

Stevenson, is the more to be lamented when we con-
sider that a light upon the Bell Rock, by opening a
way to a place of safety, would infallibly have been
the means of preventing it. And that this opinion was
justifiable we know from the fact that not a single
ship has been lost on the rock since the lighthouse was
completed — three quarters of a century ago.

It was not until 1786 that a Lighthouse Board for
Scotland was established. At that time the chief lights
on the Scottish coast were the chauffer and coal-tire,
already spoken of, on the Isle of May, in the estuary of
the Forth, and a similar chauffer on the Little Cumbrae,
in the estuary of the Clyde. But the dangerous char-
acter of the Bell Rock soon attracted the attention of
the Commissioners,* and they began to contemplate
the erection of a lighthouse upon it. In 1806 they
obtained an Act of Parliament authorizing them to
proceed with it ; and in the following year operations
were begun under the superintendence of Mr. Robert
Stevenson, who was chosen to carry out the design
and plans furnished by the celebrated engineer, Mr.
(afterwards Sir John) Rennie. The execution of the
work, attended as it was with exceptional difficulties,
occupied about four years, and the outlay involved
amounted to £61,331, 9s. 2d., toward which Govern-
ment advanced a sum of £30,000.

The 17th of August 1807 was the first day. The

* As early as 1793 Admiral Sir A. Cochrane had publicly pointed out
its danger.

168 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

erection of a workshop and of a temporary residence
for the workmen occupied the whole season, the sup-
ports having to be firmly secured in holes dug out of
the solid rock. The hardness and compactness of the
sandstone soon blunted their tools, and a smith with
his forge was kept in constant employment. But it
often happened, says Mr. Stevenson, in his highly
interesting "Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse,"
" to our annoyance and disappointment, that when the
smith was in the middle of 'a favourable heat,' and
fashioning some useful article, or sharpening the tools,
after the flood-tide had compelled the men to strike
work, a sea would come rolling over the rock, dash
out the fire, and endanger that indispensable imple-
ment, the bellows ; or, if the sea were smooth, while the
smith often stood at work knee-deep in the water, the
tide rose imperceptibly, first cooling the exterior of the
fire-place or hearth, and then quietly blackening and
extinguishing the fire from below." Mr. Stevenson
was frequently amused at the anxiety and perplexity
of the unfortunate smith when coaxing his fire, and en-
deavouring in vain to contend against the rising tide.
Obviously the work could make but slow progress,
until the work-ship, which was also intended to serve
as a beacon, was completed, and the smith protected
against the insidious waters.

But something more serious occurred on the 2nd of
September. The first cargo of stones had been landed,
and two -and -thirty men were engaged in various

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 169

branches of work, when a gale arose, and the tender or
store-ship, the Smeaton, which lay-to by the rock, broke
adrift from her moorings. This mishap was known at
first only to Mr. Stevenson and his " landing-master,"
who fully appreciated the gravity of the situation:
thirty-two men on an isolated rock, which at flood-
tide had twelve feet of water upon it, with only two
boats at hand, and these, in foul weather, not capable
of carrying more than eight men each.

While the men were at work excavating the rock
and boring with their tools, and while the din of their
hammers and the clang of the smith's forge filled the
air, the life and movement of the scene kept Stevenson
from fully realizing the threatening possibilities of
danger. But gradually the tide began to rise, and
slowly it gained upon those who were engaged on the
lower portions of the sites of the beacon and light-
house. From the run of the sea upon the rock, the
forge-fire was more quickly extinguished than usual;
and the smoke subsiding, every object around was dis-
tinctly revealed. The majority of the men made to-
wards their respective boats to get their jackets and
stockings, when, to their astonishment, they found only
two boats on the rock, the third being adrift with the
Smeaton. Not a word was uttered, but all appeared
to be silently counting their numbers, while gazing
from one to another with expressive looks of perplexity
and dismay.

Meanwhile, Mr. Stevenson was anxiously considering

170 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

what expedients might be adopted for the safety of the
party. The most feasible plan seemed to be, that as
soon as the waves reached the highest point of the
rock, the men should strip off their upper garments,
and, while a certain number got into each boat, the
remainder should support themselves by the gunwales,
and the boats row gently towards the Smeaton.
Stevenson would fain have proposed this plan, but on
attempting to speak he found his mouth so parched
that he could not articulate a syllable. Turning to one
of the rock-pools, he sipped a little water, and obtained
immediate relief. Great was his joy when, on rising
from this unpleasant beverage, he heard a voice ex-
claim, " A boat ! a boat ! " and, on looking around, per-
ceived a large lugger approaching, which proved to be
a pilot-boat from Arbroath, express with letters. The
crew willingly took on board Mr. Stevenson and his
companions, and delivered them from their unpleasant
position.

On the 6th of September, when the whole company
were on board the Pharos, or light-ship, a tremendous
gale arose, which prevented them from approaching the
rock for two days.

About two o'clock P.M., says Mr. Stevenson, a very
heavy sea struck the ship, flooded the deck, and poured
into the berths below. All on board thought she had
foundered, and that their last moment had come. Be-
low deck total darkness prevailed ; several of the work-
men were praying, repeating hymns, or uttering devout

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 171

ejaculations; others protested that if they should for-
tunately be spared to reach land once more, nothing
would induce them to tempt the treacherous waves
again. In the confusion Stevenson made his way upon
deck. The spectacle which met his gaze was not very
encouraging. The watch on deck stood lashed to the
foremast that he might not be washed overboard. The
billows appeared to be ten or fifteen feet in height of
unbroken water, and seemed to threaten with destruc-
tion the small craft that laboured among them. The
horizon was heavy with clouds, and through the gather-
ing mist it was impossible to discern the Scottish shore.

Happily, the gale abated about six o'clock in the
evening, and next morning the men rose under a com-
paratively serene sky. The waves still rolled very
heavily, and at the Bell Rock hurled up their spray
in columns forty to fifty feet high. As soon as Mr.
Stevenson was able to land, he found abundant evi-
dence of their force : six large blocks of granite had
been heaved from their places and rolled over a rising
ledge into a hole some twelve or fifteen paces distant.
The ash-pan of the smith's forge, with its heavy cast-
iron back, had also been wrested from its position, the
connecting chain broken, and the ponderous articles
swept right over to the opposite side of the rock.

By the latter end of October, however, the initial
stage of the undertaking was completed, and a beacon
erected, which consisted of twelve beams of timber
forming a common base of thirty-six feet, with fifty

172 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

feet of height, the whole being securely fastened to the
rock by batts and chains of iron. The third and top-
most compartment of this beacon was used as a barrack
for the men while the work was in progress ; on the
second floor, twenty-five feet from the rock, the mortar
was prepared, and the smith toiled away at his forge.
On several occasions the violence of the sea lifted this
floor, but none of the batts were shaken, and it re-
mained on the rock until removed in the summer of
1812.

The operations of the second season began at the
earliest date the weather permitted. A second forge
having been set up on the beacon, the smiths plied
their trade with laudable activity, — sharpening picks
and irons for the masons, and manufacturing batts,
movable cranes, and other apparatus for use on the
railways. The landing-master's crew were occupied in
helping the millwrights to lay down the cast-iron rail-
way for the conveyance of materials. Seamen are no-
torious for their dexterity at all kinds of manual work,
and now they handled promptly and freely the boring
irons, and assisted in all the railway operations, acting
by turns as boatmen, carpenters, and smiths. Both on
the rock and on shipboard they were the inseparable
companions of every work connected with the erection
of the Bell Rock Lighthouse.

It might naturally be supposed that a score and
more of masons occupied with their picks in executing
and preparing the foundation of the lighthouse would,

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 173

in the course of a three hours' tide, make a considerable
impression upon an area of even forty-two feet in di-
ameter. But in proportion as the foundation was deep-
ened, the rock was found to be much harder and more
difficult to work, while the baling and pumping of
water became more troublesome. A joiner was kept
almost constantly employed in fitting the picks to their
handles, which, as well as the points of the irons, were
very frequently broken. At eight o'clock the water
overflowed the site of the building, and the boats left
the rock with all hands for breakfast.

The Bell Rock at this time presented a very striking
appearance, with impressive contrasts of light and
shade which would have delighted the eye of Rem-
brandt. Its narrow surface was crowded with busy
men, who were in constant movement. The two forges
flamed, one above the other, like Cyclopean furnaces ;
while the anvils thundered with the rebounding clash
of their wooden supports as if in rivalry with the regu-
lar roll and rush of the ocean tide. During the night,
if the men were at work, a still more picturesque scene
might have been witnessed by any passing vessel.
Even to the operatives themselves the effect of extin-
guishing the torches was sometimes startling, and made
darker, as it were, the darkness of the night ; while the
sea, lighted up by a phosphorescent glow, rolled in upon
the rock its long heaving waves of fire.

Sufficient progress having been made in the work of
preparation, it was resolved that the foundation-stone

174 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

should be laid on the 10th of July. The ceremony
attending it was very simple, as needs must be on a
rock less than a fifth of a mile long. Mr. Stevenson,
supported by his three assistants, applied the square,
the level, and the mallet in due form, and pronounced
the benediction, " May the great Architect of the uni-
verse complete and bless this building!" The men gave
three hearty cheers — assembled there on the lone, weedy
rock, with a gray waste of waters all around — and then
drank success to the future operations with the greatest
enthusiasm.

The first course of masonry was rapidly laid down.
It was only one foot in thickness, but it contained 508
cubic feet of granite in outward casing; 8,076 cubic
feet of Mylnefield stone in the hearting ; 104 tons of
solid contents; 132 superficial feet of hewing in the
face-work ; 4,519 superficial feet of hewing in the beds,
joints, and joggles ; 420 lineal feet boring of trenail
holes ; 378 feet lineal cutting for wedges ; 246 oaken
trenails ; and 378 oak wedges in pairs. These figures
may not be interesting in themselves, but will serve,
perhaps, to awaken in the reader's mind some idea of
the colossal amount of labour involved in the construc-
tion of a lighthouse of the first class.

By the end of the season the masonry was raised to
a level with the highest part of the margin of the
foundation-pit, or about five and a half feet above the
lower bed of the foundation-stone. Work was discon-
tinued on the 21st of September.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 175

During the winter a stock of materials having been
obtained from the granite quarries of Aberdeenshire,
for an external casing to the height of thirty feet,
and from the freestone quarries of Mylnefield, near
Dundee, for the inside and upper walls, a number of
masons were kept employed in the work -yard at Ar-
broath, and every preparation made for resuming work
on the rock in the following spring. The stones were
wrought with great accuracy — laid upon a platform
course by course, numbered and marked as they were
each to lie in the building, and then set aside for trans-
portation, everything being done with wonderful order
and despatch. On the rock, operations were recom-
menced on the 27th of May ; and, despite various ac-
cidents and delays, and considerable obstruction from
inclement weather, had progressed so far by the end of
June that the workmen were able to continue their
labours on the masonry while the rock was under
water. On the 8th of July it was observed, to the
general satisfaction, that the tide for the first time
failed to cover the masonry at high water. Flags
were accordingly hung out at every vantage point, as
well as on board the yacht, the tender, the stone-
praams, and the floating-light ; a salute of three guns
was fired; and the loudest and heartiest cheers im-
aginable rent the air and mingled with the myriad
voices of the waters. By the 25th of August, when
the work was discontinued for the autumn and winter
months, the solid portions of the Bell Rock Lighthouse

176 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

had been raised thirty-one and a half feet above the
rock, and seventeen feet above high water at -spring
tides.

Having in a couple of seasons landed and built up
more than one thousand four hundred tons of stone,

THE BUILDING OF THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE.

while the work was low down in the water, and as not
more than seven hundred tons were required to com-
plete the masonry, Mr. Stevenson allowed himself to
anticipate that another season would complete his
undertaking. But success absolutely depending on

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 177

the stability of the beacon, he paid frequent visits to
the rock in the course of the winter to make sure that
it defied the fury of winds and waves.

The work of the fourth and last season was begun
on the 10th of May. The artificers took possession of
the beacon, which consisted at this time of three floors
— one occupied as the cook-house and provision-store ;
the second, divided into two cabins, for the engineer
and foreman respectively ; and the third, provided with
three rows or tiers of sleeping-berths, to accommodate
about thirty men. Below these three floors was a
temporary floor, at the height of twenty -five feet
above the rock, used as the smith's workshop — only
one was now required — and for preparing mortar. A
wooden bridge connected the beacon with the growing
lighthouse.

The room or cabin occupied by Mr. Stevenson he
graphically describes. It measured, he says, not more
than four feet three inches in breadth on the floor;
and though, from the oblique direction of the beams of
the building, it widened upwards, yet was he unable
when standing up to stretch out his arms to the full
extent ; while its length barely admitted of a hammock
being slung for the night. His folding writing-table
was attached with hinges immediately under the small
window of the apartment ; and his boots, barometer,
thermometer, portmanteau, and two or three camp-
stools, formed the bulk of his movables. His diet
being plain, the table-equipage (as Lord Lytton some-

(241) 12

178 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

where calls it) was correspondingly simple, though
there was a general air of comfort and neatness, the
walls being covered with green cloth, formed into
panels with red tape, and his bed festooned with cur-
tains of yellow cotton-stuff.

We have not the space, and probably our readers
would not have the inclination, to dwell upon the daily
details of Mr. Stevenson's great undertaking. We pass
on to the 29th of July as one of its epoch-days, for
then the last stone was landed on the Bell Rock. You
may be sure that the occasion was duly celebrated.
On the 30th, the last and ninetieth course was laid,
completing the outer wall of the lighthouse tower, and
its designer then solemnly uttered a suitable benedic-
tion : " May the great Architect of the universe, under
whose blessing this perilous work has prospered, pre-
serve it as a guide to the mariner ! "

On the 17th of December 1810, an advertisement in
the public journals made known to the public that Mr.
Stevenson's great work had been completed, and that
thenceforth the perils of the Bell Rock would virtually
cease to exist for the mariner : — " A lighthouse having
been erected upon the Inch Cape or Bell Rock, situated
at the entrance of the Firths of Forth and Tay, in
north lat. 56° 29', and west long. 2° 22', the Commis-
sioners of the Northern Lighthouses hereby give notice
that the light will be from oil, with reflectors, placed at
the height of about one hundred and eight feet above the
medium level of the sea. The light will be exhibited on

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 179

the night of Friday, the first day of February 1811, and
each night thereafter, from the going away of daylight in
the evening until the return of daylight in the morning.
To distinguish this light from others on the coast, it is
made to revolve horizontally, and to exhibit a bright
light of the natural appearance and a red-coloured
light alternately, both respectively attaining their
greatest strength, or most luminous effect, in the space
of every four minutes : during that period the bright
light will, to a distant observer, appear like a star of
the first magnitude, which, after attaining its full
strength, is gradually eclipsed to total darkness, and
is succeeded by the red-coloured light, which in like
manner increases to full strength, and again diminishes
and disappears. The coloured light, however, being
less powerful, may not be seen for a time after the
bright light is first observed. During the continuance
of foggy weather and showers of snow, a bell will be
tolled by machinery, night and day, at intervals of half
a minute."

The Bell Rock Lighthouse now exhibits a white and
red light alternately, revolving at intervals of a minute.
The building is of a circular form, measuring forty -two
feet in diameter at the base, but diminishing or tapering
towards the top, so that it measures only thirteen feet
at the neck, immediately below the light-room. Its
total height is one hundred and fifteen feet. To the
height of thirty feet it is entirely solid, with the ex-
ception of a " drop-hole " of ten inches in diameter for

180 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

the weight of the machinery which moves the reflectors.
The ascent to the doorway, which is placed immediately
above this solid substructure, is by a ladder of gun-
metal. A narrow passage leads from the door to the

THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE,

staircase, where the walls are seven feet thick ; from
the top of the staircase, which is thirteen feet high, the
walls gradually diminish up to the summit. Above
the staircase, access to the different apartments is fur-
nished by wooden ladders, the remaining fifty-seven

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 181

feet of masonry being divided by five stone floors into
six rooms for the light-keepers and stores. The three
lower rooms — for coals, water, and oil respectively —
have each two small windows, while the three upper
rooms — the bedroom, the kitchen, and the sitting-
room, which is adorned by a marble bust of Stevenson
the engineer — have each four; and all are provided
with strong shutters to defend the glass panes in
stormy weather. The two first courses of the masonry
are entirely sunk into the rock ; in every course the
stones are dovetailed and inserted into each other, so
that the building forms one closely connected mass,
which seems as if it would last as long as time itself.

The light-room, which is constructed of cast iron,
and glazed with polished glass, is octagonal in shape,
twelve feet in diameter, and fifteen feet in height. It
is covered with a dome, and terminates in a ball.

The manner in which this noble structure bears the
onset of the waters has been described by Mr. Steven-
son. During the gales of winter, and when viewed
from the Forfarshire coast, it appears in a remarkably
interesting aspect, standing proudly among the waves,
while the sea around it is in the wildest state of agita-
tion. The light-keepers do not seem to be in motion,
but the scene is by no means still, for the clang and
clamour, the motion and fury of the billows, are inces-
sant. The seas mount to the height of about seventy
feet above the rock, and after expending their force in
a perpendicular direction, fall in masses of foam round

182 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

the base of the lighthouse, while considerable portions
of the spray seem to adhere, as it were, to the building,
and collect on its sides in snow-white froth. Some of
the great waves burst and are expended upon the rock
before they reach the lighthouse; while others strike
the base, and embracing the walls, meet on the western
side, where the violent collision churns the eddying
waters into the wildest foam.

The management of the lighthouse is organized as
follows : — At Arbroath, about eleven miles distant, is
stationed a cutter, which, once a fortnight, or in the
course of each set of spring-tides, visits the rock, in
order to relieve the light-keepers and replenish their
stock of fuel and provisions. There are four light-
keepers, three of whom are always on duty, while one
is ashore. If the weather be favourable, each light-
keeper is six weeks on the rock, and a fortnight on
land with his family. The wage is from £50 to £60 a
year, with a stated allowance of bread, beef, butter,
oatmeal, vegetables, and small beer, and fourpence a
day extra for tea. A suit of uniform is also provided
once in three years.

The watches in the light-room are relieved with as
much punctuality as on board a man-of-war — no keeper
being allowed to quit his station until the relief appears,
on pain of immediate dismissal. To insure the strictest
regularity in this respect, a timepiece is placed in the
light-room, and bells are hung in the bedrooms of the
dwelling-houses, which, being connected with the light-

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 183

house by mechanical appliances, can be rung as neces-
sity requires.

At Arbroath, as at other stations, the light-keepers'
dwellings are very neatly built and comfortably ar-
ranged, each with its little garden attached. There
are also suitable storehouses, a room for the master
and crew of the lighthouse tender, and a signal-tower
fifty feet high, on the summit of which is a small
observatory, with an excellent achromatic telescope, a
flag-staff, and a copper signal-ball measuring eighteen
feet in diameter. A similar ball crowns the lighthouse
dome, and by this means daily signals are exchanged
to signify that all is well. Should the ball at the top
fail to be raised, as is the case when particular supplies
are needed, or either of the light-keepers has been
stricken with illness, the tender is immediately de-
spatched with assistance.

Two bells are suspended to the lighthouse balcony,
and in stormy weather are rung every half minute by
the mechanical action of the lighting apparatus.

A curious accident occurred here about ten o'clock
on the night of the 9th of February 1832. A large
herring-gull flew against one of the south-eastern mul-
lions of the light-room with so much violence that two
of the polished glass plates, which each measure about
two feet square and a quarter of an inch thick, were
dashed to atoms and scattered over the floor, to the
great alarm of the keeper on watch, and his two asso-
ciates, who rushed instantly into the light-room. It

184 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

happened, fortunately, that though one of the red-
shaded sides of the reflector-frame was revolving at
the moment, the fragments were so minute that no
injury was done to the valuable red glass. The bird
was found to measure live feet from tip to tip of its
extended wings. A large herring was in its gullet,
and in its throat a piece of plate glass about an inch in
length.

Thrushes and blackbirds are occasionally killed in
winter by dashing against the lantern. The keepers
catch a few fish.

At the entrance to Montrose Harbour a white inter-
mittent light has been shown from Scurdy (or Montrose)
Ness, since February 1870. The want of such a beacon
and sea-mark had long been felt by the seafaring com-
munity. The iron-bound shore between the Bell Rock
and the Girdleness, a stretch of fifty miles, is perhaps
one of the most dangerous parts of the east coast of
Scotland, and has been the scene of numerous ship-
wrecks and great loss of life. At no point within
these limits had so many disasters occurred as at the
entrance to Montrose Harbour, now fortunately pro-
tected by the Ness light. Bounded on the one side by
large outlying, and in some instances hidden, rocks,
and on the other by leagues of sandy shore, whilst
the channel itself is exceedingly narrow, the entrance
to Montrose Harbour is very difficult for navigation,
and especially is it hazardous in stormy weather.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 185

Again, on the north side, and within a very short
distance of the new lighthouse, lies the Annat, a sand-
bank on which many vessels have been wrecked in
attempting to make the harbour. Situated at the
Point, on the southern side of the channel, the
lighthouse commands a fair-weather range of seven-
teen nautical miles. It stands on solid rock ; its
foundation is of granite ; and the shaft or
tower of brick is painted white. From
base to vane the measurement is one j
hundred and twenty - seven feet ; at I
the base, twenty -three feet two inches |
in diameter ; at the top, sixteen feet. 1
A spiral staircase of about one hundred j
and forty steps leads to the top of the I
tower ; the ascent to the light-room and j
lantern is continued by ladders.

Passing Stonehaven, we come to Gir- |
dleness, on the Aberdeen coast, in lat. |
57° 8' 33", where a well-built and hand- f
some tower of stone, with double walls, fe~ tL_Ji~±i~]

one hundred and twenty feet high, was OURDLENESS LIGHT-
HOUSE.
erected by Mr. Robert Stevenson in

1833, at a cost of £12,940, 5s. Id. It shows two fixed
white lights, one seventy feet above the other. In
November 1858 the light on one occasion was suffered
to go out, the keeper falling asleep. He was dismissed
for his breach of duty.

At Buclianness, beyond Port Errol, a light-tower (of

186 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

stone, with double walls), one hundred and fifteen feet
high, was erected by Mr. E. Stevenson in 1827, at a
cost of £11,912, 5s. 6d. As many as fifty-five foggy
days in one year have been noted at this station. The
light here is white, with a five -seconds flash, and
visible seventeen miles.

The lighthouse on Kinnaird Head, the turning-
point of the Moray Firth, originally converted from an
old castle by Thomas Smith, in 1787, was restored in
1851. It has a fixed white light, with red sector.
Govesea Skerries lighthouse, on the shore of the firth,
was erected by Alan Stevenson in 1846, at a cost of
£11,514, 16s.; is one hundred and eighteen feet in
height, built of stone, and equipped with a revolving
light (white and red). At Ghanonry Point, the light-
house, erected by Alan Stevenson in 1546, as a guide
to open up Inverness Firth, is built of stone, and forty-
two feet in height. Cost £3,571, 17s. 2d. Has a fixed
white light, visible eleven miles.

On Gromarty Point may be noticed a lighthouse, by
Alan Stevenson, exactly similar to the one just de-
scribed, and first lighted in the same year. Cost
£3,203, 9s.

Passing the great fishery-centre of Wick, we come in
sight of Noss Head, on the shore of Caithness, in lat.
58° 28' 38". The stone tower here, sixty-eight feet
high, was built by Mr. Alan Stevenson, in 1849, at a
cost of £12,149, 15s. 8d. It displays a revolving white
light, with red sector, at half -minute intervals.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 187

The rocky islets of the Pentland Skerries lie off the
north-east coast of Scotland, in lat. 58° 41' 22". In
1793 the Liverpool ship-owners petitioned the Trinity
House to erect a light upon them, to assist vessels
navigating the Pentland Firth. In the following year
two towers were erected by Mr. Thomas Smith, at a
distance from each other of a hundred feet, which, in
1833, were rebuilt by Mr. Thomas Stevenson. They are
of stone, and respectively one hundred and eighteen
and eighty-eight feet in height from base to vane.
Both display fixed white lights, visible nineteen and
eighteen miles.

At Dunnet Head the Pentland Firth attains its
maximum breadth (about twelve miles). The Head is
an extensive promontory stretching into the firth, and
forming the eastward boundary of Thurso Bay. It
consists of several hills broken up with valleys, but
presenting seaward a boldly irregular front, varying
from one hundred to four hundred feet in height. It
is joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, about
a mile and a half broad. A stone lighthouse, about
sixty-six feet high, was erected by Mr. Robert Steven-
son here in 1831, which exhibits a fixed white light,
visible twenty -four miles. The centre of the lantern is
three hundred and forty-six feet above high-water
mark. Cost of lighthouse, £9,135, 15s. 3d.

The low western boundary of Thurso Bay is called
Holburn Head, in lat. 58° 36' 55", where a light-
tower, fifty-five feet high, was erected in 1862. It

188 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

shows a white light, flashing every ten seconds, with
red sector.

The shores of the Orkneys, celebrated by Sir Wal-
ter Scott in his romance of "The Pirate," are well
lighted: on North Ronaldshay, lat. 59° 23' 15", on
the one hand, and Cantick Head, South Walls Island,
lat. 58° 47' 18", on the other ; and between these ex-
treme points, Gremsay Isle, in Hoy Sound, two lights ;
Auskerry, Stronsay Firth, and Start Point, Sanday
Isle.

A lighthouse was erected by Mr. Thomas Smith on
North Ronaldshay, the northern point of the Orkneys,
in 1789 ; but after an experience of twelve years the
position was thought to have been unfortunately se-
lected; and it was then determined to plant a new
one on Start Point, Sanday, and convert the North
Ronaldshay lighthouse into a beacon. This change,
however, was not welcomed by mariners, and in 1854
the tower was rebuilt by Mr. Alan Stevenson and a
light again set up at North Eonaldshay. The building
is of brick, has double walls, and measures one hun-
dred and thirty-nine feet in height ; cost £12,927, 19s.
4d. ; and exhibits a white light, flashing every ten
seconds, visible eighteen miles.

In 1796 three homeward-bound vessels were lost in
these waters, and eight more in the next three years.
For the better protection of navigation it was then
resolved (1802) that a beacon, or solid tower of masonry,

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 189

should be raised upon Start Point, the eastern ex-
tremity of Sanday Island ; and in 1802, Mr. Robert
Stevenson, the engineer, began the necessary operations.
The foundation stone was laid on the 13th of May, and
in the following September the beacon was completed,
measuring ninety-one feet in height, and terminating
with a solid ball of masonry fifteen feet in circum-
ference. It soon appeared, however, that this was
insufficient to prevent the occurrence of wrecks in
almost as great number as before. It was proverbial
with the inhabitants to observe that, if wrecks were to
happen, they might as well be sent to the poor island
of Sanday as anywhere else. In fact the islanders,
both here and in the archipelago generally, had long
lived upon the proceeds of the wreckage — that melan-
choly harvest of the sea — and the remains of many a
"tall ship" had been to them a source of sustenance
and profit. For example, though quarries are here
very numerous, and the stone specially adapted for the
construction of dikes, yet it was not uncommon to find
enclosures fenced round, even when of considerable
extent, with ship-timbers. A " park " (Anglice, field)
might be seen enclosed with palings of mahogany and
cedar-wood from the wreck of a Honduras-built ship.
In one island it is recorded that a ship laden with wine
having been driven on its shores, the inhabitants took
claret to their barley-meal porridge, instead of their
usual beverage. When Mr. Stevenson complained to
his pilot of the inferior quality of his boat's sails, he

190 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

replied, with grim humour, "Had it been God's will
that you came na here wi' these lights, we might a' had
better sails to our boats, and more o' other things." A
higher rent was given for farms on the coast than they
were really worth, in consideration of the gain that
would probably arise from shipwrecks.

Ultimately the beacon at Start Point was converted
by Mr. Robert Stevenson into a lighthouse, which, on
the 1st of January 1806, was illuminated for the first
time. It shows a fixed red light, visible in fair weather
at a distance of fourteen miles.

On the small, uninhabited island of Auskerry, in
Stronsay Firth, in lat. 59° I' 25", a lighthouse was erected
in 1867. It is built of white brick, and is one hundred
and twelve feet high. The light is white, fixed, and
visible sixteen miles.

Hoy Sound is protected by two lighthouses ; one, a
tower one hundred and eight feet high, on the north-
east point of Gremsay (or Grsemsay) ; the other, two
thousand two hundred and thirty-seven yards distant,
on the north-west point of the same island, thirty-eight
feet high. The former is a red light, fixed, with white
sectors, visible fifteen miles ; the latter, a white light,
fixed, visible twelve miles. Date, 1851. Both are
built of stone, and were designed by Mr. Alan Steven-
son. Cost £15,880, 19s. 7d.

At Cantick Head, on South Walls Island, lat. 58° 47'
18", a light-tower of brick, seventy-three feet high,
was erected in 1838.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 191

We now come to the Shetland group.

At Sumburgh Head, lat. 59° 51' 15", distant about
two hours' sail from Lerwick, and elevated three hun-
dred feet above the sea-level, stands one of Robert
Stevenson's admirably constructed lighthouses, solid and
yet graceful, with its lines telling of beauty as well
as strength. It was built of stone, with double walls,
in 1820-1, at a cost of £10,087, Is. lid., and is fifty-five
feet high ; its white light, fixed, at an elevation of
three hundred feet, has a fair-weather range of twenty-
four miles.

Sumburgh Head is a bold and rocky precipice on
the coast of Fair Island, near the " Fitful Head " de-
scribed by Scott in his "Pirate;" and between this
island and the mainland boils and rages the famous
tideway of "the Roost of Sumburgh," almost impassable
in tempestuous weather. Fatal and frequent wrecks
took place here prior to the erection of the lighthouse.

Our next point, on the east side of the entrance to
Lerwick, is the island of Bressay, separated from the
mainland by Bressay Sound — a great rendezvous of the
English and Dutch herring-boats, and a kind of natural
haven, which has often afforded shelter to our men-of-
war. The lighthouse here is of white brick, fifty -three
feet high, and was erected in 1858 by Messrs. Steven-
son. It shows a revolving light, red and white alter-
nately, at a minute's interval; visible sixteen miles.
Cost £5,163, 7s. 6d.

192 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

On the Out Skerries, about twelve miles north of
Lerwick, in lat. 60° 25' 24", a stone tower, ninety-eight
feet in height, was erected in 1856-8 from Thomas
Stevenson's designs. It exhibits a white light, revolving
at intervals of a minute, and visible eighteen miles.
Cost £21,450, 18s. 2d.

OUT SKERRIES LIGHTHOUSE.

Lastly, on North Unst, the northernmost island of
the Shetland group and of Great Britain, in lat. 60° 31'
59", we find the MucJde Flugga Lighthouse. It is built
of brick, from Messrs. Stevenson's designs, at a cost of
£32,478, 15s. 5d., and situated upon an outlying rock
of conical form, called a " stack," nearly two hundred
feet above the sea-level, and on the north opposes an

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 193

almost precipitous front to the surging seas. On the
south its declivities are less abrupt, but scarcely easier
of access ; and its summit is only wide enough to receive
the foundation of the light-tower. This is a handsome
structure of stone, fifty-four feet high, erected in 1854-8,

NORTH UNST LIGHTHOUSE.

at a cost of £32,478, and contains, besides the lantern-
room, a sleeping-chamber, kitchen, and store-room. At
its base is a semi-circular building, used for supplies of
oil, charcoal, and fresh water. The keepers' residences
are situated on the island of Unst, four miles distant.

(241) 13

194 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Cape Wrath, the north-west turning-point of Scot-
land, in lat. 58° 37' 30" and long. 4° 59' 41", is a bold
and rugged headland, defying the heaving waters of
the Atlantic with rocky steeps and swart perpendicular
cliffs that attain an elevation of three hundred and
three hundred and fifty feet. At their feet the cur-
rents swirl dangerously over a sunken reef, and the
surface of the sea is sprinkled with desolate islets,
varying in size and character, but all repellent and
sterile. Welcome in such a scene is the friendly radi-
ance of the lighthouse — a weather-beaten tower of
granite, erected by Mr. Robert Stevenson in 1838, at a
cost of £13,550, 18s. 9d. It exhibits alternately a bril-
liant red and white light, revolving at a minute's in-
terval, and visible for twenty-seven miles.

We have not left it far behind us before we come
within range of the intermittent flashes of the light
upon Ru Stoer, or South Ear of Ru Stoer, in lat. 58°
14' 10". The tower, of white stone, was erected from
Mr. Thomas Stevenson's designs in 1870, and is forty-
seven feet high. It carries a white light, visible for
sixty seconds, then dark for thirty. The focal plane
is one hundred and ninety-five feet above high- water
mark.

Our cruise now brings us to the west coast, and we
sail in the shadow of the island of South Rona, at the
end of which a brick tower, forty-two feet high, with
keepers' dwellings, was erected by Messrs. Stevenson
in 1857. It exhibits a white light, flashing every

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 195

twelve seconds, and visible twenty -one miles. At
Kyleakin — a name which reminds us of Haco of Nor-
way and his maritime exploits — on the shore of Loch
Alsh, and in lat. 57° 16' 59", was erected — also in 1857,
and by Messrs. Stevenson — a brick lighthouse, seventy
feet high, showing a fixed white light, with red sector,
visible twelve miles. And in November -1857, the
Messrs. Stevenson erected a brick tower, sixty-three
feet high, on Oronsay Island, in Sleat Sound, which
throws a fixed white beam of light over twelve miles
of sea. Cost of South Kona, £5,063, 4s. lOd. ; of Kyle-
akin, £6,210, 19s. ; of Oronsay, £4,527, 17s. 10d., which
is complete in every detail.

Stretching across to the Hebrides, we find them pro-
vided with six lighthouses, besides harbour and pier
lights, for the better guidance of the navigators of
their stormy waters. On the north point of the Butt
of Lewis — Lewis is the northern portion of Long Isl-
and, and in English fiction will not fail to be remem-
bered as the home of Mr. William Black's enchanting
" Princess of Thule " — a stately lighthouse tower, one
hundred and twenty feet high, was erected in 1852.
Its fixed white light can be seen at a distance of nine-
teen miles. On Arnish Point, opening up the approach
to Stornoway, an iron tower, forty-five feet high, was
erected in 1852, from Mr. Alan Stevenson's designs.
It shows a white light, revolving at half -minute inter-
vals ; while a ray from one of its lower windows is, by

196 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

an ingenious arrangement, made to illuminate a glass
prism in a lantern attached to the top of a beacon on
Arnish Reef, some distance out in the bay, and thus to
indicate more clearly the proper channel. The effect
is so good that for a long time the Lewis fishermen
insisted that there was a real light on the beacon.
Cost of lighthouse, £6,380, 19s. 5d.

ARNISH LIGHTHOUSE AND BEACON

At Monach, off the west coast of North Uist, on
Shillay Island, there is a fine light, flashing at intervals
of ten seconds, from a tower one hundred and thirty-
three feet high, erected in 1864 from Mr. Stevenson's
designs. Visible eighteen miles.

There is another at Scalpay, Glass Island, lat. 57
5r 25". The building, one hundred feet in height,
designed by Mr. T. Smith, dates from 1789. The light
is white, fixed, and visible twelve miles.

At Ushenish, on the east side of South Uist, the

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 197

tower is of brick, only thirty-nine feet high. It was
erected in 1857 by Messrs. Stevenson, and in 1885 fur-
nished with a white occulting light, visible eight seconds
and eclipsed for sixteen, which can be sighted at a dis-
tance of eighteen miles. Cost £8,809, 4s. 3d.

There was once upon a time a Highland chieftain, a
M'Neill of Barra, who, after finishing his daily ban-
quet of cod, ling, and cockles, was wont to ascend to
the top of his castle of Chisamil, and in sonorous Gaelic
proclaim : — " Hear, 0 ye people ! and listen, O ye na-
tions ! The great M'Neill of Barra having finished his
dinner, all the princes of the earth are at liberty to
dine ! " Great quantities of cod and other fish are still
caught off the coast of Barra, and for the convenience
of the fishermen, a lighthouse was erected in 1833 on
the southernmost island of the Barra group — Bernera
or Long Island. The cliffs here are exceedingly various
in outline : inclining, perpendicular, projecting ; some
overhang the waters with beetling brows, some are
deeply fissured and broken up into irregular preci-
pices; but all, in the summer months, resound with
the discordant cries of kittiwakes, guillemots, auks, and
puffins. On Barra Head, one of these formidable
crags, is perched the solid stone tower of the light-
house, sixty feet in height, with its lantern six hun-
dred and eighty-three feet above high-water mark.
Designed by Mr. Robert Stevenson; cost £13,087, 13s.
lid. Some twenty years ago it was visited by the late
Dr. William Chambers, as one of the Commissioners of

198 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

the Northern Lights, and he has given a very interest-
ing account of what he saw.

With its surrounding walls and gates, the lighthouse
establishment has, he says, somewhat the aspect of a
fortification. " The whole of the buildings are of a

beautiful white granite, quarried in the island An

interior paved court is environed by the houses of
three keepers ; and passing them, we reach the tower
for the light, with its winding stair, which all imme-
diately ascend. What an outlook from the upper
story down to the sea, which surges seven hundred
feet below ! and what myriads of sea-birds screaming
and fluttering on ledges of this tremendous precipice !
I have seen it stated that these cliffs excel in grandeur
anything of the kind in the Hebrides, and can scarcely
doubt that such is the case. On a projecting point
immediately in front of the lighthouse are the ruins
of an old castle or keep, once the stronghold of some
Hebridean chief. As usual, before departure, we visited
the several houses of the keepers, and in one of them
some information was picked up respecting a water-
mill which had excited our curiosity. This mill is
entirely the handiwork of an ingenious assistant light-
house keeper (a Fife man), who diverted his leisure
hours in its construction. He erected the building,
covered it with a tarpaulin roof, and fabricated the
whole of the grinding apparatus. The most difficult
part of the undertaking was accomplished by adapting
an old cart-wheel. The idea of erecting a mill was

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 199

suggested by the absence from the island of all means
for grinding except by a primitive species of hand-
querns. It turned out to be a grand conception, this
mill. Glad of the opportunity of so easily transforming
their corn into meal, the crofters besought the privilege
of using it, which was of course allowed ; and as money
happens to be a rare article in Bernera, the multure
was arranged on the convenient footing of giving a
lamb for a grist, be the quantity much or little.7'

The next lighthouse to which our rapid survey
brings us is that of SKERRYVOEE (nine miles from Tiree
Island), which, in lighthouse history, occupies a position
of honour like that of the Eddystone, of the Bishop
Rock, or of the Bell Rock. It resembles them in its
isolation — a lonely tower of stone, erect amid the gray
waste of waters ; it resembles them in the beauty of
its form and the harmony of its proportions. The
loftiest light-tower in the world, with the exception of
the TOUT de Cordouan, it is remarkable for the sim-
plicity of its structure, and its combination of all that
science requires of strength and all that art requires
of grace.

The Skerryvore reef is, in its main features, a
counterpart of the Inch Cape or Bell Rock. Curiously
enough, it lies in the same parallel of latitude (56° 19'
22"), and occupies on the west coast of Scotland a
position almost identical with that of the Bell Rock
on the east. Nor was it less dangerous or fatal to the

200 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

mariner, but yearly exacted its tribute of wrecked
vessels and precious lives. A few minutes accom-
plished the destruction of any unfortunate ship driven
against its formidable rocks, and her shattered timbers
were quickly borne onward by the ocean currents to
the fishermen of the island of Tiree. This remarkable
survival or product of remote volcanic convulsions was
not, however, totally submerged ; some of its higher
points rose above the level of the highest tides. But
it extended its foundations over a considerable area;
and even in the summer season it formed a constant
obstruction and source of danger in the difficult channel
between the mainland and the Outer Hebrides.

For various reasons the attention of the Commis-
sioners of Northern Lights had been early directed to
this formidable reef, and in 1814 they had determined
to mark its locality by the erection of a lighthouse.
It was visited in this same year by some of the mem-
bers of the Commission, accompanied by one whose
name alone is sufficient to render the visit ever memor-
able— Sir Walter Scott. He was much struck with the
desolateness of the situation, which he thought infinitely
surpassed that of the Bell Rock or the Eddystone.

Owing, perhaps, to the difficulty of the enterprise, it
was deferred until the autumn of 1834, when Mr. Alan
Stevenson was authorized to commence a preliminary
inspection, which he did not complete until 1835. This
difficulty proceeded not only from the position but
from the nature of the reef itself.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 201

It is true that the distance from the mainland was
three miles less in the case of Skerryvore than in that
of the Bell Kock ; but the barren and over-populated
island of Tiree did not offer the resources of the
eastern coast, nor a safe and commodious port like that
of Arbroath. The engineers were therefore compelled
to erect, at the nearest and most favourable point of
Tiree, a quay and a small harbour, with temporary
cabins for the workmen, and store-houses of every
kind ; all whose materials, excepting only stone — and
even the supply of that failed after a while — required
to be transported from distant parts.

The first and most embarrassing, perhaps, of the
numerous questions which present themselves to the
engineer when entering upon the construction of a
lighthouse, are those of the height and the mass. In
the days of Smeaton, when the best light in use was
that of common candles, the elevation beyond a certain
point could not be of any utility ; while in 1835 the
application of the reflector and the lens, by assisting in
the extension and diffusion of the light, rendered, on
the contrary, a considerable elevation both necessary
and desirable.

It was therefore decided that the height of the Skerry-
vore lighthouse should be one hundred and thirty -five
feet above the highest tides, so as to command a hori-
zon visible for a radius of eighteen miles. The diameter
of the base was fixed at forty-two feet, and that of the
topmost story at sixteen feet ; consequently the masonry

202 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

of the tower would be double that of the Bell Rock,
and four and a half times that of the Eddystone.

Another peculiarity distinguishes the Skerryvore
from the Bell Rock. The sandstone of the latter is
wave-worn, and broken up into a thousand rugged
inequalities; the action of the sea on the igneous
formation on the Skerryvore has, on the contrary,
communicated to it the appearance and polish of a
mass of dark-coloured crystal. It is so compact and
smooth that the foreman of the masons, when he
landed on it, said it was like climbing up the neck
of a bottle. Moreover, notwithstanding its durability,
the gneiss of Skerryvore is excavated into caverns
which considerably limit the area adapted for building
operations. One of these caverns, we are told, termin-
ates in a narrow spherical chamber, with an upper
opening, through which, from time to time, springs a
bright, luminous shaft of water, twenty feet high, and
white as snow, except when the sun wreathes it with
a thousand rainbows.

Mr. Alan Stevenson began actual operations in 1838
by the erection of a provisional barrack upon piles,
at such a height as to be beyond the reach of all
average tides. This was designed to shelter the men
at night, saving them the voyage to and from the
mainland, and also to accommodate them when their
work was suspended by bad weather. The first erec-
tion was swept away in a great gale on the night of

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 203

November 3; but happily the labours of the season
were then ended, and there were no occupants. On
this occasion the grind -stone was deposited in a hole
thirty-six feet deep; the iron anvil was transported
thirteen yards from the place where it had been left ;
the iron stanchions were bent and twisted like cork-
screws ; and, finally, a stone weighing half a hundred-
weight, lying at the bottom of an excavation, was
carried to the highest surface of the rock.

Conquering all feelings of discouragement, Mr.
Stevenson, in the following year, renewed his opera-
tions. A second barrack was completed by the 3rd of
September. It was built of timber, and consisted of
three stories : the first was appropriated as a kitchen ;
the second was divided into two cabins, one for the en-
gineer and one for the master of the works ; and the
third belonged to the thirty workmen engaged in the
erection of the lighthouse.

A more remarkable habitation than this was never
dwelt in by human beings. It was an oasis in a wide
waste of waters — a rude asylum suspended between
sea and sky. Perched forty feet above the wave-
beaten crag, Mr. Stevenson, with a goodly company of
thirty men, in this singular abode, spent many a weary
day and night at those times when the sea prevented
a descent to the rock ; anxiously looking for supplies
from the shore, and earnestly longing for a change of
weather favourable to the recommencement of the

204 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

works. For miles around nothing could be seen but
white foaming breakers, and nothing heard but howl-
ing winds and lashing waves.

In the erection of the lighthouse itself, the first im-
portant operation, and one which occupied the whole
of the season of 1839 — from the 6th of May to the
30th of September — was the excavation of a suitable
foundation. When building the Eddystone, Mr.
Smeaton had been compelled to take into consideration
the peculiar structure of the rock, and to adapt his
lower courses of masonry, as we have seen, to a series
of gradually ascending terraces formed by the suc-
cessive ledges of the rock itself. This difficult and
expensive process was rendered unnecessary by the
geodesical formation of the Skerryvore. Mr. Steven-
son, therefore, began work by hollowing out a base of
forty feet in diameter — the largest area he could ob-
tain without any change of level. This portion of his
enterprise occupied twenty men for two hundred and
seventeen days; two hundred and ninety-six charges
of gunpowder were made use of; and two thousand
tons of debris and refuse were cast into the sea. The
mining or blasting operations were not carried on
without great difficulty, on account of the absence of
any shelter for the miners, who were unable to retire
more than ten or twelve paces, at the farthest, from
the spot where the charge was fired. The quantities
of gunpowder, therefore, were measured with the

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 205

utmost nicety ; a few grains too many, and the whole
company of engineers and workmen would have been
blown into the air. Mr. Stevenson himself generally
fired the train, or it was done under his superintend-
ence and in his presence; and from the precautions
suggested by his skill and prudence, happily no acci-
dent occurred.

During the first month of their residence in the
barrack, he informs us* that he and his men suffered
much inconvenience from the inundation of their
apartments. On one occasion, moreover, they were a
fortnight without receiving any communication from
the mainland, or from the steam-tug attached to the
works ; and during the greater part of this time they
saw nothing but white plains of foam spreading as far
as the eye could reach, and the only sounds were the
whistling of the wind and the thunderous roar of the
billows, which ever and anon swelled into such a
tumult that it was almost impossible to hear one
another speak. We may well conceive that a scene so
awful, with the ruins of their first barrack lying within
a few feet of them, was calculated to fill their minds
with the most discouraging apprehensions. Mr. Steven
son records, in simple but graphic language, the in-
definite sensations of terror with which he was aroused
one night when a tremendous wave broke against the
timber structure, and all the occupants of the chamber
beneath him involuntarily uttered a terrible cry.

* A. Stevenson, "Account of the Skerry vore Lighthouse," p. 143.

206 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

They sprang from their beds in the conviction that
the whole building had been precipitated to the depths
of ocean.

Up to the 20th of June no materials had been landed
on the rock but iron and timber. Next arrived the
great stones, all ready cut and hewn, and weighing
not less than eight hundred tons. But the disem-
barkation of these very essential supplies entailed
serious risks, which were renewed with every block,
for the loss of a single one would have delayed the
works. At length the foundation-stone was fixed in
its place ; the Duke of Argyll presiding over the cere-
mony, accompanied by his duchess, his daughter, and
a numerous retinue.

The summer of 1840 was a summer of tempests.
Nevertheless, in the midst of incessant fears, and
dangers, and wearying accidents, and every kind of
privation, the devoted band of workers prosecuted
their noble enterprise ; and such, says Mr. Stevenson,
was their profound sense of duty — such the desire of
every one that full and complete success should crown
their efforts — that not a man expressed a wish to
retreat from the battle-field where he was exposed to
so many enemies.

The day's occupations were thus divided. At half-
past three in the morning they were awakened, and
from four o'clock to eight they laboured without a
pause ; at eight they were allowed half-an-hour for

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 207

dinner. Work was then resumed, and continued for
seven or eight, or, if it were very urgent, even for
nine hours. Next came supper, which was eaten
leisurely and comfortably in the cool of the evening.
This prolonged toil produced a continual sleepiness, so
that those who stood still for any time invariably fell
off into a profound slumber ; which, adds Mr. Steven-
son, frequently happened to himself during breakfast
and dinner. Several times also he woke up, pen in
hand, with a word begun on the page of his diary.
Life, however, on the desert rock of the Skerryvore
seems not to have been without its peculiar pleasures.
The grandeur of ocean's angry outbursts — the hoarse
murmur of the waters — the shrill harsh cries of the
sea-birds which incessantly hovered round them — the
splendour of a sea polished like a mirror — the glory of
a cloudless sky — the solemn silence of azure nights,
sometimes sown thick with stars, sometimes illumin-
ated by the full moon — were scenes of a panorama as
novel as it was wonderful, which could not fail to
awaken serious thought even in the dullest and most
indifferent minds. Consider, too — when we think of
Mr. Stevenson and his devoted company — the continual
emotions which they experienced of hope and anxiety ;
the necessity, on the part of their leader, of incessant
watchfulness, and of readiness of resource to grapple
with every difficulty; the gratification with which
each man regarded the gradual growth, under his
laborious hands, of a noble and beneficent work, — and

208 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

we think the reader will admit that life upon the
Skerryvore, if it had its troubles and its perils, was
not without its rewards and happiness.

In July 1841 the masonry had been carried to an
elevation which rendered impossible the further em-
ployment of the stationary crane. As a substitute the
balance crane was introduced — that beautiful machine,
invented at the Bell Rock, which rises simultaneously
with the edifice it assists to raise.

Thanks to this new auxiliary, the mass of masonry
completed in the season of 1841 amounted to thirty
thousand cubic feet, more than double the mass of the
Eddystone, and exceeding that of the Bell Rock light-
house. Such was the delicate precision observed in
the previous shaping and fitting of the stones, that
after they had been regularly fixed in their respective
places, the diameter of each course did not vary one-
sixth of an inch from the prescribed dimensions, and
the height was only one inch more than had been
determined by the architect in his previous calcu-
lations.

On the 21st of July 1842, the steamer saluted with its
one gun the disembarkation of the last cargo of stones
intended for the lighthouse. On the 10th of August
the lantern arrived, which was hauled up to its posi-
tion and duly fixed, a temporary shelter from the
weather being also erected for it.

The summer of 1843 was devoted to pointing the

SKERRYVORE LIGHTHOUSE.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 211

external masonry — a wearisome operation, conducted
by means of suspended scaffolds — and to the com-
pletion of the internal arrangements. And at length,
on the 1st of February 1844, the welcome light of the
Skerryvore pharos blazed across the waters of the
stormy sea.

The light exhibited here is a white light, revolving
at one-minute intervals, and distributing its radiance
over an area of eighteen miles.

In 1859 the Skerryvore was visited by the members
of a Royal Commission. They speak of it as the finest
building they had seen, and proceed to furnish some
minute particulars. The landing, they say, is by an iron
ladder, and iron ways are fixed in the rock from the
landing-place to the foot of the building, which have
withstood the sea, and enable the keepers and persons
bringing stores to move about the rock with com-
parative ease. The ascent to the door is by a gun-
metal ladder.

The first story of the lighthouse contains water-tanks
for one thousand three hundred gallons; the second,
coal-bunkers for thirteen tons; the third is a work-
shop, used for carpentering and other avocations. The
fourth story is a store-room ; the fifth, a kitchen ; the
sixth and seventh are used for bedrooms; the eighth is a
library ; the ninth, an oil-store, containing one thousand
and thirty-eight gallons; and the lantern forms the
tenth. The bedrooms are divided into two cabins
each ; a lamp fixed outside gives light to each through

212 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

windows. The cabins are fitted with oak, and have
large looking-glasses a foot square set in panels. The
library is well furnished with handsome chairs. The
lantern, which is very lofty, is surrounded by a gallery
with gun-metal rail ; a dial is set up on the outside.
" The illuminating apparatus is revolving, fixed prisms
below, eight panels of lenses revolving, and eight
smaller panels also revolving above, to concentrate the
upper rays ; these are thrown on eight plane mirrors,
which deflect them to the horizon parallel to the rest
of the beam. The light is, therefore, a fixed light of
low power, varied by strong revolving flashes. The
lamp has four wicks, and is worked by pumps which
ring a small bell while in action. The lamp machinery
is wound up every hour and a half, and the keepers
wind the revolving machinery at the same time, though
it will go for three hours. The oil is hoisted up to the
top of the tower by a movable crane, the water pumped
up by a force-pump. All the rooms have bell-signals,
worked by blowing tubes, so that the keepers can call
each other without leaving the lantern.'

A couple of fog-bells ring every minute*, but cannot
be heard at any great distance. The keepers here
occasionally catch a few fish, such as small cod and
rockfish. Occasionally a seal makes its appearance,
in which case the fish beat a rapid retreat. The birds
that commit suicide by dashing against the lantern
panes are blackbirds, thrushes, starlings, and once a
woodcock ; but the number is small.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 213

In 1866 the Commissioners of Northern Lights vis-
ited the Skerryvore. One of them was the late Dr.
William Chambers, at the time Lord Provost of Edin-
burgh, and it occurred to him to put on record the
details of this visit. On stepping ashore, they saw
before them a pathway of ribbed iron riveted to the
rock, and painted red, which enabled them to reach
without much difficulty the foot of the tower. Here,
on looking around, they perceived at least an acre of
rocks in detached masses visible above the water, with
a limited smooth space for walking about on all sides
of the building. Dry, and free from marine plants,
the higher part of the ledge is about fifteen to eighteen
feet above the sea-level, and, except in very stormy
weather, the rocks adjoining the lighthouse, and cer-
tain outlying patches, are never entirely covered.

Let us ascend to the interior. Climbing hand-over-
hand up a weather-stained brass ladder attached to the
side of the tower, we reach the doorway in the sub-
stantial wall, and find ourselves in what may be styled
the ground-floor of the building. Stone is above,
below, and around us, for, to prevent all risk of fire,
neither ceiling nor floor shows any trace of woodwork.
A step-ladder, bent to the interior curve, enables us, by
clutching to a brass rail, to reach the next story above ;
and so on until we reach the top. In the construction
of the stone floor, which is repeated in each story,
there is much to admire. It consists of an arch, but
not of the ordinary kind. From the walls around flat

214 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

stones are projected and jointed into one central stone,
the whole forming a compact mass, level on the top for
the floor of one chamber, and slightly curved on the
under for the ceiling of the chamber below. These
flat stone arches, in which openings are left for the
ladders, probably assist to strengthen the general fabric.
The lower stories are used for stores of coal, fresh
water, provisions, and other articles. Above are the
sitting and sleeping rooms, lighted by windows, and
fitted up with furnishings of oak.

Here, as elsewhere, the arrangement is for the
keepers to watch four hours alternately, and on no
account whatever is one to leave until another takes
his place. The watcher can readily communicate with
the next man on duty by blowing through a small
tube in the wall, and thus setting a bell in motion.
Stationed in the topmost chamber, the keeper has
overhead the great blaze of light thrown out by the
central lamp, which, according to the dioptric method,
shines through annular lenses; beside him, in the
centre of the apartment, is the mechanism, in the form
of clock-work, by which the frame of lenses revolves,
and causes an alternation of darkness and a bright
burst of light every minute.

"As the weather had partially cleared," says Dr.
Chambers, " we had a pretty extensive view over the
waste of waters from the balcony. The only visible
land was that of Tiree at Hynish, with its signal-
tower. I was interested in knowing the method of

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 215

intercourse by signals. Every morning, between nine
and ten o'clock, a ball is to be hoisted at the lighthouse
to signify that all is well at the Skerryvore. Should
this signal fail to be given, a ball is raised at Hynish
to inquire if anything is wrong. Should no reply be
made by the hoisting of the ball, the schooner, hurried
from its wet-dock, is put to sea, and steers for the
lighthouse. Three men are constantly on the rock,
where each remains six weeks, and then has a fort-
night on shore : the shift, which is made at low water
of spring-tides, occurs for each in succession, and is
managed without difficulty by means of the fourth or
spare keeper at Hynish, who takes his regular turn of
duty. According to these arrangements, the keepers
of the Skerryvore are about nine months on the rock,
and about three months with their families every year.
But this regularity may be deranged by the weather.
One of the keepers told me that last winter he was
confined to the rock for thirteen weeks, in consequence
of the troubled state of the sea preventing personal
communication with the shore. I inquired how high
the waves washed up the sides of the tower during the
most severe storms, and was told that they sometimes
rose as high as the first window, or about sixty feet
above the level of the rocks ; yet, that even in these
frightful tumults of winds and waves the building
never shook, and no apprehension of danger was enter-
tained.

" When the weather is fine, the keepers are not by

216 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

any means confined to the building. They may
straggle about among the gullies, enjoy the fresh air,
and amuse themselves by angling for the smaller kinds
of white-fish, any catch of this sort imparting a little
relish to the monotony of the daily fare. The visits
of seals, which are occasionally seen frisking in the
surf, also furnish some amusement, and one can fancy
that, to a student of natural history, life at the Skerry-
vore might furnish some useful memoranda. The
keepers do not complain of solitude ; the obligations of
professional duty, and the periodical return to their
families at Hynish, where in fine weather they occupy
themselves with their gardens, help materially to
banish the sense of loneliness. Besides, as we observed
from the visitors' book, yachting parties sometimes
land on the rock and ascend to the top of the light-
house, perhaps leaving behind them the acceptable gift
of a few newspapers, to show what is going on in the
outer world."

The total cost of construction of the Skerryvore
lighthouse was £86,977, 17s. 7d.

The next lighthouse which we encounter, that on
the Dhu-heartach Roclts, has also an interesting history.

The Dhu-heartach, Dubh Artach, or St. John's Rock,
is situated in lat. 56° 8', about midway between the
Skerryvore and the Rhinns of Islay — that is, about
twenty miles from Islay, eighteen miles from Colonsay,
fifteen miles from lona, and fifteen miles from Mull —

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 217

in the centre of an archipelago which ancient legend
and ecclesiastical history and modern romance have
combined to invest with precious associations. Geo-
logically speaking, it is an irregular mass of the dark-
green basaltic or pyroxene rock known as augite ; and
it measures two hundred and forty feet in length by
forty-three feet in breadth, with a rounded summit
rising forty-seven feet above high-water mark. Its
surface is deeply furrowed in all directions, and is
almost entirely bare of vegetation. There is neither
cove nor creek in which a boat can be moored, and its
black walls on every side start up sheer from the sea.
These walls are solid with an almost impenetrable
solidity ; and need be so, for the Atlantic spends its
full and unchecked violence upon them. It is difficult
of approach even in fair weather; while in times of
storm it is inaccessible, the ocean sweeping over it
with great tracts of foam, with a fury intensified by
the conflicting currents which pour through the island-
channels of the Hebrides.

During the severe gales of the winter of 1865-6 many
ships were lost in this dangerous neighbourhood, where
the sea is literally honeycombed with sunken rocks and
hidden reefs ; and the Commissioners of the Northern
Lighthouses, with the sanction of the Board of Trade
and the Trinity House, resolved to plant a warning and
a guiding light on the Dhu-heartach. The work was
intrusted to Messrs. D. and T. Stevenson of Edinburgh,
who estimated the cost at £56,900. In form it is a

218 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

" parabolic frustum," the topmost course of which rises
one hundred and nine feet above the base. The di-
ameter diminishes, as it ascends, from thirty-six feet
to sixteen feet. There are seven stories besides the
light-room. The total height of the lantern above the
sea is one hundred and forty-five feet, commanding a
range of about seventeen miles. It shows a fixed
white light, with a red sector. In foggy weather a
bell is rung for ten seconds at intervals of half a
minute.

We gather some noteworthy particulars from Mr. Scott
Dalgleish's graphic account in The Times of a visit he
paid to the Dhu-heartach in September 1881. " If it be
true," he says, " that lighthouse-building involves hero-
ism and self-sacrifice, it is no less true that lighthouse-
keeping requires the exercise of the same rare qualities
in a degree hardly less striking. Not only our lighthouse
men, but also those whose duty it is to supply them
with the means of subsistence and of discharging their
important duties, at all occasions and in all weathers,
deserve well of the country, especially of a maritime
nation like Great Britain, which depends so largely for
its livelihood on those who go down to the sea in

ships As we approached the lighthouse, we could

see the keepers at work on the lee-side getting ready
the derrick by which we were to be landed. Up to
this time it had been doubtful — so said both the cap-
tain and the mate — whether the sea would be calm
enough ; but when we got under the lee of the island,

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 219

we were assured that landing was quite practicable,
though to our unaccustomed eyes the lumpy sea break-
ing in white waves on the rock did not promise much
comfort. When we were within a furlong of the
island the little steamer dropped anchor. The long-
boat was launched, manned by four sailors, and steered
by Captain Irving himself, and in this we were rowed
to the south-eastern end of the rock. The process of
landing is interesting, though when experienced for
the first time it must appear rather sensational to those
of weak nerves. The boat is not allowed to touch the
rock. It is anchored by a long line stretching sea-
wards, so as to allow its stern to swing within ten or
twelve feet of the rock. The boat is kept in position
under the derrick by two stern lines attached to the
rock. The derrick consists simply of a spar, which is
rigged up by the lighthouse-keepers as often as it is
required, and from which a stout rope working in a
double pulley is suspended. When the boat is in posi-
tion, the rope, which has a loop at the end of it, is
dropped into the stern. You put one foot into the
loop, hold tightly to the rope with both hands below
the block, and are first hoisted into the air and then
pulled downwards to the rock. There you are clasped
in the strong arms of one of the keepers ; and before
you are released from the friendly grip, you are re-
assured by a kindly voice bidding you 'Welcome to
Dhu-heartach ! '

" The view of the lighthouse from the rock is totally

220 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

different from that obtained of it from the sea at a
distance of a mile. In the latter view you take in at
once all its proportions ; and while the frustum which
forms its base is, perhaps, too broad to give the notion
of elegance, the upper part stands out from the sky as
a slender and graceful shaft. When you see the light-
house from the rock on which it stands you lose the
general outline ; you see only the massive details, and
the one idea impressed on the mind is that of tre-
mendous strength. This idea is intensified when you
walk round the granite cone, which seems as immov-
able as the rock in which it is securely embedded. The
diameter at the base is thirty-six feet, and for the first
thirty courses the cone consists of blocks of granite
dovetailed and 'joggled' into a solid mass. The top-
most course of masonry, where the diameter is only
sixteen feet, is one hundred and nine feet above the
base, and on that rests the cupola or lantern in which

the light is enclosed Around the lantern there is an

open gallery, formed by a strong iron railing, from
which magnificent views are obtained of the sea and
the distant islands. Below the light-room there are
six apartments, each occupying a story. The lowest
story is about forty feet above the rock, and access to
it is obtained by an outside ladder of gun-metal steps
fixed in the granite wall. The ascent of this ladder is
even more trying to weak nerves than the process of
landing, or being landed, on the rock with the derrick.
Safety lies in keeping a firm hold with hands and feet,

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 221

and looking upwards rather than downwards. When
you have made the ascent, you are in the coal and
water store. You look around for a minute or two to
realize your situation, and then you mount by a steep
and narrow flight of oaken steps to the oil -store.
There is nothing to detain you there; so you ascend
by another wooden staircase to the kitchen— a trim
little room, with a neat close range on which a copper
kettle simmers, several cupboards, a table and chairs,
a carpenter's bench hung from one side, and two plate-
glass windows set deeply in the granite wall. Above
that, and reached in the same way, is the dry-store, in
which the provisions are kept. Above that, and still
smaller — for, of course, the area contracts as we ascend
— is the sleeping-room, in which there are six berths,
arranged in two tiers of three in each. Above is the
library — a pleasant little sitting-room, furnished with
cupboards filled with books and periodicals, and with
cheerful outlooks seawards. Above the library is the
lantern or light-room, which is in some respects the
most interesting apartment in the building. From the
topmost course of granite masonry, which is here two
feet thick, rises a circular glass-house, consisting of
large diamond-shaped lunettes of plate-glass fixed in
metal frames. Within this is the lantern proper, which
is a fixed, circular white light, consisting of convex
lenses and prisms arranged on the dioptric principle.
The light appears as a white light all round, except on
the south-east, where there is a red sector, produced,

222 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

not by any change in the lantern itself, but by the
outer wall of the cupola being filled in with red glass.
At present, the red light, as well as the white light, is
stationary ; but it has been resolved to make the red a

flashing light Between the paraffin lamp and the

dioptric lenses which surround it five men could stand
with ease. Connected with the machinery which sup-
plies the lamp with oil there is a small bell, which
rings every second ' while the lamp holds on to burn,'
and stops as soon as the supply of oil fails. This con
trivance is designed to prevent the attendant watcher
from falling asleep. At first the bell was made to ring
when the lamp went out ; but it was thought that, if
the lamp went out, the tinkling of a small bell in the
midst of the storm might fail to awaken him, and, on the
principle that prevention is better than cure, the pres-
ent arrangement was devised. Even if the watch fell
asleep while the bell was ringing, its stopping would
in all probability awaken him. There is not much
likelihood, however, of the arrangement being sub-
jected to this test. There are always three men in the
lighthouse, and as during the night each of them
watches for three hours in the lamp-room, each of
them may also rest for six. One of the most import-
ant and laborious of the watcher's duties, at least in
foggy weather, is to attend to the machinery connected
with the fog-bell — a large and powerful bell suspended
in the gallery outside the lighthouse on the level of the
lamp-room. Its purpose is to appeal to seafaring wan-

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 223

derers through the sense of hearing when the light is
hidden from their view. The bell rings for ten seconds
at a time, with intervals of thirty seconds. The ma-
chinery on which its action depends requires to be
wound up every twenty minutes. This makes constant
demands on the attention, and also on the physical
powers, of the attendant, for the weight to be raised is
heavy, and there is hardly sufficient room in the lan-
tern to turn the winch."

We now arrive at Ardnamurchan Point — that is,
" the Point of the Great Seas " — a bold promontory in
Argyllshire, and the westernmost headland on the
Scottish coast, forming the northern boundary of
the mouth of Loch Sunart. The tall white tower of
granite, erected here in 1849 by Mr. Alan Stevenson,
measures one hundred and eighteen feet from base to
summit, and carries a fixed white light (one hundred
and eighty feet above the sea), which extends its pro-
tection over six leagues of rolling waters. Off this
point the sea is always heavy. Cost £13,738, Os. lOd.

The Sound of Mull has its guiding light on the
Runa Gall Mock, in lat. 56° 38'— a mass of columnar
basalt containing agates. The lighthouse, sixty-three
feet high, built of brick and whitened with stone
mouldings, dates from 1857, and was designed by
Messrs. Stevenson. It carries a dioptric holophotal
light, fixed, red, to seaward, to distinguish it from the

224 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND,

neighbouring light of Ardnamurchan, green towards
the opposite shore, and white towards the Sound of
Mull. The keepers here are well lodged; and the
tower is furnished with the usual instruments — clock,
dial, telescope, barometer, thermometer, rain-gauge,
lightning-conductor. Cost £6,277, 15s. 7d.

At Mousedale Island, off' the coast of Lismore, in
lat. 56° 27' 19", we find a light-tower of stone, eighty-
six feet high, erected by Mr. R. Stevenson in 1833,
which exhibits a fixed white light, visible at a distance
of sixteen miles. Cost £11,299, 10s. 5d.

Thence we stretch across to Corran Point, in lat.
56° 43' 16", where Loch Eil branches from Loch
Linnhe, and find there a lighthouse on a smaller
scale, erected in 1860. Its height is forty-two feet.
It carries a fixed red light, with a white sector,
which can be sighted by the mariner within eleven
miles.

Fladda Island lies off the Argyllshire coast, be-
tween Oban and the mouth of the Crinan Canal, at
the north end of Suerba Sound. The lighthouse here

aids the navigation of the channel of the Dorisht-mhor,
or Great Gate, between Craignish Point and the main-
land. It is forty-two feet in height, and was erected
in 1860. Shows a fixed white light, with a red sector,
and can be seen eleven miles off.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 225

In the Sound of Jura lies the Skeir Maoile or Iron
Rock (lat. 55° 52' 30")— almost in the same parallel as
the St. Abb's Head Lighthouse, on the east coast —
where the Chevalier steamer was lost about thirty
years ago. It had long been a dangerous obstacle to
the navigation of these waters ; but the erection of a
lighthouse upon it, though much desired by ship-
owners and seamen, was delayed until 1865, when the
present handsome edifice, eighty-three feet in height,
was built at a cost of about £10,000. It shows a white
light, revolving every thirty seconds, and visible four-
teen miles.

We next arrive at Islay Island, where a lighthouse
was erected at Rhu Vaal or Rudha Mhail in 1859.
It is an exceedingly handsome structure of brick, was
designed by Mr. Stevenson, and measures one hundred
and thirteen feet in height from base to vane. Its light,
white and fixed, with red sector, shows over the outer
end of Oronsay for a considerable distance from the
point. It opens up the northern entrance to the Sound
of Islay, and is also serviceable for the navigation of
the channel between Oronsay and Colonsay. Cost
£7,437, 4s. 9d.

But for the better lighting of an admittedly danger-
ous stretch of sea, a lighthouse, two years later, was
set up at the south end of Islay Sound, on the summit
of Macarthur Head, lat. 55° 45' 50". The building is
forty-two feet high — the centre of the lantern one

(241) 15

226 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

hundred and twenty-eight feet above high-water mark
— and it exhibits a fixed white light, with a red sector,
the fair-weather range of which is eighteen miles.

In 1825 a first-class lighthouse, ninety-six feet in
elevation, and built of stone, was raised by Mr. Eobert
Stevenson, on Oversay Island, in the Rhinns of Islay,
lat. 55° 40' 20". The lantern has twenty-five reflectors,
revolving, showing a flash from these reflectors every
five seconds, which travels over eighteen miles. The
oil burned is colza, and it is stored in a cellar under-
ground, being admitted into the interior through a
tube, with every precaution for safety. Cost £8,056,
6s. 5d.

On Dun Point, in Loch-in-Dail, is shown a fixed light,
with white and red sectors ; and there is a square tower,
sixty feet high, dating from 1853, at Carraig Pladda
point, on the west of the entrance to Port Ellen. It
shows a fixed red light. The Mull of Cantyre, the
south-west headland of the peninsula of Cantyre, has
been lighted since 1787. The stone tower, designed by
Smith, is thirty-eight feet high, and the lantern is two
hundred and ninety-seven feet above high water. The
light, a fixed white light, is visible twenty -four miles.
This is a fog-siren station.

On the Ship Rock of Sanda, in lat. 55° 16' 30",
a stone lighthouse, forty-eight feet high, was erected
in 1850 by Mr. Alan Stevenson, at a cost of £11,931,
10s. 2d. It shows a white occulting light, visible

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 227

for eight seconds, and then dark for sixteen, with a
fair-weather range of eighteen miles. A fog-siren is
in use here.

We are now making for the mouth of the Clyde, and
are guided onward by the Davar and Pladda lights.
On Davar Island, in lat. 55° 25' 45", a tower of granite,

SHIP ROCK OF SANDA LIGHTHOUSE.

with an elevation of sixty -five feet, was erected in 1854.
It exhibits a white light, revolving at half -minute in-
tervals, and visible for seventeen miles. Two lights are
shown on the little islet of Pladda, off the south-east
point of Arran. One of the lighthouses is no less than
ninety-five feet high ; the other, forty-three feet high ;
both first lighted in 1790. They were designed by Mr.

228 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Thomas Smith, and built of stone. Both lights are
white and fixed ; the higher can be seen at seventeen
miles, and the lower at fourteen miles, according to the
direction in which ships are approaching. A fog-horn
is sounded here in thick weather.

The Clyde is, as a matter of course, well lighted, and
has besides a very full and skilful system of beacons
and buoys. We shall run up it only as far as the
Clock — a lighthouse with which river-excursionists and
West Highland tourists are perfectly familiar. This
shapely white tower (of freestone), eighty feet high,
and elevated seventy-six feet above high water, stands
upon Cloch or Clough Point, just opposite Dunoon, in
lat. 55° 56' 35", and was erected in 1797. Its fixed white
light is visible seven miles down the river. A couple
of steam- whistles of different pitch are used as a fog-
signal, giving a blast every seven and a half seconds.

There is also a lighthouse on Toward Point, where
the Clyde runs into the picturesque winding channel
of the Kyles of Bute. Built in 1812 from Mr. R.
Stevenson's designs; is of freestone, with inner and outer
walls, and has keepers' dwellings adjacent ; is close to
the village of Innellan. From its position, its inmates
are not exposed to any of the perils which environ such
stations as the Eddystone or the Bell Rock, though they
sometimes get a pretty stiff gale about their ears. The
tower is sixty -three feet high, with a brilliant white light,
flashing every ten seconds, and visible fourteen miles.

Nearer the river-mouth, and between the island of

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 229

Bute and the Ayrshire coast (below Largs), lie the
rocky masses of the two Cumbrae Islands — Great and
Little Cumbrae. There is a lighthouse on the west
coast of the latter. A coal-fire in a chauifer was main-
tained on the highest point of this island contempor-
aneously with that on the Isle of May, and in 1750
was replaced by a lighthouse, a circular tower about
thirty feet high. From its situation it was, however,
so frequently hidden in fog and mist as to be of im-
perfect utility to mariners ; and in 1757 a new building
was erected (repaired in 1829 and 1836) in its present
position on the west side of the little island. This is
only thirty -nine feet in height, and ungraced by any
architectural beauty. The lantern, which rises one
hundred and fifteen feet above high -water mark, is
equipped with a fixed white light, visible sixteen miles
in clear weather. A fog-trumpet emits blasts of five
seconds' duration, with intervals of eighteen to twenty
seconds between each.

Leaving the Clyde estuary, and continuing our coast
survey, we steam past the lights of Ardrossan, Irvine,
Troon, and Ayr harbours, and arrive oft' Turnberry Point,
a headland on the bold and rocky coast of Carrick. You
can see the gray, mouldering ruins of Turnberry Castle,
the seat of the powerful Lords of Carrick during the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the famous old fortalice

" Where Brace once ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear."

230 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND,

A lighthouse of white brick, sixty-four feet in height,
was erected here in 1873, which exhibits a white light,
flashing every twelve seconds, and visible for fifteen
miles.

From this point we obtain a fine view of the conical
mass of Ailsa Craig, which lies off the mouth of the
Firth of Clyde, between the coasts of Ayrshire and
Cantyre, in lat. 55° 15' 10" and long. 5° 6' 15". This
island-mountain of columnar syenitic trap shoots up to
an elevation of four hundred feet, from a base of three
thousand three hundred feet by two thousand two
hundred feet. Its formation is distinctly columnar,
especially on the western side, where it rises sheer
from the sea. It is inhabited by a few rabbits and
goats, and by thousands of solan-geese, puffins, cormor-
ants, auks, and gulls. On the east side of this " craggy
ocean pyramid," and on a low projecting spit, a light-
house tower, thirty-six feet high, and about sixty feet
above high-water mark, was erected in 1886. It shows
a white light, flashing in quick succession for fifteen
seconds, and then eclipsed for as many. At the south
end of the island a fog -siren is sounded in foggy
weather, giving three blasts in rapid succession every
three minutes; while at the north end another siren
gives a five-seconds blast every three minutes. These
two signals are so arranged as to begin to sound about
one minute and a half after each other.

On Cairnryan Point, at the mouth of Loch Ryan
— an arm of the sea leading up to Stranraer — a stone

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 231

lighthouse, fifty feet high, was erected in 1847 by Mr.
Alan Stevenson, at a cost of £4,241, 15s. 5cL, with a fixed
white light, visible twelve miles. But on the other
side of the loch, whence projects the low headland of
Corseiuall Point, Wigtownshire, a more imposing build-
ing was raised in 1817, from the designs of Mr. Robert
Stevenson. Its height, from base to vane, is one hun-
dred and ten feet; it is of stone, and it exhibits a
revolving light, white and red alternately, every minute,
with a fair-weather range of sixteen miles. Cost £7,835,
19s. Sd.

The extreme southern point of Scotland is the pic-
turesque rocky promontory of the Mull of Galloway,
in lat. 54° 38' 10"— almost in a parallel line with
Whitby, on the north-east coast of England. About a
mile and a half long, arid a quarter of a mile wide, it is
connected with the mainland by a long narrow isthmus,
the sides of which curve into two small bays, called
respectively East and West Tarbet. On the south and
south-west the rocky walls of this bold headland spring
from the sea almost perpendicularly to an elevation of
two hundred and three hundred feet, and are hollowed
by caverns, in which the foaming waters, with a
southerly wind and a flowing tide, roll and roar like
reverberations of thunder. Here was erected, in 1830,
from Mr. Robert Stevenson's plans, a massive light-
house of stone, eighty-six feet high, with double walls,
which now displays a white intermittent light (visible,
that is, for thirty, and then eclipsed for fifteen seconds)

232 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

over the extended range of twenty-five miles. It is
distant twenty-one miles north-north-west from the
Point-of-Ayre lighthouse, in the Isle of Man, and about
the same distance, south-east by east, from Copeland
Lighthouse, on the coast of Ireland. The balcony of the
tower commands a magnificent and most extensive view
of the lofty summits of the Southern Highlands of
Scotland, the towering Paps of Jura, the wide and
shining expanse of the Irish Sea, some thirty leagues
of the green coast of Erin, the bold outlines of the Isle
of Man, and the remote peaks of Cumberland — a pic-
ture not easily surpassed in brilliancy of colouring and
variety of interest. The cost of this building was
£8,378, 9s. 9d.

The last lighthouse on the coast of Scotland is on
Little Ross Island, at the mouth of the Solway, in lat.
54° 46'. The building is a substantial tower of stone,
with double walls, erected in 1843, from Mr. Robert
Stevenson's designs ; of a total height of sixty-five feet,
and furnished with a white light, flashing every five
seconds. Cost £8,478, 15s. 7d.

THE ISLE OF MAN.

As the lights which protect the coasts of the Isle of
Man are under the control of the Commissioners of the
Ncrthern Lighthouses, it will be convenient to notice
them here. They are four in number — Ayre Point,
Chicken Rock, Langness, and Douglas Head.

The Ayre Point or Point-of-Ayre lighthouse, in lat.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 233

54° 24' 56", is a stone tower, ninety-nine feet high, erected
in 1818 from Mr. R. Stevenson's designs. It is situ-
ated in the middle of a sandy common, about a quarter
of a mile from the sea, and displays a revolving light,
red and white alternately, at one -minute intervals,
with a fair-weather range of sixteen miles. The
keeper at this station can see the lights at the Mull of
Galloway, Little Ross Island, St. Bees, and the BaJuima
Bank lightship.

The Chicken Rock lies in lat. 54° 24', about three-
quarters of a mile south of the Calf of Man, and is
exposed to the tremendous force of the Atlantic billows
when they are driven through St. George's Channel by
south-westerly gales. At high water very little of its
surface is visible ; but at low water the receding tide
leaves exposed a rugged tract of nearly eight thousand
feet square, and it is then seen to be formed by a couple
of rocky islets, north and south, united by a low isth-
mus. In the midst of a rapid tideway, and in com-
paratively deep water, the Chicken Rock was long an
object of dread to seamen, more particularly as, in
foggy weather, the lights then shown on the Calf of
Man* were seldom visible. In 1869, therefore, the Nor-
thern Commissioners, with the sanction of the Board
of Trade, removed the Calf of Man light, which was
practically useless, and ordered the erection of a first-

* Two lighthouses of stone, seventy feet and fifty-five feet high, de-
signed by R. Stevenson, and built in 1818. Cost, including the Point-of-
Ayre lighthouse, £18,846, 16s. 3d.

234 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

class lighthouse on the Chicken Rock. The tower is
of granite, and strong and graceful, as all Messrs.
Stevenson's lighthouses are. It was completed in
December 1874, and on the first of January 1875 the
welcome ray of guidance and warning shone from this
" Tadmor of the wave," to the great advantage of navi-
gation.

The labour of preparing the stone was carried on at
Port St. Mary's, a little fishing- village about four miles
and a half from the rock. There, too, the workmen
took up their quarters, a steam -tug being employed to
convey them to and from the rock. In order to land
them she carried two large quarter-boats ; while, as a
precaution against possible accidents, every man was
ordered to wear a cork life-belt on every trip, no matter
what might be the condition of the sea. The work
was necessarily regulated by the tides and the weather:
sometimes it was continued for six or seven hours;
sometimes it was suspended at the end of one or two.
Nothing, of course, was done during the winter — that
is, from the end of September to the beginning of April.
About thirty-five men were generally employed. Nine
of the lowest courses of masonry were laid in 1870 ;
fourteen more in 1871. Thus far — that is, to an eleva-
tion of thirty-two feet eight inches above the rock — the
tower was solid. Forty-seven courses were added in
1872. The ninety-sixth and topmost course was laid
on June 6th, 1873; and in the following year the
internal fittings were completed. The lighthouse pre-

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 235

sents the form of a noble and shapely column of gray
granite, one hundred and forty-three feet in height
from base to vane. Its outline is that of a " hyperbolic
curve," which is recommended by many practical ad-
vantages. The interior consists of eight stories: the
lowest, store-room for coal and water; second, store-
room for oil ; third, dry stores ; fourth, kitchen ; fifth,
provision-room; sixth and seventh, bedrooms; eighth,
light-room. The sashes of the lantern are ten feet
high, and fitted with the best plate-glass — thick enough
to resist the heedless wing of any sea-bird attracted by
the illuminated pane. The lighting apparatus is Fres-
nel's, with Mr. Stevenson's holophotal improvements.
An octagonal metal frame, each side of which is pro-
vided with a large annular lens, revolves round the
central lamp every four minutes, with the effect of
producing a steadfast intense glow or beam of white
light once every thirty seconds, as each annular lens
passes in front of the lamp. In fair weather the range
of illumination extends to eighteen miles. Here, as at
other first-class lighthouses, two bells suspended from
the balcony are rung during fogs at intervals of half a
minute.

The total cost of the Chicken Rock lighthouse was
£64,559.

On the south-eastern side of Langness a lighthouse
was erected in 1880 ; a circular limestone tower, sixty-
three feet high, which displays a white light, flashing,
for five seconds. This is a fog-siren station.

236 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

The stone tower on Douglas Head, lat. 54° 8' 35",
dates from 1832. It is sixty-five feet in height from
base to vane, with a fixed white light, visible fourteen
miles; is built of slate rock; was designed by Mr.
Thomas Brine ; and cost about £2,500.

The Bahama Bank lightship, lat. 54° 19' 40", shows
two flashes (white) in quick succession every thirty
minutes, and carries a fog-siren.

ENGLAND: WEST COAST.

On the low, sandy headland of Skinburness or Cote,
to the north-east of Silloth, a wooden lighthouse,
thirty-two feet in height, was erected in 1841, with a
fixed white light, visible for nine miles. The Lee Scar
Rock lighthouse, south-west of Silloth, in lat. 54° 52',
is constructed upon piles, with the top of its lantern
about forty -five feet above low-water mark. In Robin
Rigg Channel the Solway lightship shows a fixed light,
visible only for six miles. Passing the lights of Mary-
port, Workington, Harrington, and Whitehaven, we
come to the lofty headland of St. Bees, in lat. 54° 30'
50" — nearly the same as that of Spurn Head, on the
east coast — where in 1718 was exhibited a coal-fire,
and in 1872 was built a circular white lighthouse
tower of sandstone, fifty-five feet high, and measuring
three hundred and thirty-six feet in elevation from
high-water mark to centre of lantern. Designed by
Mr. J. Nelson. It has an occulting white light, which
is shown for twenty -four seconds, and eclipsed for two

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 237

seconds; then shown for two, and eclipsed for two.
Visible twenty-five miles.

On the Selker Rocks, three miles north-west of Sel-
ker Point, lat. 54° 16' 5", a lightship was moored in
1883, which shows one white and one red flash in swift
succession every half minute.

Several lights warn the seaman from the dangerous
sands of Morecambe Bay, and open up the channels
into the Mersey and the Dee.

The Wyre River lighthouse, built upon screw-piles
in 1840, is situated at the north-east elbow of North
Wharf Bank, where it shows a fixed white light, with

O '

a ten miles' range. A remarkable, and probably an
unprecedented accident occurred here on the morning
of Saturday, February 19th, 1870. "About half-past
ten the schooner Elizabeth and Jane, of Preston, ap-
proached the mouth of the channel opposite Fleetwood.
Adjoining the channel-mouth, and about three miles
from the latter town, is situated the lighthouse, upon
screw-piles. When about half a mile off the lighthouse,
the captain of the schooner found he was drifting
towards it; and, spite of all his exertions, he was
unable to change her course, as the tide flowed rapidly
inwards, and a dead calm prevailed. Before the anchor
could get a hold, the ship was bow foremost into the
piles, which were all shattered by the collision, and taking
up the body of the lighthouse — a huge rectangular
wooden frame, filled in with windows, and surmounted
with a large revolving [fixed] light — carried it away

238 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

on her forecastle. Two keepers were in the lighthouse,
but neither was hurt. The vessel, however, was greatly
injured, and some alarm was felt lest she should sink.
However, the accident was seen from the shore ; a tug-
steamer came to her assistance, and, with the lighthouse
on board, she was towed into port." The lighthouse
was rebuilt with as little delay as possible.

On Crosby Point, a square tower of brick, seventy-
four feet high, was erected in 1856 by Mr. Jesse
Hartley. It exhibits a fixed white light, with a range
of twelve miles. On the shore at Leasowe, midway
between the Mersey and the Dee, a circular, tapered
tower, one hundred and ten feet from base to vane,
dates from 1763 ; and a stone tower, sixty-eight feet,
erected in 1771, repaired in 1873, one hundred and
sixty feet above high water, crowns Bidston Hill, in
lat. 53° 24'. Both these are fixed white lights, visible
at fifteen and twenty-three miles respectively. A light-
house, ninety-four feet high, at Rock Point, restored
in 1877, shows a revolving white light every half
minute. There are also the North-West, the Bar, the
Formby, the Crosby, and the Dee River lightships;
all with fixed white lights, except the Formby, which
displays a revolving red light.

We pass the lights of Rhyl, and at Llandudno ob-
serve a square castellated lighthouse of gray stone, on
the north spur of the grandly massive promontory of
the Great Orme Head. It was erected in 1862, and is

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 239

elevated three hundred and twenty -five feet above
high-water mark. Exhibits a fixed light with white
and red sectors, which has a range of twenty-four miles
in clear weather.

The Menai Strait, between the Welsh mainland and
Anglesey, is about twelve miles long and from half a
mile to three-quarters of a mile broad. To assist mari-
ners, a lighthouse was erected in June 1838 on Trwyn-
Du or Black Point, lat. 53° 18' 51"— a circular castel-
lated tower of stone, solid to about thirty feet from
foundation, and ninety-six feet in height, from which a
red light is shown.

At Lynus Point, on the south coast of Anglesey,
a castellated lighthouse, thirty-six feet high, displays
a white occulting light. It was erected in 1834-6,
the want of a light having been proved by the dis-
astrous wreck of the Rothesay Castle on Puffin Island
in 1831.

Off Holyhead, in lat. 53° 25' 15", lies Skerries Island,
a low flat tract of land covered with sea-birds, chiefly
terns. The lighthouse is a circular tower, of Anglesey
stone, seventy-five feet high, dating as far back as
1714. In 1804 it was raised twenty-two feet, and oil-
light shown.* Fogs here are very troublesome, lasting
sometimes for forty-eight hours at a stretch. The
lights are two — intermittent white, and a fixed red
light, shown from a window fifty feet below the lan-

* When purchased by the Trinity House in 1841, the enormous sum of
£444,984, 11s. 3d. was paid to the proprietor.

240 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

tern. A fog-siren is sounded when required. In 1855
the ship Regulus was wrecked on the Skerries.

HOLYHEAD LIGHTHOUSE.

Off the north-west point of Holyhead Island, in lat.
53° 18' 30", rises the South Stack, an isolated rock,
lying immediately below the cliff, and now connected
with the mainland by a bridge. In 1809 a lighthouse
was erected here — a circular tower of stone, eighty-four
feet high, designed by Mr. David Alexander,* which

* Lighthouse, lantern, and apparatus cost £11,828, 17s. 9d, ; bridge,
£1,046, 11s. 8d. ; dwellings, £1,509.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 241

exhibits a white light, revolving at one-minute inter-
vals, and visible for twenty miles. The focal plane is
two hundred and one feet above the sea. During foggy
weather, a large fog-bell, inverted, is rung by machinery;
and a smaller revolving light is occasionally shown
about forty feet above the sea, at a point thirty yards
north of the main lighthouse. A gun or explosive
charge is also fired every five minutes.

Here, and at the Skerries, the sea-birds are preserved
as a kind of natural fog-signal ; they are quite tame.
Gulls sit on the walls, and close to the lighthouse,
screaming continually ; and the visitor will be amused
to see some white rabbits sitting among the young
gulls, apparently on terms of perfect intimacy.

Lightships are stationed in Carnarvon and Cardigan
Bays. There is a lighthouse, a massive square-built
tower of gray marble, erected in 1821, from Mr. J.
Nelson's designs, and newly lighted in 1885, on Bard-
sey Island, lat. 52° 45'. Height, one hundred and two
feet. Shows a white light for twenty-seven seconds;
eclipsed for three. A fog-siren is stationed here. Cost,
with buildings, £5,470, 12s. 6d ; lantern, £2,950, 16s.
7d. In 1877 a lighthouse, a circular white building
thirty-five feet high, was set up on St. Tudwall Island.

In lat. 51° 51' 10", below New Quay, and close to
Milford Haven, a circular light-tower of stone, thirty-
six feet in height, designed by Mr. Walker, crowns the
summit of the South Bishop Bock, which rises a hun-
dred feet above high -water mark. It is furnished with

(241) 16

242 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

a white light, revolving every twenty seconds, and
having a fair-weather range of eighteen miles. The
sea off this point is frequently very boisterous, and the
spray occasionally strikes the lantern, notwithstanding
its elevation, and has been known to break the lower
windows of the dwelling-house. The lighthouse and
buildings cost £11,255, 5s. lid. ; the lantern, etc.,
£1,493, 8s. 6d.

The Smalls are a cluster of rocks at the entrance to
St. George's Channel, in lat. 51 43' 20". Here, in
1778, a lighthouse was first erected by Mr. John
Phillipps, a Liverpool Quaker, as "a great and holy
good to serve and save humanity." But, in this in-
stance, benevolence met with its due reward soon after-
wards ; and the toll derived from passing vessels proved
so profitable that, when the light was surrendered to
the Trinity House in 1836, Mr. Phillipps's descendants
received no less a sum than £170,468 as compensation.

The task which Mr. Phillipps had with so much
philanthropy taken upon himself was attended with
considerable difficulties. In ordinary weather the
Smalls Eock rises twelve feet above the water : but
when the seas run heavy, it is completely submerged,
and the erection of a lighthouse must, in such circum-
stances, demand the exercise of great skill and judg-
ment. Mr. Phillipps was for some time engaged in
looking for a man capable of carrying out his idea;
but at length he settled upon a Liverpool musical

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 243

instrument maker, named Henry Whiteside, who, in
the summer of 1772, began operations at the head of
a gallant little band of Cornish miners. They had
scarcely laid the foundation before the weather sud-
denly grew tempestuous, and the tender which waited
upon them was compelled to weigh anchor and run out
to sea. The unfortunate workmen clung to the rock
with all the energy of despair, and remained in this
wretched position for two days and nights. Whiteside,
however, was not discouraged by this rough experience,
nor by any of the misadventures which from time to time
befell him, and in 1778 succeeded in completing his work
— a timber-built lighthouse, supported upon oaken piles,
forty feet high, with a total height of seventy-one feet.
One day, the fisher-folk on the mainland, which is
about twenty miles distant, picked up on the beach a
small barrel, inscribed with the characters, rudely
painted : —

"Open this, and you will find a letter."

They obeyed the injunction, and inside the cask dis-
covered a carefully sealed bottle, and in the bottle the
following letter : —

" THE SMALLS, February 1st, 1777.

" SIR,— Being now in a most dangerous and distressed condition upon
the Smalls, do hereby trust Providence will bring to your hand this,
which prayeth for your immediate assistance to fetch us off the Smalls
before the next spring [tide], or we fear we shall perish ; our water near
all gone, our fire quite gone, and our house in a most melancholy manner.
I doubt not but you will fetch us from here as fast as possible ; we can
be got off at some part of the tide almost any weather. I need say no
more, but remain your distressed

"Humble servant,

"H. WHITESIDE."

244 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Beneath this signature a postscript had been sub-
joined : —

"We were distressed in a gale of wind upon the 13th of January, since
which have not been able to keep any light ; but we could not have kept
any light above sixteen nights longer for want of oil and candles, which
makes us murmur and think we are forgotten.

"EDWARD EDWARDS, G. ADAMS, J. PRICE.

"P.S. — We doubt not that whoever takes up this will be so merciful
as to cause it to be sent to Thomas Williams, Esq., Trelithin, near St.
David's, Wales."

There is, however, a sadder page than this in the
brief history of the Smalls Rock Lighthouse, and one
which bears a close resemblance to an episode in the
history of the Eddystone. Early in the present cen-
tury, when the winter proved to be of exceptional
severity, the keepers were cut off from all communica-
tion with the land for a period of four months. It was
in vain that ships were sent out to the rocks ; a raging
sea invariably prevented their approach. At last one
of them returned with the startling intelligence that
her crew had observed a man standing, upright and
motionless, in a corner of the outer gallery, with a flag
of distress floating beside him. Every night thence-
forward the folk on the shore watched eagerly to see
if the light were still kindled, and every night the wel-
come ray rose on the horizon punctually — a proof that
there was still a keeper at the Smalls. But were both
the keepers living ? It is needless to say that public
feeling was more deeply stirred as day after day passed
without any news from the lighthouse being received.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 245

At last, in an interval of calm, a Milford fisherman
succeeded in landing on the rock, and in carrying back
to Solva the two keepers. But one of them was a
corpse. The survivor had made a kind of shroud for
his dead comrade, and afterwards placed the body in
the gallery, fastening it there securely. This device he
adopted in order to prevent the effluvium which would
otherwise have made the light-tower uninhabitable,
and yet to preserve the corpse for medical examination,
lest any suspicion of foul play should be entertained.

In 1859, the Trinity House began the erection of a
new and exceedingly handsome structure of stone,
which, while it was in course of building, was visited
by the Royal Commissioners. During their inspection,
in 1859, they took note of some interesting particulars,
which may be quoted here in illustration of the vast
progress that within the last century has taken place in
lighthouse architecture.

But first, for some details as to a lighthouse keeper's
life. The head-keeper had been eighteen years, he
said, on this station, and preferred it to any other.
He was a Welshman by birth, was married, and had a
considerable farm on shore. The under-keeper was a
native of Ealing, a watchmaker to trade, and " would
rather be anywhere on shore at half the money." He
said, "This is rusting a fellow's life away." And,
certainly, it is not easy to imagine a greater contrast
to a watchmaker's life at Ealing than a lighthouse
keeper's life on the solitary rock of the Smalls, twenty

246 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

miles from land! The head-keeper seemed to have
found diversion in bird-keeping ; he said that he had
caught woodcocks in September, as also larks, starlings,
and blackbirds. Five years before, he had caught a
partridge on the night of the first of September ; he
thought that probably the shooting had driven it to sea.
He had also captured a young seal by descending from
his perch in the lighthouse, and placing a bag in front
of him as he slept. " He poked him up behind with a
stick, and in he went."

A foreign ship once struck on the end of the rock in
broad daylight. The crew, twelve men, leaped on
shore; the vessel drifted about three miles and sank.
On being asked how they had fed so many men, the
keepers replied that they always had six months' pro-
visions when they entered upon their charge.

As to the old lighthouse. It was ascended by a rope
ladder. The piles, though they had stood for eighty
years, looked exceedingly insecure ; they were set up-
right in the rock, with a few props on one side to resist
the greatest pressure of the waves. The upper part
consisted of a kind of platform, on which were placed
those provisions and stores not easily damaged by
water. Above it rose a wooden barrack — an octagonal
cabin, in which the workmen employed about the new
building slept in berths, like those of a passenger
steamer; on the next story was entered, through a
trap-door, the keepers' sleeping-room and kitchen, both
in one ; and topmost of all was the lantern. In heavy

THE SMALLS LIGHTHOUSE.

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 249

weather, when the sea was dashing about the lower
room, the workmen and keepers congregated in the
upper. The whole structure, in such weather, trembled
and swayed to and fro, and had been known to lean
nine inches from the perpendicular.

As to the new lighthouse. The Commissioners pro-
ceeded to examine its mode of construction. They
observed that the stones were all prepared and care-
fully fitted on shore — that, in fact, the lighthouse was
actually built there. " Each stone has a square hollow
on each edge, and a square hole in the centre ; when
set in its place, a wedge of slate, called ' a joggle,' fits
into. the square opening formed by joining the two
upper stones. The joint is placed exactly over the
centre of the under stone, into which the joggle is
wedged before the two upper stones are placed. The
result is, that each set of three stones is fastened to-
gether by a fourth, which acts as a pin to keep the
tiers from sliding on each other. The base of the
building is solid. Two iron cranes slide up an iron
pillar in the middle, and are fixed by pins at the
required position as the work advances. The two are
used together, so as to obviate any inequality of strain."

The building was completed in 1861. It is coloured
externally with red and white horizontal bands, and is
one hundred and forty-one feet in height. It shows a
white light for fifty -four seconds, eclipsed for two
seconds ; light for two, re-eclipsed for two. A fog-
signal (explosive) gives a report every five minutes.

250 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Rounding the southern coast of Wales, we observe
on St. Anns Head, Milford Haven — the finest natural
harbour of Great Britain — two lighthouses of substan-
tial construction. The higher is a circular tower,
seventy-five feet in height, erected in 1714; the lower,
lighted for the first time in the same year, two
hundred yards to the south-east, is octagonal in shape,
and only forty-two feet high. Both exhibit a fixed
white light, which is visible for twenty miles from the
higher (with a red sector in a westerly direction) and
eighteen miles from the lower station. These light-
houses are easy of access from Milford, and permission
to view them is easily obtained. A fog-siren is sounded
in thick or foggy weather. A coal-fire light was ex-
hibited on this point in 1714 ; replaced by oil in June
1800.

Caldy Island, in lat. 51° 37' 56", shows an occulting
white light, visible for twenty-seven seconds, eclipsed
for three, with a red sector, visible twenty miles, from
a well-built circular tower of limestone, fifty-six feet
high. It dates from 1829; was designed by Mr. Nelson ;
and cost, with adjoining buildings, £3,380, 11s. 7d.

Passing the lights of Tenby, Saundersfoot, Barre,
and Llanelly, and the Helwick lightship (which dis-
plays a revolving white light), we arrive at the Mumbles,
off Swansea, and the mouth of the Tawe, in the same
latitude as London. This important position is well
marked by a lighthouse, erected in 1798, on the outer

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 251

islet — a white octagonal structure, which, at a height
of one hundred and fourteen feet above high-water
mark, extends over a range of fifteen miles a brilliant
white light.

We now sight in succession the Scarweather light-
ship, in lat. 51° 26' 55", with its revolving eye of red,
the lights of Porthcawl, and the two upon the Nash
Point, in lat. 51° 24'. Both these lighthouses were
designed by the late James Walker. They are circular
stone towers, with stone lantern gallery, and massive
walls. The eastern, or high, measures one hundred and
thirteen feet, and the western, or low, sixty-seven feet,
from base to vane. Their cost (with adjoining build-
ings) was £5,796, 14s. Id. Each shows a fixed white
light (with a red sector in the eastern), visible nineteen
and seventeen miles respectively.

Passing the Breaksea lightship (with revolving white
light), we come to Flatholm Island, off Cardiff, where,
in 1737, a coal-fire was kindled for the guidance of
mariners ; replaced by an oil light in September 1820.
The present light-tower, of stone, built in 1737, was
restored in 1881, and exhibits an occulting white light,
with white and red sectors. The lights of busy Cardiff
and of ancient Usk recede behind us as we approach
the English and Welsh Grounds lightship, lat. 51° 23'
30", the revolving white light of which shows an
intense glow every fifteen seconds. On the east side
of the mouth of the Avon stands a strong octagonal
tower of brick, designed by Mr. Walker, and completed

252 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

on May 25th, 1840, which exhibits a white light, with
red and green sectors ; bright for twenty-seven seconds
and eclipsed for three. Passing the lights on Portishead
and Clevedon piers, we descry the two lighthouses at
JBurnham, on the east side of the estuary of the Parret;
one, of brick, ninety-nine feet high, the other, of oak,
thirty-six feet; both designed by Mr. J. Nelson, and
dating from 1832 ; the high light, white, occulting, and
the low light, fixed, white and red. Leaving behind us
the lights at Watchet Harbour and on Lantern Hill,
Ilfracombe, we perceive on Bull Point (lat. 51° 11' 5")
a circular light-tower, built in 1879, with an upper light
of the group-flashing type, and a low red light marking
the ominous Morte Stone. On Braunton Barrows,
north side of the river, stands an octagonal structure
of oak, on foundation of concrete ; eighty-six feet from
base to vane ; erected in 1820 from Mr. Nelson's plans ;
and displaying a fixed white light, visible for fourteen
miles. Also, a small timber light-room, on piles, three
hundred and eleven yards distant, erected at the same
time, but rebuilt in 1832; shows a fixed light over
eleven miles. This part of the Devonshire coast is
very dangerous. In his "Westward Ho!" Kingsley
describes it as " a waste and howling wilderness of rock
and roller, barren to the fisherman and hopeless to the
shipwrecked mariner."

Off the mouth of the Bristol Channel lies Lundy
Island — measuring about three miles in length by one
mile in width, with nearly twenty miles of coast-line —

LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 253

a rugged mass of gray granite, so guarded by insulated
rocks that, according to a popular local saying, " there
is no entrance but for friends." Rabbits abound here,
and the cliffs are white with the wings of innumerable
sea-birds, whose screams fill the air and are repeated
by every echo. Here it was that Sir Lewis Stukely,
the betrayer of Sir Walter Ralegh, fled from the scorn
of men, and died of remorse and solitude, a maniac, in
1620. On the rocky summit of Chapel Hill are situ-
ated the granite lighthouse tower, ninety-six feet high,
and the keepers' dwelling-house. Two lights have
been displayed here since 21st February 1820 ; the
upper a white flashing light, every minute, and seventy
feet lower a fixed white light ; both having a fair-
weather range of about thirty miles, though it is said
they have been seen at a distance of forty -five miles.
The buildings were designed by Mr. David Alexander,
and cost £10,276, 19s. lid. The lantern, twenty-eight
feet high and one and a half foot diameter, cost £1,902,
18s. 4d. Some improvements were effected in 1889.

Keeping along the precipitous Cornish coast, and hav-
ing taken leave of Devonshire at Hartland Point (lat.
51° 1' 24"), where a handsome new lighthouse has re-
cently been erected, with a revolving white and red
light, we arrive at Trevose Head, in lat. 50° 32' 55"
(about two and a half miles from Padstow), crowned by
a strong white tower of stone, eighty-seven feet high,
and two hundred and four feet above the sea, exhibit-

254 LIGHTHOUSES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

ing a white occulting light (three occupations every
minute), which has a sea-range of twenty miles.

Off Godrevy Island the fine iron screw-steamer Nile
was totally wrecked on the 30th of November 1854,
and all on board, crew and passengers, perished. This
and other similar calamities led to the erection (from
Mr. James Walker's designs) of the present lighthouse,
which was first lighted on March 1st, 1859, and displays
a couple of lights — a white light, flashing ten seconds,
and a fixed red light, both visible for fifteen miles.
Cost, with adjoining buildings, £7,331, 4s. 5d.

The light-tower is built of rubble stone bedded in
mortar. Octagonal in shape, and eighty-six feet high,
it is planted on a rock of considerable size, where
numerous wild plants relieve with their greenery the
prevailing aspect of desolation. In the summer season
it is a favourite resort of excursionists from Penzance
and St. Ives, as many as a thousand persons visiting it
on a Whit Monday.

This lighthouse indicates the position of the danger-
ous reef called "The Stones," near St. Ives. It was
designed by Mr. Walker, engineer to the Trinity
House. Cost £7,082, 15s. 7d.

Passing the lights of Padstow, Hayle, and St. Ives,
we see before us the Seven Stones lightship, and find
that we have completed our survey of the coast of
England and Scotland.

We proceed to inspect that of Ireland, beginning at
Fastnet, on the south, in lat. 51° 23' 18".

CHAPTER VI.

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND DESCRIBED.

ABOUT four miles and a quarter south-west from
Cape Clear, the southernmost point of Ireland,
in lat. 51° 23' 18" and long. 9° 36' 25", stands the
Fastnet (or Fastness) Rock, with its beautiful light-
house.

From certain effects of lights, and more particularly
when the sun is in its vernal equinox, this rock, when
seen from the shores of Cape Clear or the adjacent
islands and headlands, presents " a peculiarly spectral
appearance," easily mistaken by strangers for that of
a large ship under sail; and this appearance may
possibly, as Mr. Sloane suggests, have originated the
old fable that every May morning the rock sets sail,
cruises round the Darsey Island, visits the Bull, Cow,
and Calf Eocks, its kith and kin, and then settles down
again in its time-old position.

It was long credited with the remarkable property
of being just nine miles from everywhere. This mis-
take was easily exposed by the Ordnance Surveyors ;

256 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

but credulous folk are still ready to maintain that such
was originally the case, but that the last time the rock
returned from its cruise, it made some mistake in re-
suming its former position. Another tradition exists
among the people of West Cork, that the Fastnet Rock
was picked out of Mount Gabriel, where a lake is
pointed out as filling the cavity caused by its removal ;
and some are convinced that articles thrown into this
lake will duly reappear by some underground and
undersea passage on the Fastnet Rock. Yet again, it
is said that the remarkable gap or breach in Mount
Gabriel was caused by the devil's voracity in biting a
mouthful out of it, which, finding it unpalatable, he
dropped where, in later ages, it has been known by the
name of the Fastnet Rock.

Apart from this traditional glamour, the rock is
interesting from its picturesque character, its solitari-
ness, and because it is the last bit of the old country
seen by the emigrant who is bound for other shores —
whence it is often called Tear Erin, " the Tear-drop of
Ireland," summoning up the tears of those who long-
ingly " look back to that dear isle they are leaving."

The lighthouse on Cape Clear was so frequently
obscured by mist and fog as to be of little service
to shipping; and it was decided, therefore, in 1848, to
erect one on the Fastnet Rock. The design was fur-
nished by the late Mr. George Halpin, and consists of
a tower composed of a casing of cast-iron plates, with
flanges and stiffening ribs, the lower story of which is

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 257

partially filled in with masonry, leaving space for a
coal-vault, and the other stories lined with brickwork ;
the floors are of cast-iron plates laid on radially dis-
posed girders, which unite and rest on a central hollow
column, and bind the tower at each story. Of these
there are five, twelve feet high, measured from floor to
floor, the internal diameter of the tower being twelve
feet also. The height from base to gallery is sixty-
three feet nine inches, above which rises a well-
proportioned lantern, uniting apparent lightness with
the requisite strength. " It is hardly necessary to ob-
serve that the management of the different portions
of this tower to meet the heavy shocks of wind and
sea was an effort of no ordinary engineering skill ; and
although differences of opinion may exist as to the
fitness of such structures for lighthouse purposes, there
is, perhaps, no other method by which a lighthouse
could be placed in such a situation so speedily or
economically."

The cast-iron plates were all landed on the rock by
June 1849 ; and thenceforward the laborious and
difficult undertaking was prosecuted with so much
energy that on the first night of January 1854 the
lamp of the Fastnet was able to be lighted, and its
bright flashes shot across six leagues of the great
Atlantic. The apparatus is dioptric, of the first order
of Fresnel, revolving once a minute. Its focal plane
is one hundred and forty-eight feet above the sea ; but
the building itself, which is painted white, with a broad

(241) 17

258

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

horizontal belt of red midway, is ninety-two feet in
height from base to vane. In 1867-9 it was cased round
its base with metal plates for twenty-four feet up, and
between this casing and the outside of the tower rubble
masonry grouted in cement was filled in solidly. The

FASTNET ROCK LIGHTHOUSE.

dwellings of the keepers and their store-houses are,
like the tower, of cast-iron. Cost £18,947, 15s. lid.

In this vicinity we meet with another important
lighthouse — one of the finest structures of the kind in

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 259

the world — that which crowns the summit of Gaily
Head, a precipitous cliff near Cape Clear, in lat. 51°
31' 50". It was erected, or at least completed, in
1878, from the designs of Mr. John S. Sloane, C.E.,
late engineer to the Irish Lighthouses Commission.
Besides the handsome circular light-tower, sixty-eight
fee.t in height— with the focal plane of its lantern one
hundred and seventy-four feet above the sea— which
stands enclosed within a substantial stone wall, there
are dwellings for the keepers on an exceptionally
complete scale, each with its separate approach and
garden, also engine-house and gasometers; the whole
walled in very neatly, and covering a very consider-
able area.

If the Gaily Head Lighthouse be, as is asserted,
unequalled in its appointments, it is probably un-
equalled in the power of its illuminating apparatus,
which is constructed on the system of Mr. John R.
Wigharn of Dublin, so well known from his services
in connection with lighthouse illuminants. Briefly
speaking, its light may be described as proceeding from
a quadriform arrangement of gas-burners, used without
chimney glasses or any interposing medium. Each
burner has an illuminating power of one thousand two
hundred and fifty-three candles; and the great beam
of light yielded by the whole combination is about
thirteen feet high by three feet wide. This beam or
luminous column reaches the mariner every minute in
the form of a group of six or seven flashes, lasting for

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the bevel being underneath, but the surface of metal
to metal is horizontal, truly termed. This bevel is
framed to stop an instantaneous rush of gas ; and the
means of lighting comes from a small pipe connected
with a single jet, in which a small portion of flame is
continually burning, so that immediately the valve is
opened the small jet ignites the gas issuing from the
eight -and -sixty jets. The other three burners are
worked in the same manner. This lighthouse has
three screens, which cut off the light east-northerly
and west by north-westerly. The flue to the chimney
is inside the sector, and therefore does not obstruct the
light. For production of gas five retorts have been
provided, though only one is required to produce the
gas for consumption. There are two gas-holders for
storage. In the event of any mishap occurring to the
gas, provision is made by which the usual Trinity oil-
lamp can be substituted in less than thirty minutes.

The light at Gaily Head has been named by Mr.
Wigham "the group-flashing light," the flashes being
produced, as we have seen, by a process quite new in
lighthouse illumination. The occupation of a fixed
light, as first illustrated by Mr. Babbage, may be
effected by causing opaque screens to close at certain
intervals automatically round the light ; or the occul-
tation may be effected, as at Wicklow Head, by the
lowering at given intervals of a gas flame. The ar-
rangement at Gaily Head is totally different. Instead
of allowing the broad beam of light to pass continu-

262 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

ously, as in the ordinary revolving light, a simple
automatic apparatus cuts it up into a series of flashes,
sufficient in number to insure that they can never
wholly escape the mariner's attention, and in each of
which a flame of great power is brought into play.

On Kinsale Old Head a very fine stone tower, one
hundred feet high, painted white, with two red belts,
designed by the late George Halpin, was erected and

KINSALE LIGHTHOUSE.

lighted in 1853. The light is of the first-order diop-
tric, white, with red sector (in the direction of the
Horn Rock), and commanding a range of twenty-one
miles. This light is two hundred and thirty-six feet
above the sea. The present building would seem to
be the third of its kind on the Old Head. The remains
of a tower lighted in 1805 still stand a short distance
to the north. An earlier structure, dating from 1683,
was either at or near to Barry Oge's Castle, an ancient

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 263

fortification designed to separate the promontory from
the mainland, of which the ruins are in tolerable pre-
servation. Cost of lighthouse, £10,584.

A lightship, with fixed red light, is moored rather
more than a mile south of the Daunt Rock.

Passing the lights of Cork, we come to Ballycottin
Island, in lat. 51° 49' 30", where a circular stone tower,
fifty feet high, enclosed within white walls, was first
lighted in June 1851. The lighting apparatus, the
focal plane of which is one hundred and ninety-five
feet above the sea, shows a brilliant white flash every
ten seconds. In a belfry close at hand a bell is tolled
by machinery in foggy weather. Designed by Mr.
Halpin. Cost £11,746, 15s. 5<L

At Youghal the circular light-tower of cut stone,
forty-three feet high, designed by Mr. Halpin, was
lighted in 1852, at a cost of £4,679, 6s. 5d. The ruins
of the ancient nunnery of St. Anne's, and its tower
lighthouse, were removed to make way for it ; and all
that now remains of interest is the tradition that in
the nunnery garden, when it belonged to Sir Walter
Ralegh, potatoes were first planted in Ireland. The
lantern shows a fixed white light, while a red light is
exhibited from a window. Visible for six miles.

On the south side of Minehead, on the coast of
Waterford, lat. 51° 59' 33", a tower-lighthouse of solid
masonry, designed by Mr. Halpin, and sixty-eight feet
high, on a cliff two hundred and twenty feet above the
sea, forms an important guide for Dungarvan Bay. Its

264 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

light, visible for twenty-one miles, is supplied by Mr.
Wigham's gas apparatus ; is shown for fifty and
eclipsed for ten seconds every minute. Cost £9,799,
19s. 7d.

On Ballinacourty Point, Dungarvan, a circular
tower of limestone, designed by Mr. G. Halpin, forty-
four feet high, was lighted in 1858. The light shows
red in the direction of Carrickapane Rocks, green in
the direction of Ballinacourty Rocks, and ivhite in all
other directions in which it is visible. Cost £6,737, 6s.

Among the public records preserved in Dublin
Castle is to be seen a letter from one Robert Reading,
dated September 12th, 1671, applying for a pension of
£500 per annum, out of the "concordata" for light-
houses built by him according to letters patent. These
lighthouses were at Howth, on Magee Island, at the
Old Head of Kinsale, near Barry Oge's Castle in
Kinsale, and at Hook Point. Hook Tower is situated
on Hook Point, east side of the entrance to Water-
ford Harbour (Vader Fiord, "the Great Haven" —
anciently called Cuan-na-Grioth, or "Harbour of
the Sun"), and presents both from land and sea
a remarkable appearance. It is, perhaps, the old-
est lighthouse tower in the United Kingdom. The
lower portion is, horizontally, an irregular ellipse of
forty-two feet, rising vertically to a height of eighty
feet; internally divided into three great central
vaults, rudely but substantially built of massive stone-
work, chiefly rubble, in courses. In the lower vault,

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 265

now used as the coal-store, is preserved the guard-bed
used by the military when the tower was garrisoned
in 1798. The middle and upper vaults have been
converted into rooms for the keepers.

In 1864 this was changed from a catoptric to a
dioptric station. The old lantern, erected thirty years
before, to supersede the original one of 1791, consisted
of a murette or blocking of oak covered with sheet
copper, raised on the top of a secondary tower, nineteen
feet in diameter and about thirty feet in height, with
a vaulted roof of great strength. The principal ap-
proach was by an outer stair for about half the height,
and then by a stair in the wall eighteen inches wide.
The oil was brought up through a trap in the lantern
floor. In removing the vaulted top of the turret a
large bed of cinders was discovered, the remains of the
original coal-fires used to illuminate the beacon prior
to the erection of the first lantern in 1791.

In 1864 the tower was raised, and a new lantern
constructed. It is now one hundred and fifteen feet
high, and the focal plane of the lantern one hundred
and fifty feet above the sea. Mr. Wigham's gas ap-
paratus is in use here, furnishing a magnificent fixed
white light, visible for sixteen miles.

Passing Waterford, we arrive off the Saltee islands,
close to the southernmost of which is moored the
Coningbeg or Saltees lightship, in lat. 52° 2' 25", and
one of the most exposed positions in the kingdom.
She is coloured black, with a white stripe, to distinguish

266 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

her from the floating lights on the English coast, which
are red. She has a white light, showing three flashes
in quick succession every minute; and a fog-siren,
which gives a blast of two and a half seconds, repeated
after an interval of twenty-five seconds, and followed
by ninety seconds of silence. First stationed in 1824.
The Barrels Rock is likewise indicated by a lightship,
moored (in 1880) at a distance of two and a quarter
miles south-south-west, which shows two flashes of red
light in quick succession.

On the Tuskar Rock, in lat. 52° 12', stands a stately
circular tower of granite, erected in 1815, from Mr.
Halpin's designs, and raised to its present height — one
hundred and thirteen feet — in 1885. Its foundation is
below high-water mark. While the works were in
progress, in the winter of 1812-13, a tremendous storm
swept over the rock and carried away a considerable
portion of the foundation, drowning and wounding
many of the workmen. The lantern displays a red
and white light alternately, revolving every minute ;
and in foggy weather a guncotton-powder charge is
exploded a little above the lantern at intervals of five
minutes. Similar charges are used for danger-signals.
Original cost, £35,887, 17s.

Between Rosslare and Wicklow are stationed the
Lucifer Shoals, the Blackwater Bank, and the Arklow
Bank lightships. Beyond Wicklow a lightship is
moored off the Codling Bank. Dublin Bay is amply
lighted, from the Kish lightship, in lat. 53° 19' 25", to

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 2«7

the pier-head at Howth, in lat. 53° 23' 35"; but we
must limit our notice to the Baily light-tower, situated
on the south-east point of the Howth peninsula, which,
from its vicinity to Dublin, and the picturesqueness of
its position, enjoys a considerable reputation.

The present Baily light is supposed to be the third
which has stood on this peninsula, which is about three
miles long by two miles broad, and rises to a height of
five hundred and sixty-three feet. The former lights
were set up on nearly the most elevated point, and
consisted, it would seem, of a large floor or hearth of
granite, slightly hollowed, on which a coal-fire was
kept blazing. Subsequently (about 1671) a small
tower was built, but no record remains of its mode of
illumination. The present structure, a stone tower,
forty-two feet from base to vane, was designed by Mr.
Halpin, and erected in 1813, on the site of the ancient
fortress of Dun Criffan. Its focal plane is one hundred
and thirty-four feet above the sea. It is lighted by
Mr. Wigham's patent gas apparatus, which throws a
fixed white light over a range of fifteen miles. A
fog-siren is stationed here, and worked by a caloric or
hot-air engine.

On the top of the outer crag, called Kockabill, in lat.
53° 35' 47", Mr. Sloane erected, in 1860, a very fine
circular light-tower of gray stone, one hundred and
five feet in height, illuminated by white and red sectors,
which show flashes every twelve seconds, eighteen miles,
on Mr. Wigham's system of quadriform gas-burners.

268 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

Dundalk channel is indicated by an iron octagonal
lighthouse, on screw-piles, built in 1854-5, from Mr.
Halpin's designs, and carrying a small dioptric flashing
light of fourth order, with white and red sectors. In
foggy weather a bell is rung six times a minute. Cost
£6,068, 3s. od.

The Haulbowline Rock, Carlingford, is surmounted
by a tower of very beautiful design, built in 1819-26,
and lighted in 1823. Cost £28,396, 17s. 3d. The
original Carlingford lighthouse, erected by Mr. Rogers,
stood at Cromfield Point, where the keepers' residences
now are; its remains were removed in 1864. The
present, designed by Mr. Halpin, is a shaft of granite
painted white, with an elevation of one hundred and
eleven feet from base to vane. At high water the
centre of its lantern rises one hundred and four feet
above the sea ; so that the tower is submerged for
seven feet from its base. The light is catoptric, and
visible for fifteen miles.

On St. John's Point, Dundrum Bay, where the Great
Britain was stranded in 1849, a lighthouse tower of
cut stone, seventy-three feet, was erected in 1844, from
Mr. G. Halpin's designs, and is furnished with a diop-
tric light of second order, illuminated by gas. Cost
£11,091, Is.

The light-tower built by Mr. Rogers on the South
Rock, locally called the Kilwarlin, is no longer used.
Since 1877 its position has been indicated by a lightship,
which carries a white light, revolving in a minute and

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 269

a half. A lightship is also stationed about a mile
from the Skulmartin Rock.

Off the south-east side of the mouth of Belfast
Lough lies Mew Island, or the Smaller Copeland, in
lat. 54° 41' 50". Here stood one of the most ancient
of the Irish lights, described as of a square form, with
walls seven feet thick, and seventy feet high to the
lantern. " It consists of three stories, of which the
lower and second are laid with beams and boarded, but
the third is arched and covered with large flagstones
seven or eight feet in length. In the middle of the
house is erected a round tower, on which the grate is
fixed on a thick iron spindle. Scotland supplies it
with coals, of which, on a windy night, it consumes a
ton and a half, burning from evening till daylight, both
winter and summer." The present tower, fifty-eight
feet high, was built by Mr. Halpin (1813-16), and its
focal plane is one hundred and thirty-two feet above
high water. Its light was improved in 1884, and is now
a group-flashing one. The flashes occupy about twenty-
two seconds ; and between each successive group occurs
an interval of thirty-eight seconds. A fog-siren is sta-
tioned here. Original cost of lighthouse, £9,051, 17s. 6d.

Crossing Belfast Bay, we come to the mouth of
Lough Larne, where, on Farres Point, in lat. 54° 51' 7",
was erected in 1839 a lighthouse of cut stone, fifty feet
high, designed by Mr. Halpin. It is a catoptric light,
fixed, bright, with a red sector in the direction of the
Hunter Eock. Cost £7,358, 18s. 3d.

270 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

The Maidens Rocks, East and West, locally known as
the Huillans and Ullans, lie about half a mile apart,
and eight miles from the shore. The East lighthouse,
which is sixty-eight feet high from base to vane, and
the West, which is seventy-six feet, were both designed
by the late Mr. Hal pin, and lighted for the first time
in 1829. They are built of white stone, with a dark-
red belt painted round each. The light in each is
catoptric, of the first order, white, and fixed, with a
range of thirteen and fourteen miles. In 1887 a sixth -
order dioptric red light was shown from a window of
East Maidens lighthouse, to mark the Russell and
Highland rocks. Cost of each, £18,526.

On Altacorry Head, the north-east point of Rathlin
Island — a crescent - shaped basaltic mass, once the
asylum of Robert Bruce — a lighthouse tower of gray
stone, eighty -eight feet high, with the focal plane
two hundred and forty feet above high water, was
erected in 1856 by Mr. Halpin. It has a dark-red belt
under the gallery. The illuminating apparatus con-
sists of two powerful dioptric lights of the first order —
the upper, intermittent, showing a bright light for fifty
seconds and being eclipsed for ten; and the lower
light, about twenty-five feet from the rock, being a
fixed white light. The upper is visible for twenty-one
miles. During foggy weather a gun is fired every
quarter of an hour. Cost £9,649.

Steaming past the columnar basaltic cliffs of the
Antrim coast, and the marvels of the Giants' Causeway,

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 271

we arrive at the mouth of Lough Foyle, where at
Inishowen, or Owen's Island, two lighthouses upon
Dunagree Point (lat. 55° 13' 38") mark out the en-
trance channel. Both are upon exactly the same level,
but the eastern is forty -nine feet high, and the western
seventy-four feet (having been raised twenty-five feet
in 1870). Both are built of stone, date from 1837,
and were designed by the late Mr. Halpin, at a cost of
£8,749, 14s. 3d. for the western, and £9,104, 14s. 2d.
for the eastern. The eastern has a fixed bright light ;
the western a red sector. They are visible for fifteen
miles. The river Foyle falls into the lough, and on its
banks, about four miles inland, clusters the historic
city of Londonderry.

Continuing our voyage along the north coast, we
come to the small island of Inishtrahull, on the
northernmost point of Donegal, in lat. 55° 25' 55", lying
about a mile from the mainland, where, in 1812, a
lighthouse tower of good stone-work, forty-five feet
high, was erected by the late Mr. G. Halpin, at a cost
of £10,850, 8s. 4d. It is furnished with a dioptric
light of the first order, which revolves every thirty
seconds, and is- visible for eighteen miles. Height
above high water, one hundred and eighty-one feet.

The two boundaries of Lough Swilly, Dunree Head
and Fanad (or Fannet) Point, are both lighted — the
former by a fixed white light shown from a dwelling-
house ; the latter from a small circular tower, twenty-
six feet high, erected in 181G from Mr. Halpin's

272 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

designs, at a cost of £5,756, Is. 10d., and in 1886
equipped with an illuminating apparatus of the second-
order dioptric, which gives an occulting light at half-
minute intervals, white seaward, and red from north-
west to land. The focal plane is one hundred and
twenty-seven feet above the sea. A fixed white light
is shown at an elevation of seventy-two feet.

The tower on Tory Island, so named from the tors
or high cliffs on its eastern side, was designed by the
late Mr. Halpin, and erected in 1832. It is of circular
form, and built of cut stone; eighty-seven feet high; and
cost £16,750, Os. 7d. It exhibits a fixed white light,
of the first-order dioptric, at an elevation of one hun-
dred and twenty-five feet above high-water mark.
Tory Island is rich in relics of antiquity and natural
curiosities. But the sweeping winds from the Atlantic
strip it of vegetation; and tradition records that a boat's
crew of its inhabitants, having been driven by stress
of weather into Ardee Bay, seven miles distant, were
struck with wonder on landing to see the green trees
and leafy bushes, carrying away twigs and branches
to exhibit on their return to their treeless home as
memorials of an earthly paradise.

On Rinrawros Point, the north-west extremity of
Aranmore Island, rises a stone light-tower, seventy-six
feet high, with its focal plane two hundred and thirty-
three feet above high-water mark. It was erected in
18G4 from the designs of Mr. Halpin, and is equipped
with a dioptric light of the first order, which shows a

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 273

group of flashes in rapid succession (1887). A fog-
siren has been established here. The old lighthouse,
the date of which is not known, was disused about
1829, and the greater portion of its masonry was
utilized in the construction of the new tower and the
keepers' dwellings.

On the west side of the island of Rathlin O'Birne,
which lies off Teelin Head, on the north-west coast of
Donegal, a tower-lighthouse of solid masonry, sixty-five
feet from base to vane, was erected by Mr. Halpin in
1856, at a cost of £17,140, Os. 7d. Its light is a first-order
fixed catoptric, visible for sixteen miles, white to sea-
ward and red towards the mainland.

The harbour of Killybegs is protected by two lights :
on St. Johns Point, north side of Donegal Bay, in lat.
54° 34' 8", Mr. Halpin, in 1831, erected a circular stone
tower, forty-seven feet high, with a fixed white light,
ninety-eight feet above the sea-level. Cost £9,GOG,
7s. 4d. On Rotten Island, lat. 54° 36' 21", the build-
ing is also of stone, measures forty-seven feet from base
to vane, and exhibits a fixed white light, leading to the
passage from seawards, and the inner harbour channel,
clear of the harbour rocks. Designed by Halpin ; cost
£8,867, 15s. lid.

We are brought in our south-westerly course to Sligo
Bay, where the Black Rock, on the south side of the
entrance, exhibits a fixed white light from an elevation
of ninety-four feet. The lower portion of the tower is

(241) 18

274 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

solid masonry, and was built for a beacon, in 1822, by
Mr. Halpin, but completed as a light-tower in 1835.
The keepers' residences are of cast-iron. Cost £9,921.
Two towers, each forty-three feet high, but about four
hundred and five feet apart, were erected on Oyster
Island, within the entrance to Sligo Harbour, in 1837
and 1857, by Mr. Halpin. Cost £4,600 each. Both
are illuminated by fixed white lights. It has been
proposed to discontinue these lights; to remove the
north lighthouse one hundred and eighty yards west-
ward, and exhibit from it a red sector guarding Bungar
Bank, and a white light to indicate the entrance chan-
nel of the river.

On Gubacashel Point, which forms the west bound-
ary of Broadhaven, the tower (of dressed stone, with
solid walls) is fifty feet high, and eighty-seven feet
above high water, with a fixed white light. Cost
£5,702, Is. 8d.

Eagle Island lies off the mouth of the Mullet, in lat.
54° 17', and long. 10° 5' (in the county of Mayo), where
beats the heaviest sea that is known on the coast of
Ireland. There are two circular stone lighthouses upon
it — one, westward, is forty-four feet high, and two
hundred and twenty feet above the sea, with a fixed
bright light; the other, one hundred and thirty-two
yards to the west, is eighty-seven feet high, with a fixed
bright light, two hundred and twenty feet above the
sea. Both were erected in 1835 from Mr. Halpin's
designs, at a cost of £18,111, 4s. each. Their lanterns

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 275

have more than once been injured by the sea — a mishap
unknown at any other station on the coast.

Not less wild and difficult of access is the Black Rock
of Mayo, where a light of the dioptric first order,
holophotal, white towards the sea and red towards the
land, showing a flash every thirty seconds, was first
displayed in 1864. The buildings and tower are two
hundred and thirty feet above the sea ; the tower fifty
feet in height.

Passing Blacksod Point (a fixed light, with white
and red sectors, in a reddish-gray tower), we come to
Clare Island, one of the ancient Irish lighting-stations,
westward of Clew Bay, in lat. 53° 49' 30". A light
was first shown here in 1806. The present tower is
thirty -nine feet high, and planted in a boldly romantic
position, three hundred feet above the sea. Cost
£9,297, 13s. 6d. At Inishgort, on the south point of
the island, showing the entrance to Westport, another
lighthouse was erected twenty-one years later, from
Mr. Halpin's designs. While the former has a range
of twenty-seven miles, the latter is limited to ten miles,
and stands upon a low shore, only ten feet above high
water. The tower is twenty-six feet from base to vane.
Cost £3,180, Os. lOd.

As we approach Gal way Bay, we sight the wild-
looking cliffs of Slyne Head (the ancient "Ceame
Leame"). On Illaunimmul, the outer islet, a noble
tower of stone, seventy-nine feet high, with keepers'
dwellings, was designed by the late Mr. Halpin. A

276 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

similar tower, of nearly the same height, one hundred
and forty-two yards to the south-west, was built at
the same time, and both were lighted on the same
night in 1836. The former is a revolving light, show-
ing one red and two white faces alternately every two
minutes ; the other a fixed white light. Cost £20,823
each.

Galway Bay is lighted by a tower, one hundred and
one feet high, erected in 1857 (from Mr. Halpin's de-
signs) on the west point of Eeragh Island, in lat. 53°
8' 55"; a light on Straw Island, at the entrance to
Killeany Bay; and lights on Inisheer and Mutton
Islands. On Mutton Island, the tower, built in 1819
by Mr. Halpin, is only thirty-four feet high, and the
shore so low that at high water the light is barely
thirty-three feet above the sea. Cost £4,020, 3s. 5d.
On the south point of Inisheer Island, one of the
chain of the Aran Islands, is a fixed white light
(with a small red sector over the Finis Rock) in one
of Mr. Halpin's lofty and graceful edifices, a tower
of limestone measuring one hundred and twelve feet
from base to vane, dating from 1857. Cost £14,252,
2s. 4d.

On the north side of the entrance to the beautiful
river Shannon projects the westernmost point of
County Clare, Loop (or Leap) Head, where a light
was first exhibited in 1802. The present tower, of
cut stone, painted white, dating from 1853, and de-
signed by Halpin, is seventy-five feet high, and

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 277

cost £6,684, 11s. 5d. ; and its occulting white light,
visible twenty -two miles, is placed two hundred
and seventy-seven feet above high-water mark. A
legend blooms in this picturesque spot. Cuchullin, a
great chief of the Ked Branch Knights, was hotly
pursued by his enemies to this remote quarter, where
they gradually fell off, weary and spent, until only
one remained, and that one a woman. Seeing a lofty
rock before him, separated from the mainland by a
gulf of heaving waters, he leaped across. The woman
courageously followed. Bracing up all his energies,
he leaped back again. The woman made a similar
effort, but failed, and fell into the boiling sea.

Passing Kilcradan Point, where Mr. Halpin, in
1824, built a stone lighthouse, circular, forty -three
feet high, we perceive a fixed white light, with red
sector, upon Scattery Island, where in 1872 the tower
and keepers' residence were erected, close to the fort,
by the late Mr. Sloane. In a metrical life of St.
Senanus, preserved among the Ada Sanctorum Hi-
bernice, we are told that this misogynist fled from
the face of woman to Scattery Island, and would
admit no one of the hated sex to visit his retreat, not
even a sister saint, St. Cannera, whom an angel had
taken thither to introduce to him. According to his
poetical biographer, he replied in Latin verse : —

" Cui, Prsesul, quod foeminis
Commune est cum monachis?
Nee te nee ullam aliam
Admittemus in insulam."

278 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

The legend supplies the motive of one of Moore's
Irish melodies, " St. Senanus and the Lady" : —

" Oh ! haste and leave this sacred isle,
Unholy bark, ere morning smile ;
For on thy deck, though dark it be,

A female form I see ;
And I have sworn this sainted sod
Shall ne'er by woman's feet be trod."

The lights on Tarbert Rock and Beeves Rock are
both in the lower estuary of the Shannon. Both were
designed by Mr. Halpin, and erected in 1834 and 1854
respectively. The Tarbert lighthouse is fifty-four feet
high, of white stone, romantically situated, and ap-
proached by a light and graceful metal bridge. Cost
£10,112, 15s. 3d. The Beeves lighthouse is of cut
stone, and about seventy -four feet from base to vane.
Cost £9,494, 8s. Id.

The river -channel to Limerick is marked out by
fourteen lights, exhibited chiefly on poles and perches.
To guide vessels to the entrance to Tralee Bay, a
circular lighthouse of blue stone was erected 'in 1854
upon Little Samphire Island. It is forty-two feet
high, was designed by Halpin, and cost £7,006, 17s. Id.

Tearaght, one of the Blasket Islands, in lat. 52° 4'
30", is the most westerly inhabited point in Europe.
A white light, showing two flashes in quick succession,
was set up here in 1883. The tower, however, was
erected in 1864-70 from the designs of Mr. Sloane ; is
fifty-seven feet from base to vane, while its light is
two hundred and seventy -five feet above the level of

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 279

high water. The island or rock is worth visiting for
the romantic character of its scenery. It is divided
by the sea into two portions, which are connected by
a natural arch or bridge, and rises at its summit to an
elevation of six hundred feet.

Cromwell Point, Valentia, derives its name from an
ancient fortalice which stood there, the old walls of
which can still be traced in the lighthouse enclosure.
The tower, designed by Mr. Halpin, is forty-eight feet
high, and cost £10,329, 16s. 6d. One of those strange
memorials of Irish antiquity, a cloghaun, or pillar-
stone, of considerable height, stands near it. The
light, a catoptric fixed white light, visible for twelve
miles, was first exhibited in 1841.

Until a light was set up on Tearaght, the Skelligs
Rocks boasted of two lighthouses. The upper, at a
height of three hundred and seventy-two feet above
the sea, and forty-eight feet high, cost £25,721, 15s.
lOd. The lower, forty-six feet high, one hundred and
seventy-five feet above the sea, with a fixed white
light, visible for eighteen miles, dates from 1826, and
cost £22,000. Large portions of the rock had to be
cut away to form a platform for sites of tower and
dwellings. From the crosses and remains of ancient
buildings still extant on the rock, there is reason to
conclude that it was formerly the site of a small
monastery dedicated to St. Michael. The Skelligs
lie in lat. 51° 46' 14", at a distance of seven and a half
miles from the shore. Miss Jean Ingelow has written

280 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

a popular romance, with the title " Off the Skelligs,"
which contains some graphic sketches of the Kerry
coast, and of these famous rocks. For example : —

" The Great Skellig ! I had seen a picture of a rock
— a hard material thing ; I had read descriptions of its
geological strata ; I knew it was a thousand feet high ;
—but was this the Great Skellig? I stood amazed.
There was a pale glassy sea, an empty sky, and right
ahead of us, in the desert waters, floated and seemed
to swim a towering spire of a faint rosy hue, and
looking as if, though it was a mile off, its sharp pin-
nacle shot up into the very sky.

" The ' westernmost point of British land, and out of
sight of the coast,' was this that cruel rock on which
the raging waves had driven such countless wrecks,
and pounded them to pieces on its slippery sides ?

" A boat was lowered. Tom was going to row round
it, though he said that, calm as the water was, it was
still not quite safe to land. To my delight he volun-
teered to take me with him ; so I sent for my hat and
cloak, and we rowed towards the great rock in the
glorious afternoon sunshine.

" How often have I been disappointed in the outline
of hills and mountains ; they seldom appear steep
enough to satisfy the expectation that fancy has raised.

"Here there was no disappointment. The Great
Skellig shot up perpendicularly from the sea — not an
inch of shore ; the clear water lapping round it was not
soiled by the least bit of gravel or sand. As we drew

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 281

near, its hue changed; a delicate green down seemed
to grow on it here and there. I sat in the boat and
looked up, till at last its towering ledges hung almost
over us, and its grand solitary head was lost, and the
dark base showed itself in all its inaccessible bareness.

" Tom said to me, ' Do you see those peaks that look
like little pinnacles ? '

" I looked, and his finger directed me to a row of
points about a third of the height of the rock, and
projecting from it.

" ' These points,' he continued, ' are as high as Salis-
bury Spire : when there is a storm, the wave breaks
high enough to cover them with spray.'

" So sweet and calm they looked, serene and happy,
I could hardly believe what I heard, nor picture to my
heart the cries and wailing of human voices, the rend-
ing, pounding, and wrecking of human work that had
been done on them, tossing from peak to peak, and
ground on the pitiless rock, since first men sailed."

The Calf Rock is situated on the north-west coast of
Bantry Bay, in lat. 51° 34' 10", and long. 10° 14' 50".
Tradition relates that one of the sons of Milesius, lead-
ing an expedition to the invasion of Ireland, was
wrecked with all his followers on this storm-beaten
ocean fastness, which, in remembrance of the event, is
to this day locally known as Teach Dhoinn, or " Don's
House." Few spots on the Irish coast are more ex-
posed than this to the violence of wind and wave.

282 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

In 1860-66 a lighthouse tower was erected on it,
built of brickwork bound with iron casings, painted red
with a broad white belt, and measuring one hundred
and two feet in height from base to vane. It ex-
hibited, at an elevation of one hundred and thirty-six
feet above the sea, a holophotal light, revolving, with
a flash every fifteen seconds. During a severe storm
in January 1869 a large portion of the gallery was
carried away. A new gallery of improved shape and
less projection was then constructed, and the tower
strengthened for thirty feet up with metal plates and
an inner stratum of concrete. But a more furious gale
assaulted the unfortunate lighthouse on the night of
November 26, 1881, reducing it to a complete wreck,
and endangering the lives of the keepers, who were
detained prisoners on the rock for several days, no
vessel being able to approach to their relief. The
news of the calamity did not reach Dublin until late
on the 28th. Within a few hours H.M.S. Salamis
was despatched to render assistance, and was signalled
by the lighthouse-men ; but the sea was so rough that
nothing could be done to rescue them, and in the after-
noon of the 29th she returned to Bantry Bay. Next
morning she made another effort to reach the rock,
but in consequence of the continued violence of the
weather, it was deemed unsafe to launch a boat. At
the same time a cask of fresh water was floated to
the keepers, who, it was feared, might be undergoing
painful privations; and pending further attempts to

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 283

take them off the rock, where they were exposed to
the full fury of the storm, the rocket apparatus was
brought into operation to supply them with food. The
Salamis then returned to Buckhaven with the informa-
tion that forty feet of the lighthouse had been carried
away; but it was afterwards found that only the
thirty feet remained which had been strengthened in
1867.

On the 3rd of December, the Times correspondent
at Cork telegraphed that the six occupants of the
wrecked lighthouse were still confined by wind and
wave to their lonely prison. The principal lighthouse
keeper, however, had contrived to send a communica-
tion ashore in an air-tight india-rubber bag, in which
he gave full particulars of the disaster, and of the
situation of himself and his colleagues. Two gun-
boats, the Seahorse and the Amelia, were cruising
daily around the rock, though unable to get near it.
The appliances on the rock which had formerly been
used to enable the keepers to go ashore and return
had shared the fate of the tower. They consisted of
a gaff, sixty-three feet long, with a mesh attached to it.

The Calf Rock light and the Fastnet light— which
also suffered severely during the gale — are the most im-
portant on the south coast of Ireland, being the chief
guides to vessels arriving from America. With the ex-
ception, perhaps, of the Wolf, on the west coast of Corn-
wall, there is not on the shores of the United Kingdom
a lighthouse which has to breast fiercer or heavier seas

284 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

than those which strike on the Calf Eock. The tower
was one hundred and fifty feet high, and Captain
Boxer, inspector of Irish lighthouses, says that he has
often seen waves break upon it which have gone into
the air twenty feet higher. Strong currents from
north and south here rush together, producing even
in the calmest summer weather a ground-swell which
makes it extremely dangerous to try to effect a land-
ing. In 1868 seven men attempted it, and neither the
boat they rowed in nor the men themselves were ever
seen again. In shape the rock resembles an egg, the
edges having been worn away by the waves until the
whole surface has become quite conical. Its circuit at
low water measures about one hundred yards.

The six keepers and assistants were rescued at
length on the 8th of December by the gunboat Sea-
horse. The weather having moderated, she got near
enough to throw to them a life-buoy with a line at-
tached. This line having been made fast, another line
was flung from the rock and picked up by a boat's
crew which had approached the rock. The ropes were
made secure; and at low water the men, one at a
time, jumped into the sea, and were hauled on board
the boat. They were soon transferred to the Seahorse,
where stimulants and dry clothing were supplied. All
the men were in a weak state, but having been con-
veyed ashore, and received proper attention, in a day
or two they completely recovered.

The Calf Rock has since been abandoned as a light-

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND. 285

house station, and a massive tower, with all the latest
improvements, was erected, in 1889, on Bull Rock,
lat. 52° 35' 30".* On Roancamg Island, Buckhaven,
eastern entrance of Bantry Bay, and on Rock Island
Point, Crookhaven, north side of entrance, light towers
were built in 1847 and 1867 respectively, the former
by Mr. Halpin, the latter by Mr. Sloane. The former
is sixty-two feet high, with a catoptric fixed white
light; and the latter, forty-five feet high, showing a
fixed light, with red and white sectors. Both are
circular white towers of substantial construction. The
Roancarrig tower is distinguished by a broad belt of
red under the balcony.

LIGHTHOUSES IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.

The reader will not fail to remember that it was on
the fatal rocks of the Casquets, off the coast of Jersey,
that the ship La Blanche Nef, carrying homeward the
son and heir of Henry I., Prince William, was wrecked
in 1120. Prince William lost his life ; and the royal
father, it is said, never smiled again. Many good ships
have since been destroyed upon this formidable reef ;
but since 1723 its position, to the great profit of the
mariner, has been indicated by a warning light. The
present building was reconstructed in 1877. It is built

* It is 49 feet high, 271 feet above high water, and shows a flashing
Light every fifteen seconds.

286 LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

of stone, seventy-five feet high, and situated on the
highest rock of the cluster, in lat. 49° 43' 17", and long.
2° 22' 42". The light shows three successive flashes of
about two seconds' duration each, with about three
seconds of darkness between each flash, and the third
flash being followed by an eclipse of about eighteen
seconds. A fog-siren is stationed here.

A noble tower of granite, one hundred and seven-
teen feet high, was erected in 1862 on the south-west
point of the Hanois Rocks, Guernsey. It exhibits a
red light, revolving in forty -five seconds.

Off the south-west extremity of the island of Jersey
cluster the romantic rocks of the Corbieres, flung out
among the yeasty waters like the vertebrae of some
gigantic ocean monster. They derive their name
from the flocks of sea-cormorants (corbiere) which
breed among them. At low water they are accessible
from the shore by a half-tide causeway, but at high
water are entirely isolated. Their strange and varied
outlines render them extremely picturesque. Tradi-
tion affirms that the droit d'epaves, or right of wreck-
age, whereby a stranded vessel became the property of
the seigneur, was freely exercised of old, and ships
lured by deceitful lights to destruction upon the Cor-
bieres. But their whereabouts is now indicated by
a tall lighthouse tower of concrete, erected in 1874,
in lat. 49° 10' 40". Its height is sixty-two feet, and
the rock on which it stands is about sixty-five to
seventy feet above high-water mark. It shows a fixed

LIGHTHOUSES OF IRELAND.

287

THE CORBIE RES LIGHTHOUSE.

with two red sectors, visible nineteen
in foggy weather a bell peals from its

white light,
miles ; and

gallery thrice at intervals of half-a-minute. The light-
house, and the two cottages for the accommodation of
the keepers, was designed by Sir John Coode, C.E.

CHAPTER VII.

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

VERY visitor to Havre will remember the two
light-towers so prominently situated on the
promontory known as the Cape de la Heve — light-
houses which have enjoyed the very rare distinction
of being celebrated by a poet. For in one of his lyrics
Casimir Delavigne apostrophizes them very prettily : —

" Doux feux qui prote"gez et Thetis et la Seine,
Stirs et brillants rivaux des deux freres d'Helene,
Phares, je vous salue ; assurez a jamais
Le commerce opulent de 1'heureuse Neustrie ;

Fixez dans ma patrie
L'abondance, les arts, tous les fruits de la paix."

The promontory itself has been embellished with a
legend by Bernardin de St. Pierre, and is bold enough
and romantic enough in its aspect to justify the fancies
of legend and poetry. It rises abruptly from the wild
waters of the Channel — " a precipitous mountain, com-
posed of funereal strata of white and black stones " —
the tomb of the fair nymph Heva, who died of sorrow
for the loss of her mistress, the Seine, the daughter of

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. 289

Bacchus and Ceres, who was metamorphosed into a flow-
ing river to escape the pursuit of Neptune.

Cape de la Heve, the ancient Caletes, forms one of
the boundaries and breakwaters of the estuary of the
Seine. In the tenth century it projected much farther
into the sea, and the banks of L'Eclat, now separated
from it by a channel two thousand yards wide, was
then a portion of it. The waters still continue their
ravages, and it is estimated that they gain upon the
land seven feet every year.

Tradition assigns to its two lighthouses an origin of
great antiquity. As early as 1364, it is said, a tower,
called the Tour des Castillans, was erected here, and a
coal-fire was maintained upon its summit. This, how-
ever, fell into disuse ; the tower was demolished, and the
seamen sailing into the port of Havre were left without
any assistance until, in 1774, the government of Louis
XV., in compliance with the solicitation of the Chamber
of Normandy, built the present edifices. At first coal-
fire was the illuminant employed; but in 1781 each
was fitted up with an apparatus of sixteen spherical
reflectors, some focussing three and others two oil-wick
burners, of which there were forty in all. The double
paraboloidal reflectors of Bordier-Marceat, six to each
lighthouse, were introduced in 1811 and 1814, their
number being increased to ten in 1819. In 1845, the
towers were restored and remodelled to fit them for
receiving the improved dioptric apparatus in lanterns
measuring twelve feet in diameter. A well-built row

(241) 19

290 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

of dwellings was put up to connect the two towers.
In 1866, the electric light was substituted for oil, the
Alliance Company's "alternating current magneto-
electric machines " being adopted for this purpose.

Both the towers are of equal elevation (seventy -five
feet), and very handsomely constructed. From the
balcony a view of great extent and impressiveness may
be enjoyed. Iri brilliancy of colouring and variety
of outline it has been compared to the pictures of sea
and shore which the traveller commands at Corinth or
Constantinople. When the air is clear arid the sky
cloudless, the spectator's eye ranges as far as Barfleur
on the south-west; westward, to Honfleur, Trouville,
and the picturesque little bathing-places on the Nor-
mandy coast ; while far away in the distance lies Cape
la Hague, with its memories of Admiral Russell's famous
victory ; and northward the gaze rests on the headland
of Antifer, and the riven and sombre rocks of Etretat.

One of the most interesting of the French light-
houses is that which illuminates the broad but danger-
ous water-way between the Breton coast and the
Roches-Douvres.

When M. Leonce Reynaud began his operations, he
found himself confronted by difficulties almost as great
as those which Smeaton conquered at the Eddystone
and Stevenson at the Bell Rock. The rock selected
for the site of the proposed lighthouse is one of a group
which the sea covers at high tide. The men, therefore,

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. 201

could work only for a limited number of hours daily.
Again: the currents in these waters were of great
violence, their velocity not being less than eight knots
an hour ; and when their force is increased by the fury
of a hurricane, the billows rage with a roar and a rush
which fill the air like peals of thunder.

Huts for the masons were planted on the isle of
Brehat, about three leagues' distance from the rock.
Here, in a sheltered little nook, a jetty of rough stones,
about one hundred and seventy feet long, was con-
structed, to facilitate the transport of materials and the
landing and embarking of the men. Quite a fleet was
engaged in conveying stores and materials to the island.
The granite came from the He-Grande, about ten leagues
to the westward ; the lirne from the basin of the Loire ;
Saint-Malo furnished the timber ; and as the wells of
Brehat were insufficient to supply the additional popu-
lation, water, as well as provisions, was obtained from
the mainland.

M. Reynaud's "army of labour" consisted of sixty
men. During the working season these were lodged
on the rock itself, or rather, at a short distance from
it, on a platform of masonry, thirteen feet above high
water, constructed between a couple of aiguilles, or
needle-rocks, which the sea never covered. Several
dwellings were erected upon this platform, together
with the timber framework of a beacon, which ex-
hibited a provisional light. The available area was
very limited, and not an inch of it was wasted. In the

292 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

beacon was arranged, besides the store-room and the
light-keeper's lodging, a room for the accommodation
of M. Reynaud. His bivouacking hut stood on the
right. By blowing up a portion of the rock, it was
found possible to erect a long but narrow barrack for
the overseers. In front stood the kitchen and larder ;
at the side, the common dining-room ; and in the rear,
a sitting-room and bedroom for the men, in which the
beds were set as close as possible, in two tiers. A third
row was built up in the dining-room. Lastly, on a
projecting crag to the left, was planted a small forge,
which had but one defect, that it could not be kept
lighted at high water.

At first the men were allowed full liberty in supply-
ing themselves with provisions ; but some cases of
scurvy having broken out, M. Reynaud was compelled
to impose upon them a carefully regulated bill of fare.
He established, therefore, a canteen, binding down its
lessee and manager to keep on hand not less than a six
weeks' supply, as a precaution against bad weather,
which might cut off all communication with the main-
land. At this canteen each workman was required to
obtain his rations. Due sanitary measures were also
taken. The hammocks were exposed every morning
in the open air, and once a week the living-rooms
were lime-washed. Once a week, too, every man was
compelled to take a sea-water bath. The result was
that the terrible malady with an invasion of which
the little colony had been threatened was stamped

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. 293

out, and the general health was in all respects satis-
factory.

Every day, as soon as the tide had ebbed, work was
begun, and the hours for meals were so arranged that
no interruption took place while the tide lasted. When
the rise of the waters rendered it necessary to desist, a
bell gave the signal; and the men hastened, before
they withdrew, to cover with a layer of cement, which
hardened instantaneously, the masonry which had just
been laid. Occasionally the tide flowed with unex-
pected rapidity, and then woe to the laggard and the
unready! They were compelled to plunge into the
rolling waves, and make their way as best they could
to the place of shelter, where in their dripping con-
dition they were always received by their fellows with
shouts of laughter. This frequently-recurring scene
was almost the only amusement of the little colony,
and they made the most of it.

So far as the erection of the light-tower was con-
cerned, the chief difficulty was necessarily experienced
in laying the submarine foundations. As soon as they
had reached high-water mark, the men not only carried
on their labours with greater facility and convenience,
but were relieved from much risk of danger. The rock
on which they worked consisted of an exceedingly hard
black porphyry, in which an excavation was effected
of about twenty inches in depth and thirty-eight feet
in diameter. In this excavation were laid the first
courses of masonry. The lighthouse itself, one hun-

294 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

dred and fift}^-five feet in height, is divided into
two principal parts. The tower is built up solid to a
point three feet and a quarter above the level of the
highest tides, and forms a massive and impregnable
substructure, from which rises another elegant and
substantial tower, crowned by a spacious lantern. The
work occupied six years. The first was employed in
surveying the site, and in preparing and maturing
plans; the second, in the erection of the huts and
beacon and excavation of the rock ; the third, in build-
ing up the solid masonry; in the fourth, the light-tower
was raised as far as the first gallery ; in the fifth, it
was carried a little above the cornice ; and, finally, in
1839, the lantern was completed and the light exhibited.
The total cost of this noble work was 577,984 francs.

Standing erect and solitary, in the midst of a wide
waste of waters, the lighthouse of the Heaux of Brehat
produces a strong impression of austere magnificence.
Michelet says of it that it has the sublime simplicity
of a gigantic sea-plant. Massive, immovable, silent, it
seems, from one point of view, a defiance flung by the
genius of man to the fierce demon of the storm. The
best description of it with which we are acquainted is
that so graphically drawn by M. de Quatrefages, in his
" Kambles of a Naturalist." He visited it from Brehat
in a boat manned by six sturdy seamen, on a fine
October day, and was evidently stirred to a high pitch
of enthusiasm. Here is his account of what he saw
and felt :—

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. ±)r>

" The nearer we approached to Heaux," he says, " the
taller seemed its beacon-tower, which stood forth from
its substructure, with lofty granite column and glass
lantern, protected by that magical rod which is able to
attract and safely guide to earth the destructive force
of the thunderbolt. We landed, and at once began an
examination of this colossal bulk raised by the hand
of man on the Epe'es de Tr^guier, which, formerly the
terror of the seaman, has now become his protecting
guide through the darkness and the storm.

"The Heaux Lighthouse would be looked upon as
a remarkable monument even in our principal towns ;
but standing as it does alone in the midst of ocean, it
acquires from its very isolation a character of grand
severity which powerfully influences the mind. Figure
to yourself a wall of granite, where the winds and
waves forbid even the hardiest ferns to take root, with
here and there a twisted and deeply-worn crag pro-
jecting beyond the rest of the mass. Here it is that
the architect has laid the foundation of the tower.
The base, which is conical in form, is surmounted by a
circular gallery. The lower portion curves gracefully
outwards, and extends over the ground like the root of
some vast marine plant springing up from the founda-
tion stones, which have been deeply imbedded in the
rock. Upon this base or substructure rises a column
twenty-six feet in diameter, which is surmounted by a
second gallery, with supports and stone balustrades that
remind you of the portcullis and battlements of some

296 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

medieval keep. From base to summit this column or
tower is composed of large blocks of a whitish granite,
arranged in regular courses, and carefully dovetailed
into one another. For a third of the total height of
the building the rows of stones are bound together by
granite joggles, which at the same time penetrate into
the two superposed stones. The stones have been cut
and arranged with such precision that hardly any
necessity has arisen for the use of cement, and it has
been employed only in filling up a few imperceptible
voids. Hence, from base to summit, the lighthouse
forms one solid block, which is more homogeneous and
probably more compact than the rocks which support
it. The platform that crowns this splendid column, at
an elevation of upwards of one hundred and forty feet
above high-water mark, is surmounted by a stone
cupola, at once solid and graceful, resting upon pillars
which are separated by large panes of glass. It is
within this crystal frame that the beacon is lighted,
which may distinctly be seen from every direction at a
distance of twenty-seven miles.

" At low tide the sea leaves a space of several hun-
dred square yards uncovered round the base of the
edifice; at high tide, it entirely surrounds it. Then
it is that the tower of Heaux rises in its solemn soli-
tariness from the bosom of the waves, like a standard
of defiance unfurled by man against the spirit of the
storm. One might almost fancy at times that the
heavens and the sea, conscious of the outrage offered to

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. 297

them, were leagued together against the enemy which
seems to brave them by its imperturbability. The
north-west wind roars round the tower, darkening its
thick glass windows with torrents of rain and drifts
of snow and hail. These impetuous blasts bear along
with them gigantic billows, which not unfrequently
with their foamy crests reach the first gallery, but slide
away from the round polished surface of the granite
that presents no points of adhesion, and hurling their
spray even above the cupola, plunge forward with
thunderous roar against the rocks of Stallio-Bras or
the boulders of Sillon. The tower supports these tre-
mendous attacks without injury, though it bends, as if
in homage, before the might of its foes. I was assured
by the keepers," says M. de Quatrefages, " that, during
a violent storm, the oil in the lamps of the highest
rooms shows a variation of level exceeding an inch,
which would lead us to assume that the summit of the
tower describes an arc of about a yard in extent. This
very flexibility is, however, in itself a proof of durability.
At all events, we meet with similar conditions in several
monuments which have endured for ages the inclem-
ency of recurring winters. The spire of Strasburg
Cathedral, in particular, bends its long ogives and
slender pinnacles beneath the force of the winds, while
the cross on its summit oscillates at an elevation of
more than four hundred and fifty feet above the ground.
" To construct a monument upon these rocks, which
are apparently the centre of all the storms which rage

298 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

on that part of our coasts, was like building an edifice
in the open sea. Such a project at first sight seemed
almost impracticable. After their third season of labour,
the workmen completed the foundations of the tower
and fixed the keystone of the cupola. In vain did
difficulties of every kind combine with the winds and
waters to oppose their work ; human industry emerged
victorious from the struggle, and no serious accident
disturbed the toilers in the joy of their triumph. On
one occasion alone was science at fault. In order to
facilitate the arrival of the stones, which had to be
brought from a distance of several leagues and cut at
Br^hat, the skilful engineer who had furnished all the
plans and superintended their execution resolved to
construct a wooden pier for the landing of the stones
where they were required. Some veteran seamen ob-
jected to the project as impracticable ; but M. Reynaud,
unfamiliar with the sea, and proud, moreover, of having
stemmed the current of rapid rivers, relied on the
stability of the massive pillars which he had clamped
together with bronze and iron. But he was soon com-
pelled to acknowledge his mistake. The first storm
sufficed to scatter over the waters all his ponderous
and solid materials, like so many pieces of straw. A
crane was therefore raised upon the summit of a rock,
to which boats could be moored; and the materials
were then hauled up to a railway which had been
thrown over a precipice that separated this natural
landing-place from the site of the tower.

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. 299

" Now that we have admired the lighthouse exter-
nally, follow me into the interior by the help of these
steps, which have been formed by the insertion of bars
of gun-metal into the stone. Pause for a moment to
admire the ponderous bronze doors which hermetically
seal the entrance, before we pass into those vaults
which look as if they had been cut out of the solid
rock. On the first story we are surrounded by stores
of wood and ropes and workmen's tools. On the next
we see cases of zinc, which, we are told, contain oil to
feed the lamps and water for the use of the keepers.
On the third story, with the first or lower gallery, is
the kitchen with its pantry and larder. Of the three
apartments appropriated as their bedrooms and sit-
ting-rooms, we have nothing to say, except that they
are very simple and clean. On the seventh story we
rest for a few moments in the little octagonal saloon
set apart for the engineers on their visits of inspec-
tion. Here, in the midst of the ocean, you will find
the comfort and almost the elegance of a Parisian
apartment.

" Let us now regain the spiral staircase which has
brought us to this elevation, and it will carry us still
higher to that portion of the building which is more
particularly designed to fulfil its special object. The
eighth story is filled with vessels of oil, sheets of glass,
revolving lamps, some excellent meteorological instru-
ments, a thermometer, a barometer, and a chronometer.
Here the spiral staircase terminates in a flattened arch,

300 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

which supports a slender pillar cut into steps — the
only means of access to the watch-room above, where
the men take it by turns to keep watch every night.
You will be surprised on looking round to observe that
this room is lined with different coloured marbles — the
roof, the walls, and even the floor. But this luxury,
which may appear to you so much out of place, has
been introduced from necessity. The lighting appara-
tus enters the apartment through a circular aperture in
the ceiling; and hence the most absolute cleanliness,
which can be secured only by means of perfectly
polished surfaces, is indispensable."

From Breliat we now transport the reader to the
little seaport of Sables-d'Olonne, and proceed on a
visit to the lighthouse, erected in 1861, on the danger-
ous rock of the Grande Barge d'Olonne, situated about
a mile and a furlong from the shore, in the midst of
currents and counter-currents of extreme violence. Its
foundation is almost completely submerged, and during
high tides the waves mount to a height of one hundred
feet.

Building operations were begun in 1857, and com-
pleted in 1861 ; but in these five years, owing to the
difficult conditions under which they were prosecuted,
only one thousand nine hundred and sixty hours could
be devoted to continuous labour. Yet, so well under-
stood are the principles on which these structures are
based, and so infinite are the resources of engineering

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. 301

science, that this comparatively brief period proved
sufficient.

The entire cost of the building is stated at 450,000
francs, equal to £18,000. It was erected under the super-
vision of M.Heynaud, inspector-general, and M. Forestier,
engineer-in-chief, the material employed being granite ;
diameter at the base, 39*37 feet, tapering with a curved
outline to 21'23 feet beneath the balcony. The door-
sill is thirteen and a half feet above high-water mark
of the highest tides ; and up to this point the tower,
with the exception of receptacles for coals and fresh
water, is solid. Above, the main shaft or tower, with
an interior diameter of 11 '48 feet, is divided into five
stories by vaults of brick. It has a substantial cornice
and parapet of granite ; and from its topmost platform
rises the turret, 6'56 feet high and 8'2 feet in diameter,
which supports the lantern. The catadioptric illu-
minating apparatus which is in use here produces a
white light, varied by red flashes every three minutes.

Opposite the rising watering-place of Arcachon pro-
jects the picturesque promontory of Cap Ferret, form-
ing one side of the entrance to the Arcachon basin, in
lat. 44° 39'. On its summit stands the tall tower of a
lighthouse of the first class — a circular edifice rising
from a circular base (which contains the keepers'
room) to an elevation of one hundred and fifty-six feet.
It is not divided into stories, but a spiral staircase
winds up the interior to the lantern-room. The bars
of the lantern, we may note, are set horizontally and

302 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

vertically, instead of laterally and spirally as in En-
gland, or diagonally as in Scotland ; and in this respect
it is inferior, for horizontal bars cast shadows and im-
pair the light. A strong wire network surrounds and
encloses it, as a protection from the sea-birds, which
are attracted in great numbers. As many as two hun-
dred have been killed in a single year by dashing
against the panes.

This light has three keepers. No provision had been
made for lodging their families, but some thirty years
ago they obtained permission to build huts for them-
selves and their families. No means of communication
exist between the lantern-room and the keepers' room.
The man on duty is allowed an arm-chair, but no books.
It has been remarked that the reverse obtains in En-
gland, where books are provided, but no arm-chair.

The lighthouse at Biarritz, within the shadow of the
pine-clad Pyrenees, is well worth a visit, if only for its
romantic position, and the beauty of the views both of
land and sea which it commands. It is built on the
rocky headland of St. Martin's Point, two and a half
miles south-west of the mouth of the river Adour ; and
standing on the brink of the cliff, which is about a hun-
dred feet high, shows in a very handsome and stately
manner. Inside, as at Cap Ferret, the ascent to the
lantern is by a spiral staircase. The floor is of coloured
marbles. The illuminating apparatus, dioptric, first-
order, shows a revolving light, white and red, revolving
in twenty seconds, and visible for twenty-two miles.

SOME FRENCH LlGtiTHOUSES. 303

On the isle of Re, so sadly famous in English history
as the scene of the failure of the Duke of Bucking-
ham's expedition in the reign of Charles I., is situated
the TOUT des Baleints, in lat. 46° 25'. It is built of
yellow stone, with ornaments of dark-gray granite.
The tower is octagonal in shape, and rises from a block
of buildings, two stories high, which is divided into
numerous apartments. These are well fitted and fur-
nished. The oil storeroom and the men's workroom
are quite remarkable for the elegance of their fittings,
their pavements of coloured marbles, tables of the same
material, glass cases for the necessary tools, spare
lamps, and the like. The tower measures one hundred
and sixty-four feet from base to vane, and its focal
plane is tine hundred and sixty-six feet above the sea.
It is hollow, and ascended by a spiral stair. Below
the lantern is a room, with a spare lamp ready for use,
and a bed for a keeper. This room is wainscotted with
flowered oak, and exceedingly handsome. Coloured
marbles are employed as a flooring for the lantern, and
line its walls to the height of six feet. The gallery
outside is broad, and protected by a solid rail. Total
cost of the Tour des Baleines, £14,010. An electric
light apparatus was introduced in 1882, and it now
shows a succession of groups of four flashes, with an
interval of ten seconds between two groups.

Relative to the lighthouse service in France, we may
state a few particulars. Its centralization dates from

304 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

the time of the National Convention. Previously, the
existing lighthouses had belonged to local corporations ;
but a law of the 15th February 1792 placed them
under the control of the Ministry of the Marine, but
intrusted the execution of the works to the Minister of
the Interior. An imperial decree of March 7, 1806,
transferred the service entirely to the Ministry of the
Interior, and afterwards to the Conseil Ge'ne'ral des
Fonts et Chaussees ; but it prescribed a concerted
action between the French Admiralty and Home Office
for the organization of establishments, and out of this
grew eventually the Commission des Phares, or Light-
house Commission, which consists of three naval officers,
three members of the Institute, three general inspectors
of roads and bridges, and the Minister of Public Works
as president. This Commission is called on to decide
(subject to the approval of the minister) on all ques-
tions relative to the establishment of lighthouses,
buoys, and beacons, and their maintenance and im-
provement. It administers annually an expenditure of
about £50,000.

The French system allots three keepers to light-
houses of the first order (the lights of which have a
range from twenty to twenty-seven miles), two to those
of the second and third order (six to twenty miles),
while lights of the fourth order, or fanaux, have but
one keeper each. In rock lighthouses there are always
three keepers, to whatever order they may belong, so
that the service may never be exposed to interruption,

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. 305

and the keepers may have regular periods of rest.
Lighthouses of the first order, in isolated positions,
are provided with four keepers.

There are seven classes of keepers, whose wages are
as follow : —

Mattres de Phare £40

Gardiens de Ire Classe 34

2me .. 31

3me
4me
5me
6me

2S
25
22
1!)

They are supplied also with lodging, fire, and light.
For good conduct they obtain rewards, of which the
maximum is fixed at a month's allowance. They are
entitled to a retiring pension, towards which five per
cent, is deducted from their wages.

We subjoin a list of the more remarkable of the
French lighthouses : —

Gape Grisnez, lat. 50° 52', long. 1° 35' ; electric light,
showing three white flashes at three-second intervals,
followed by an interval of about twelve seconds, in the
middle of which is seen a red flash ; circular tower, 79
feet high ; first lighted in 1837. To the French light-
house service Cape Grisnez bears the same relation as
the South Foreland to the English service ; important
experiments are constantly being performed there. Its
light is visible from the English coast.

Cape La Heve, lat. 49° 31'; two lighthouses, each 66

(241) 20

306 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

feet high ; each square built, of stone, with focal plane
of lantern 397 feet above the sea ; range of light, 27
miles. The electric light is in use here.

Fatouville, lat. 49° 25'; fixed white light, with red
flash every three minutes ; visible 22 miles ; octagonal
stone tower, 105 feet high, erected on the cliffs upwards
of 300 feet above the sea ; dates from 1850.

Cape Leve, between Barfleur and Honfleur, lat. 49°
42'; fixed white light, with red flash every three
minutes, visible 13 miles ; square tower, 105 feet high ;
erected in 1858.

Cape la Hague, lat. 49° 43'. Off this headland
Admiral Russell won his great victory over the French
fleet under M. de Tourville in 1692. The lighthouse, a
circular tower of stone, 154 feet high, was erected in
1837 on the summit of the Gros du Raz rock, half a
mile from the cape ; shows a fixed white light, visible
18 miles.

Grand Lejon, on the rock, lat. 48° 45', long. 2° 40' ;
white and red, alternately fixed and flashing — the
fixed white light visible 12 miles, and the fixed red
light 8 miles; the flashing white 17 miles, and the
flashing red 12 miles. The tower is 76 feet high ;
erected in 1881.

Heaux de Bre'hat, on the north-east side of Les Heaux
ledge, lat. 48° 55'; fixed white and red light, visible 18
miles; circular tower of granite, 159 feet from base to
top; lighted in 1839; cost of construction £23,219.

lie de Bas, lat. 48° 45' ; white light, revolving every

SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES. 307

minute ; visible 21 miles ; round tower, 131 feet high ;
erected in 1836.

He de Ushant, lat. 48° 28', on Creac'h Point, north-
west side of island; white and red light, revolving;
visible 22 miles ; circular tower of stone, painted with
horizontal belts of black and white, 151 feet high;
erected in 1863.

Ardmon Rock, lat. 48° 3'; fixed white light, visible 16
miles; tower, 110 feet high; first lighted in 1881. In
foggy weather a trumpet gives a blast at minute inter-
vals of about five seconds' duration.

Penmarch, on the point, near Church of St. Pierre,
lat. 47° 48' ; white light, revolving in thirty seconds ;
visible 18 miles; circular tower of stone, 131 feet high;
erected in 1835.

Belle He, Goidfar Bay, lat. 47° 19'; white light, re-
volving every minute; circular tower of stone, 151 feet
high ; erected 1857.

La Tour, lat. 47° 18'; white light, revolving ; visible
15 miles ; circular tower, 92 feet; erected 1846.

Barge d'Olonne, on Grand Bank, lat. 46° 30'; fixed
white light, with red flash every three minutes; visible
14 miles ; circular tower, 84 feet ; lighted 1861.

lie d'Oleron, Chassiron, on north-west point, lat. 46°
3'; fixed white light, visible 19 miles; circular tower,
141 feet; erected in 1836.

Gironde River, Coubre Point, lat. 45° 42'; fixed white
light, visible 17 miles ; tower painted dark brown, 98
feet high ; 1860.

308 SOME FRENCH LIGHTHOUSES.

Gironde River, Terre Negre, lat. 45° 39'; fixed white
light, visible 15 miles ; circular black and white tower,
75 feet ; 1860.

Gironde River, St. Pierre, N.E. by E. from Chay
Lighthouse, lat. 45° 37'; fixed red light ; square tower,
painted with belts of red and white, 115 feet high ;
lighted in 1873.

Gironde River, Tour de Cordouan, on rock, lat. 45°
35'; revolving light, red and white, every minute;
circular tower, 207 feet high ; erected 1854.

Cap Ferret, lat. 44° 39'; fixed white light, visible 19
miles; circular tower of granite, 156 feet; lighted 1840.

Contis, lat. 44° 6'; white light, revolving every half
minute ; visible 19 miles ; circular tower, 125 feet high ;
erected 1863.

Biarritz, St. Martin's Point, lat. 43° 30'; white and
red light, revolving in twenty seconds; visible 22 miles;
circular tower of brick, 144 feet high ; erected 1861.

CHAPTER VIII.

LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES.

IN the United States the lighthouse service is under
the charge of a Board legally organized on the
31st of August 1852. This Board comprises the Secre-
tary of the Treasury, who is ex officio president, two
officers of the navy of high rank, two officers of
engineers of the army, two civilians distinguished by
their scientific attainments, and one officer of the navy
and one officer of engineers of the army as secretaries.
The clerical work of the board is executed by five
clerks.

No officer of the army or navy serving on lighthouse
duty receives any other compensation than that to
which he is entitled in his grade in the service.

The ocean and lake coasts are divided into twelve
districts, each of which is under the charge of an
inspector, who is an officer of the army or navy, and
reports directly to the Board. In each district are also
stationed superintendents of lights, who are collectors
of the customs, and whose duties are, to disburse the

310 LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES,

money for the ordinary expenses of the establishment,
on the certificates of the inspectors; to nominate
keepers to the Secretary of the Treasury ; and, in the
sickness or necessary absence of the inspector, to per-
form his duties.

The inspectors and superintendents are directly re-
sponsible to the Board, but are in no respects respons-
ible to each other.

From time to time engineers are selected from one or
other of the corps of engineers of the army, who are
either inspectors of lights, and incidentally engineers of
lighthouse construction in their respective districts, or do
duty as lighthouse engineers exclusively. Under their
superintendence all lighthouse structures are built,
after the designs have been submitted to and approved
by the Board. Funds for the lighthouse service are
voted by Congress, and no tax or toll is levied for its
support. The annual cost would seem to be about
£140,000, with about £20,000 for buoys and beacons.

In selecting sites for lighthouses, the Board is led to
its conclusions by careful consideration of (1) the posi-
tion of the lighthouses with regard to the necessities
of navigation ; (2) the possibility of obtaining a proper
foundation. Similar principles are observed in decid-
ing upon the stations of floating lights. The classifica-
tion adopted is simply this: primary sea-coast lighthouse
stations ; secondary sea-coast and lake-coast lighthouse
stations ; and sound, bay, river, and harbour lighthouse
stations. To first-class lights the staff allotted is — one

LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 311

keeper at £120 a year, and two assistants at £72 each ;
second-class lights — one keeper at £100, and one assist-
ant at £60; third-class — one keeper at £90, and one
assistant at £60 ; fourth, fifth, and sixth classes — one
keeper at £80. There are no allowances.

The optical system in use is the lenticular ; and this
is preferred, because (1) the primary sea-coast lights
are more powerful than reflector lights can be made ;
(2) for the same quantity of light the expenditure of
oil is less ; and (3) the annual cost of repairs and labour
in the lens system is less than it is in the reflector
system. Oil-lights are almost exclusively used; but
electricity has been employed in the case of the Statue
of Liberty at New York. The sole oil employed is
sperm.

An American lighthouse of the first class is estimated
to cost (including £1,600 for the illuminating apparatus)
£8,600. A light-vessel will cost, when complete for
service, about £4,200; and its crew will consist of a
keeper at £200 per annum, first mate £96, second mate
£72, and eight seamen at £43, 4s. each, with one ration
for each person. The annual maintenance of a light-
ship is put at 11,300 (including £250 for repairs).

The American lighthouses, having been constructed
on the English model, do not call for detailed descrip-
tion, but we subjoin a few particulars of some of the
most important : —

On the Atlantic sea -board the most northerly is
the St. Croix River, situated on Dochet Island, lat.

312 LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES.

45° 8', erected in 1856; and the southernmost is the
Brazos Santiago, on Isabel Point, lat. 26° 5', erected in
1852,— eleven hundred and forty-three geographical
miles apart. The total number of lights along this
extent of coast is four hundred and seventy-four (fixed
and floating lights) ; but, including those of lakes,
rivers, etc., the aggregate rises to sixteen hundred and
twenty-eight (of which, however, only fifty-one belong
to the first class). This is exclusive of twenty-three
lightships. Floating lights are not much in favour in
the United States, and, wherever possible, permanent
lighthouses have been substituted for them.

Petit Manan Island, lat. 44° 22", off coast of Maine ;
white light, with flash every two minutes, visible
17 miles ; gray tower 109 feet high ; first lighted in
1817. Every lighthouse on the coast of Maine is pro-
vided with a fog-signal.

Seguin, on the island off Kennebec River, lat. 43°
42' ; fixed white light, visible 22 miles ; gray tower, 35
feet high ; first lighted in 1795, and therefore one of
the oldest of the American lighthouses.

Bom Island, off York Harbour, lat. 43° 7' '; fixed
white light, 18 miles ; gray tower, 123 feet ; erected
in 1812.

Portsmouth, inner entrance of harbour, south-west
side ; fixed white light ; 60 feet high ; first lighted in
1789.

Cape Ann, Thatcher Island, Massachusetts, in lat.
42° 28'; fixed white light; visible 19 miles; two

LIGHTHOUSES OF THE' UNITED STATES. 313

towers, each 102 feet high ; and each first lighted in
1790. The two towers are 295 yards apart.

Boston Bay, Little Brewster Island, north side of
main outer entrance of harbour, lat. 42° 40'; white
light, revolving every half minute, visible 17 miles;
circular tower, painted white, with black lantern ; first
lighted in 1716.

Plymouth, Garnet Point, lat. 42° ; fixed white light,
visible 16 miles; octagonal tower, 35 feet; dates from
1769.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts, lat. 42° 2'; fixed white
light, visible 20 miles ; white tower, lantern painted
black ; 53 feet from base to vane ; centre of lantern 195
feet above the sea ; erected in 1797.

Nantucket (Great Point), lat. 41° 25'; fixed white
light, visible 14 miles; white tower, with black lan-
tern ; 60 feet high ; erected in 1784.

Holmes Hole, Vineyard Sound, lat. 41° 31'; fixed
white light, visible 14 miles ; white tower, black lan-
tern ; erected 1827.

Whale Rock, Rhode Island, lat. 41° 27'; fixed red light,
visible 14 miles ; circular tower, 75 feet ; erected 1882.

Montauk Point, Long Island, lat. 41° 4' ; white light,
with flash every two minutes, visible 19 miles ; white
stone tower, 97 feet high ; erected in 1795.

Great West Bay, Pondquogue Point, New York, lat.
40° 5r ; fixed white light, visible 19 miles ; red tower,
150 feet high ; erected 1857.

Fire Island, south side of Long Island, lat 40° 38' ;

314 LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES.

white light, revolving every minute, visible 19 miles:
yellow tower, 152 feet high; erected in 1826.

Sandy Hook, south side of entrance to New York
Bay, lat. 40° 28', long. 74° ; fixed white light, visible
15 miles ; white tower, 77 feet high ; erected in 1764.

Barnegat, on north end of Long Beach, lat. 39° 46' ;
white flashing light every ten seconds, visible 19
miles; upper half painted red, lower half painted
white; 150 feet; erected 1834.

Absecon, south side of inlet, lat. 39° 22' ; fixed white
light, visible 19 miles; white tower, painted with
horizontal stripes of red; 150 feet high; erected in 1856.

Cape May, Delaware Bay, lat. 38° 56' ; white light,
revolving every 30 seconds, visible 19 miles; gray
tower, with red lantern; 159 feet high ; erected in 1823.

Cape Henlopen, Delaware Bay, lat. 38° 47'; fixed
white light, with red sector, visible 17 miles; white
tower, with lantern painted black ; 82 feet ; erected in
1789.

Port Penn, Delaware Bay, lat. 39° 30' ; fixed white
light; building painted black; 120 feet high; erected
in 1877.

Assateague Island, New Jersey, lat. 37° 55'; fixed
white light, visible 18 miles; red tower, 129 feet;
erected 1833.

Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. The numerous shoals in
this bay are indicated by screw-pile lighthouses (on
Mitchell's system), and lights on ordinary piles, — about
29 in all.

LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 315

Currituck Beach, North Carolina, lat. 36° 23';
white light, with red flash every minute and a half,
visible 19 miles; red tower, 150 feet high; erected in
1875. This lighthouse is drearily situated among high
and glittering sand-hills, on a coast destitute of vegeta-
tion, and utterly unpicturesque.

Booby Island, north of Cape Hatteras, lat. 35° 49' ;
fixed white light, visible 19 miles; tower 150 feet
high, painted with horizontal bands of black and
white ; erected in 1872.

Cape Hatteras (about two miles from south extrem-
ity), lat. 35° 15' ; white light, flashing every ten seconds,
and visible 20 miles ; the tower is 189 feet from base
to focal plane of lantern, and is painted with black and
white spiral bands, but uniform red from base to a
height of 27 feet ; erected in 1798, rebuilt in 1870.

Cape Look-Out, lat. 34° 37' ; fixed white light ; tower
150 feet high, chequered in black and white ; erected
in 1812.

Cape Fear, lat. 33° 52' ; red light, flashes every half
minute, visible 16 miles ; pyramidal white building, 96
feet high ; erected in 1818.

Cape Romain, on Racoon Cay or Key, South Caro-
lina, lat. 33° 1'; white light, revolving every minute,
visible 18 miles ; red tower, 150 feet high ; erected in
1866. A light was first exhibited here in 1827, and
the old tower is still standing, painted white, and 65
feet high.

Morris Island (for Charleston), lat. 32° 42'; fixed

316 LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES.

white light; tower, with black and white bands, 150
feet; first erected in 1767, rebuilt in 1876.

Hunting Island, south side of entrance to St. Helena
Sound, lat. 32° 23' ; white light, revolving every half
minute, visible 19 miles ; tower 121 feet high, painted
black in the upper part and white in the lower;
erected in 1767, rebuilt in 1876.

Tybee Island, south side of entrance to Savannah
River, lat. 32° 1' ; fixed white light ; octagonal white
building, 134 feet high ; erected in 1793, restored in
1867.

St. Simon Island, lat. 31° 8' ; white light, with red
and white flashes every minute; white tower, with
black lantern; 100 feet high; erected in 1811, rebuilt
in 1872.

St. Augustine, lat. 29° 53', north end of Anastasia
Island ; white light, with flash every three minutes ;
conical tower, 150 feet high, painted with black and
white spiral bands ; erected in 1823, rebuilt in 1874.

Cape Canaveral, lat. 28° 28' ; white light, revolving
every minute; tower 134 feet high, embellished with
horizontal bands of black and white ; erected in 1847.
Along this part of the coast, from St. Augustine to
Saint Cay, there are nine or ten primary lighthouses,
all fitted with dioptric apparatus of the first order,
namely — Cape Canaveral, Jupiter Inlet (94 feet),
Fowey Rocks (115 feet), Carysfort Reef (112 feet),
Alligator Reef (149 feet), Sombrero Cay (149 feet),
Ammion Shoal (115 feet), and Sand Cay (121 feet).

LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 317

Dry Tortugas, on the Loggerhead, or South-west
Cay, lat. 24° 38'; fixed white light, visible 18 miles;
tower 150 feet high, the lower part painted white and
the upper black ; erected in 1858.

Pensacola Harbour, near Fort Barrancas, on the
north side of Pensacola Bay, lat. 30° 21' ; white light,
revolving every minute, visible 21 miles; tower 160
feet high, erected in 1858, the upper two-thirds painted
black, the lower third white.

Sand Island, off the Alabama coast, about five miles
south-south-west of Mobile Point, lat. 30° 11'; fixed
white light, visible 12 miles ; conical tower, painted
black, 125 feet high ; erected in 1873.

Mississippi River (mouth of), South Pass (west side
of), lat. 29° V ; white light, flashing every five seconds,
visible 16 miles ; tower, painted red, 105 feet high; re-
built in 1881.

Mississippi River, on a low marshy island, on the
west side of the pass, in lat. 28° 58' ; fixed white light,
visible 17 miles; skeleton tower, painted black, 126
feet high; reconstructed in 1873. This and the pre-
ceding lighthouse are the only two lights of the first
class (dioptric, first order) on the Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Texan coasts, from lat. 30° ir to lat.
36° 5'.

Timbalier, near east end of Grande-Terre Island, lat.
29° V ; white light, with red flash every minute, visible
16 miles; black tower 118 feet high; erected 1856,
rebuilt 1874.

318 LIGHTHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Sabine Pass, Brant Point, east side of entrance to
Calcasieu River, lat. 29° 43'; white light, with flash
every minute and a half, visible 15 miles; octagonal
white tower, 75 feet high ; erected in 1856.

Bolivar Point, north side of entrance to Galveston,
lat. 29° 22' ; fixed white light, visible 17 miles ; tower
110 feet high, painted with horizontal bands of black
and white; erected in 1872.

CHAPTER IX.

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES.

TO survey the extensive coast-line of our various
colonies and dependencies, — Canada, the West
Indies, the East Indies, Australia, New Zealand, Tas-
mania, with all their outlying possessions, besides the
numerous islands sprinkled over ocean's broad breast
which acknowledge the British flag, — and to indicate
the fixed and floating lights which minister to the
safety of navigation and the development of commer-
cial enterprise all along this vast range of sea, would
occupy, however briefly and imperfectly undertaken, a
much more considerable space than we have here at
our disposal ; and we must be content with particulariz-
ing only a few of the larger and more important.

Far away in the North Sea lies the rock-island of
Heligoland, which we captured from the Danes on the
5th of September 1807. Here, on the highest summit,
a light has been exhibited from a time unknown, — an
oil light since February 1811, — the tower, which is of
stone, circular in shape, and strongly built, having been

320 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

restored and remodelled by the British Government, at
a cost of £8,618, 14s. 7d. From base to vane it
measures seventy-five feet, and its focal plane rises
two hundred and fifty-eight feet above the sea. It was
designed by Mr. David Alexander, and shows a fixed
white light, visible for sixteen miles.

We now bend our course in a very different direc-
tion, traversing the English Channel, crossing the Bay
of Biscay, passing Cadiz and its busy port, and, with a
throb of patriotic pride, pausing for a moment to con-
template " the vision of the guarded mount," the thrice-
famous Rock of Gibraltar — the first of the great
strategic ports which guard our highway to India.
The Bay of Gibraltar lies between two picturesque
headlands — Cabrita in Spain and Europa Point on the
rock. At the seaward extremity of the point a light-
house, built by the Royal Engineers — a massive tower
of limestone, eighty-one feet high — was first lighted on
the 1st of August 1851. Its illuminating apparatus is
first-order dioptric, and shows a fixed white light.

COLONIAL LIGHTS are generally under the jurisdic-
tion of the respective colonies, though in some few
instances they have been erected and are maintained
by imperial funds. Among those which have been so
erected, and are now or were until lately so main-
tained, wholly or in part, are the following : —

Bahamas — Gem Cay, Cay Sal, Abaco, Great Isaacs,
Cap Lobos, Bird Rock, Castle Island, Turk Island,
Inagua Great Island.

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 321

Gape of Good Hope— Roman Kocks, South Point.

Ceylon— Great Basses.

Newfoundland — Cape Race.

Falkland Islands — Cape Pembroke.

Western Australia — King George's Sound.

A few notes upon these may prove of interest to the
reader.

The Bahamas are all low, consisting of coral-rock
covered with a thin layer of soil. On the Atlantic
side they rise sheer from the ocean depths, but in
the opposite direction form vast submarine reefs, in-
volving great danger and difficulty to navigation.
They are therefore well lighted.

On Gem Cay, lat. 25° 34', is situated a conical tower
of stone, 70 feet high, the upper part of which is
painted red, the lower white; erected in 1836 at a
cost of £3,077. Shows a white light, revolving every
minute and a half.

In the same year was lighted up the station at
Abaco — a conical stone tower, painted red and white
like that at Gem Cay, measuring 85 feet from base
to vane ; cost £3,967 ; white light, revolving once a
minute. A circular tower, with red and white bands,
77 feet high, was erected on Little Guana Cay in 1863.

In 1839 a conical limestone tower, 58 feet 9 inches
high, painted red and white, was erected on Cay Sal
at a cost of £3,804. Fixed white light, visible for
about 15 miles.

Mr. Alexander Gordon (in December 1860) pub-

(241) 21

322 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

lished some curious facts respecting the irregularities
of the Bahama lights, or light-keepers. He showed
that fourteen times, in a few months, the light at Little
Guana Cay had been " out." Bad ventilation and the
wind blowing down had extinguished it, much to
the advantage of those who lived by wrecking — that
is, the greater part of the population of the Bahamas.
It was found upon inquiry that " the cowl " had stuck
fast, and the keepers would not liberate it. One
night, in 1856 or 1857, this lighthouse was in total
darkness until about eleven o'clock. The reason
assigned by the keepers was the danger of passing
from their dwellings to the tower in a storm. During
that interval of darkness, and because of it, a vessel
was wrecked on a cay four or five miles off, and all
hands perished. On the following morning the light-
keepers were busily engaged "enriching themselves
from the wreck."

Great Isaacs Island, another of the Bahamas, was
first lighted on the 1st of August 1859. This is one
of Mr. Alexander Gordon's iron lighthouses. It was
constructed in England, sent out in parts, and put
together under the supervision of a resident English
engineer. Total cost, about £14,300. It is painted
with broad belts of red and white ; from base to vane
measures 145 feet; and exhibits a brilliant light, re-
volving every half minute, the range of which is 16
miles. Previous to the erection of this light, twenty-
five ships were cast away on this island in twelve

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 323

years, and in the same period nearly five hundred on
various islands of the Bahamas group.

The iron lighthouse on Lobos Cay, lat. 22° 22', like
that on Great Isaacs, was designed by Mr. Alex-
ander Gordon, constructed in England, and erected
under the superintendence of a resident engineer sent
out from this country in 1860. It is 150 feet in
height, painted with broad belts of red and white,
and cost about £19,000, exclusive of the lantern and
illuminating apparatus, which cost £1,248, 8s.

On Bird Rock, in Crooked Island Passage, a conical
tower of stone, faced with blue bricks, was erected in
1876. Carries a white light, revolving every 90 seconds.

Castle Island, in the same channel, is marked by a
fixed white light ; conical tower, with three bands of
brick, 114 feet; erected 1868.

Turk Island. — The tower is of iron, 60 feet ; erected
in 1845. White light, revolving every minute.

Inagua Great Island. — Conical white tower, 114
feet high, with white light, revolving every minute,
visible 17 miles.

Upon Cape Pembroke, in the lonely and sterile Falk-
land Islands, a light was exhibited on December 1st,
1855, for the benefit of vessels bound round Cape
Horn and entering Fort William. The tower, 60 feet
high, is of iron, and was constructed in England by
Messrs. Wilkins for about £2,400. Has a fixed white
light, catoptric, visible for 12 miles.

324 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

Cape Race, Newfoundland, is the south-east corner
of that island of fogs and fishers, and notable as being
generally the last land left and the first gained by
vessels engaged in carrying on the trade between
Great Britain and the United States. Its summit is
crowned by an iron lighthouse, designed by Mr. Alex-
ander Gordon, constructed in England, and sent out to
be put together under the superintendence of a resi-
dent engineer. The circular tower rises from the
centre of the keeper's dwelling to a height of 50 feet,
and is painted in red and white vertical stripes. Cost,
£7,358. Seal oil is used to feed the light — a fixed
white light, visible for 15 miles.

Another of Mr. Alexander Gordon's iron lighthouses,
40 feet high, was erected in 1857, and lighted on the
1st January 1858, on Breaksea Island, at the entrance
of King George Sound, Western Australia. It has a
fixed white light, third order, dioptric, at an elevation
above high water of 383 feet.

Point King, the northern bluff of the narrow en-
trance to Princess Royal Harbour, King George Sound,
is the site of a small wooden lighthouse (with keeper's
dwelling attached, looking very much like an English
cottage), 17 feet in height, which shows a fixed white
light, dioptric, fifth order, over 7 miles. Cost, together
with the lighthouse on Breaksea Island, £3,796.

Cape of Good Hope.— Table Bay, on the south-west

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 325

side of the bold peninsula to which the early navi-
gators gave so auspicious a name, is well lighted.
There are lighthouses, for example, on Robben Island,*
Green Point, and Monilli Point, besides lights on the
breakwater and Prince Alfred Pier. To the south, on
Gape Point, in lat. 34° 21', stands an iron lighthouse,
30 feet high, designed by Mr. Alexander Gordon, at a
cost of about £4,500. It has a revolving white light,
visible for 12 seconds every minute, and commanding
the unusually extensive range of 36 miles. The focal
plane of this lighthouse is 816 feet above the sea, so
that it is one of the loftiest lighthouses in the world.
It was first lighted on the 1st May 1860.

On the southernmost of the Roman Rocks, in
Simon's Bay (eastward of the Point), an iron tower,
48 feet high, was erected in 1861, at a cost of about
£7,600. The lantern and illuminating apparatus cost
£1,025 additional. A revolving white light, visible for
12 seconds every minute, is shown here.

In 1848 a lofty lighthouse was erected on Cape
Agulkas. It measures 100 feet from base to vane ;
is a circular tower painted with alternate bands of
red and white ; and exhibits a fixed white light, with
a range of 18 miles in fair weather.

* "Robben Island looked like a dun-coloured hillock as we shot past it
within a short distance, and a more forlorn and discouraging islet I don't
think I have ever beheld. When I expressed something of this impres-
sion to a cheery fellow- voyager, he could only urge in its defence that
there were a great many rabbits on it. If he had thrown the lighthouse
into the bargain, I think he would have summed up all its attractive
features."— -LADY BARKER.

326 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

Lady Barker, in her lively record of South African
experience, remarks that this part of the coast is well
lighted (it is very dangerous), and adds : — " It was
always a matter of felicitation at night, when every
80 miles or so the guiding ray of a lighthouse shone
out in the soft gloom of a starlight night. One of these
lonely towers stands more than 800 feet above the
sea level, and warns ships off the terrible Agulhas
Bank."

Cape St. Francis (1J mile west of), lat. 34° 12';
flashing light, 20 seconds; white, with red sector;
dioptric, second order ; visible 16 miles ; cylindrical
white tower, 91 feet high ; erected in 1878.

Cape Recife, lat. 34° 2', long. 25° 42'; revolving light
every minute; white, with red sector; visible 15 miles;
tower 80 feet high, painted with four horizontal bands
of red and white alternately ; erected in 1850.

Bird Island, Algoa Bay, lat. 33° 50', long. 26° 17' ;
fixed red light, visible 14 miles ; square tower, 72 feet
high ; erected 1852.

Natal, on bluff south side of harbour, lat. 29° 53^,
long. 31° 4'; revolving white light, visible 24 miles;
conical iron tower, painted white, 81 feet high, with
focal plane of light 282 feet ; erected in 1867.

Isle Fouquets, south entrance of Grand Port, island
of Mauritius, lat. 20° 23' N., long. 57° 47' E. ; fixed
white light, visible 16 miles; gray tower, with lantern
painted red, 84 feet in height; erected in 1864.

Zanzibar, Mungopani, on the cliff northward of the

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 327

village, lat. 5° 37', long. 39° 11'; fixed white light,
visible 12 miles ; square white tower, 90 feet in height ;
erected in 1886.

Aden, Murshigh Cape, lat. 12° 45', long. 45° 3'; fixed
white light, visible 20 miles, first order, dioptric ; dark
gray tower, 85 feet high ; focal plane of light 244 feet
above the sea ; erected in 1867.

Red Sea, Dcedalus Shoal, lat. 24° 55'; fixed white
light, visible 14 miles; on open iron-work, 70 feet
high; erected 1863. There is a similar structure on
the Ashran Reef, Jubal Strait, lat. 27° 47'; 140 feet
high, with a revolving white light ; erected 1862.

Red Sea, Point Za far ana, lat. 29° 6'; fixed white
light ; circular stone tower, 82 feet high ; erected 1862.

Tracing the west coast of Hindustan, we notice
among the more important lighthouses : —

Karachi, lat. 24° 47'; revolving white light; circular
white tower, 52 feet high ; erected 1848.

Bet Harbour, in Gulf of Kutch, lat. 22° 29'; fixed
white light, with red sector ; circular stone tower, 65
feet ; lighted 1876.

Perim Isle, Oambay Gulf, lat. 21° 36'; fixed white
light, visible 15 miles ; circular tower of brick, 78 feet
high ; erected 1851.

Tapti, mouth of Surat River, lat. 21° 5'; fixed white
light, visible 15 miles ; circular tower, painted with
three belts of red and white, 90 feet high ; erected in
1852.

328 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

Bombay, on sunk rock in lat. 18° 49'; occulting
white and red light, visible 14 miles; tower 95 feet
high ; erected 1884.

Bombay, South-West Prong, lat. 18° 53'; white
light, flashing, visible 18 miles ; tower 146 feet high,
painted with alternate bands of white, red, white, and
black; erected in 1874.

Bombay, Kennery Island, lat. 18° 42'; fixed white
light, with red sector, visible 19 miles ; octagonal
tower rises from the centre of a flat-roofed house, 75
feet high ; erected in 1867.

Alipec, lat. 9° 30' ; white light, revolving every
minute, visible 17 miles; white tower, 115 feet high;
erected in 1862.

Point de Galle, Ceylon, lat. 6° V ; fixed white
light; circular tower of iron, painted white, designed
by Mr. Alexander Gordon, 80 feet high, erected in
1848.

Great Basses, on the north-west rock, lat. 6° 10' ; red
light, revolving every 45 seconds ; granite tower, 127
feet high, with two galleries, one at a point 30 feet
above base, another under lantern ; designed by Alex-
ander Gordon and Sir James Douglass ; completed
(after a long delay) in 1873.

Little Basses Rocks, lat. 6° 23'; white light, with two
flashes every minute at intervals of 15 and 45 seconds,
visible 16 miles ; granite tower, 127 feet high, designed
as above ; erected in 1878.

Tuticorin, on the coast of Coromandel, lat. 8° 47' ;

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 329

fixed white light, visible 14 miles; tower of 91 feet,
painted brown, lantern white ; erected in 1845.

Coringa Say, on southern part of Hope Island, lat.
16° 49'; fixed white light, visible 14 miles; tower 94
feet high ; erected 1827.

False Point, entrance to Mahanuddy River, lat. 20°

20'; white light, occulting, ^^^-^^^^

eclipsed for four seconds ev-
ery half minute ; tower 132
feet high, painted reddish
brown, with large white star
in the centre ; erected 1838.

Saugor Island, Middleton
Point, lat. 21° 39'; fixed white
light, with flashes every 20
seconds, visible 15 miles;
lighthouse 76 feet high,
painted with bands of red
and white ; erected in 1821.

Kutabdia (west part of
island of), Bay of Bengal,
lat. 21° 52'; fixed white light,
visible 12 miles , lighthouse
111 feet high, lower part
painted gray ; erected, 1846.

Alguada Eeef, lat. 15° 42', long. 94° 12'; white light,
revolving every minute, and visible 20 miles ; noble
tower of granite, 160 feet high, one of the highest in
the world ; erected in 1865.

ALGTJADA REEF LIGHTHOUSE.

330 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

China BaJdr, at end of flat, in lat. 16° IT N., and
long. 96° 11' E. ; fixed white light, with flashes, visible
15 miles; light-room and lantern upon screw piles
(Mitchell's system) ; erected in 1869.

Rangoon River, on the east side of the entrance,
lat. 16° 30'; fixed white light, visible 12 miles ; screw-
pile lighthouse, 102 feet high ; erected, in 1876.

Double Island, north point, lat. 15° 52'; fixed white
light, 19 miles ; tower of masonry, 75 feet high ; erected
1865.

Table Island, Great Coco Group, Andaman Islands,
lat. 14° 12'; fixed white light, visible 22 miles ; circular
lighthouse, painted with alternate belts of white and
red, 91 feet high ; erected in 1867.

Pulo Brasse (Achi Head), lat. 5° 45' ; white light, re-
volving every minute, visible 30 miles ; tower 120 feet
high, painted white up to 98 feet, and then red ; focal
plane elevated 525 feet above the sea ; erected in 1875.

Muttra Head, north-west point of Penang, lat. 5°
28', long. 100° 10'; white light, with flashes; tower of
gray granite, 45 feet from base to vane ; focal plane of
light 795 feet above the sea ; erected in 1883.

Malacca, the old monastery on St. Paul Hill, famous
in connection with the labours of Francis Xavier,
lat. 2° 12'; fixed white light, visible 15 miles ; square
tower, 90 feet high ; first lighted in 1849.

Horsburgh, or Pedro Banca, on summit of low
rock lat. 1° 20' S. ; revolving light every minute;
circular white tower, 106 feet high ; erected in 1851.

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 331

Sumatra, Pulo Bojo, south-west end of island, lat.
0° 38' S. ; white light, with two flashes every 30
seconds ; the lighthouse, a strange, sixteen-sided build-
ing, white, 197 feet high, and centre of lantern 361
feet above the sea ; erected in 1885.

Java, on first point, Sunda Strait, lat. 6° 44' S.;
white light, with flash of six seconds, followed by
24 seconds of darkness, visible 23 miles ; lighthouse
131 feet from base to vane ; first lighted in 1877.

Java, on fourth point, lat. 6° 4' S. ; fixed white
light, visible 20 miles ; lighthouse 177 feet in height ;
erected in 1855.

Java, on Flat Cape, lat. 5° 59' S. ; white light, shows
in rapid succession three flashes of two seconds each,
separated by three seconds of darkness, and followed
by an eclipse of 18 seconds, visible 23 miles; light-
house sixteen-sided; focal plane 213 feet above high
water ; erected in 1880.

Sourabaya Strait, Sembilemgan, lat. 7° 4' S. ; fixed
white light, visible 19 miles ; lighthouse painted white,
164 feet from base to vane ; erected in 1882.

Gaspar Strait, Shoalwater Island, lat. 6° 19' S. ;
fixed white light, visible 20 miles ; white, sixteen-sided
building, 215 feet from base to vane ; erected in 1883.

Gaspar Strait, Langwas Island, lat. 2° 32'; inter-
mittent white light, fixed for 60 seconds, eclipsed
25, flash 10 seconds, eclipsed 25, visible for 10 miles ;
sixteen-sided building, 215 feet high ; first lighted in
1883.

332 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

CHINA.

Breaker Point, beyond Hong Kong, lat. 22° 56';
white and red light, occulting, 10 seconds; circular
tower, with black and white bands, 120 feet high ;
erected in 1880.

Formosa Island, South Cape, lat. 21° 55'; fixed
light, white and red, visible 20 miles ; circular tower,
71 feet high ; erected in 1882.

Dodd Island, lat. 24° 26' N. ; white and red occult-
ing light, seen for 26 seconds, eclipsed for four ;
circular tower, white, and 79 feet high ; erected in
1882.

Ocksen Island, lat. 24° 59'; revolving light, visible
24 miles ; lighthouse tower black, 64 feet high,
keeper's dwelling and enclosure wall white ; erected
in 1874.

Middle Dog Island, near Min River, in lat. 25° 58'
N. ; fixed white light, with flashes every half minute,
visible 23 miles; lighthouse tower white, circular, 64
feet high ; erected in 1872.

Ska-lin-tien Island (Tsao-fri-tien), lat. 38° 56'; fixed
white light ; octagonal tower, brick and stone, 45 feet
high ; erected in 1886.

JAPAN.

Tebosi Sima Island, lat. 33° 41'; fixed white light,
visible 20 miles ; octagonal tower, 57 feet high ; erected
in 1875.

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 333

Tsuno-Sima, west point of, lat. 34° 21' N. ; white
light, flashing every 10 seconds, visible 18 miles;
circular tower of granite, 100 feet high ; erected in
1876.

Si/wo Msaki, south point of province of Kii, lat. 33°
26'; fixed white light, visible 20 miles; circular white
tower, 75 feet high ; erected in 1873.

Omai-SaM, south part of cape, lat. 34° 36'; white
light, revolving every half minute, visible 19 miles ;
circular white tower, 72 feet high ; erected in 1874.

Mikomoto (Rock Island), lat. 34° 34'; fixed white
light, with red sector, visible 19 miles ; tower painted
white, with two black bands, 72 feet high ; erected in
1871.

Inu-Bo-Ye-Saki, south-east extremity of promon-
tory, in lat. 35° 43'; white light, revolving every half
minute, visible 19 miles ; circular white tower, 103 feet
high ; erected in 1874.

Siriya Saki, on the cape, lat. 41° 26'; fixed light,
white, visible 18 miles ; circular building, painted
white, 94 feet high; erected in 1876.

Gulf of Tartary, Retchnoi Island, entrance to Sui-
fun River, lat. 43° 16'; fixed white light; quadrangular
building, 106 feet high ; erected in 1885.

AUSTKALIA.

Port Walcott, Reader Head, lat. 20° 39' S., long.
117° 13' E. ; fixed white light; erected in 1881.

334 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

Rottnest Island, lat. 32° ; revolving every minute,
visible 22 miles; tower of stone, 64 feet; erected in
1850.

Swan River, Arthur Head, lat. 32° 3' S. ; long. 115°
45' E. ; fixed white light, visible 16 miles ; circular
lighthouse, 71 feet high ; erected in 1851.

King George Sound, Breaksea Island ; fixed white
light, visible 24 miles ; iron tower, designed by Gordon,
43 feet high ; erected in 1858.

Spencer Gulf, on Tipara Reef, lat. 34° 3'; white
light, revolving every half minute, and visible 20
miles ; erected on iron piles in 1877.

Kangaroo Island, Cape Flinders, lat. 35° 46'; red
and white light alternately, revolving every half min-
ute; white visible 30, and red 15 miles; square tower
of iron, designed by Alexander Gordon, 60 feet high ;
erected in 1858.

Troubridge Shoal, St. Vincent Gulf, lat. 35° 7'; white
light, revolving so as to show bright for 24 and be
eclipsed for 36 seconds; iron light-tower, 70 feet,
painted in alternate stripes of white and red, 20 feet
wide: designed by Alexander Gordon, and erected
in 1856.

Kangaroo Island, Cape Willoughby, lat. 35° 51';
white light, revolving every 90 seconds, visible for
24 miles ; white tower, 75 feet high, erected in 1852.
"We sighted Kangaroo Island," say the authors of
"What we saw in Australia," "about one o'clock P.M.,
and by three were running almost close under its

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 335

long level line of cliffs. A lighthouse, and one or
two minute farmhouses, were the only signs of man's
presence that we could discern, and not a tree was to
be seen."

Cape Northumberland, lat. 38° 3'; revolving white
and red light with flashes ; visible 20 miles ; iron light-
house, designed by A. Gordon, painted with three broad
bands, white, red, white ; erected in 1859. " Towards
evening we saw at some little distance inland Mount
Gambier, which rises in a curious volcanic district on
the eastern borders of South Australia ; and somewhat
later we passed Cape Northumberland, with its brill-
iant red and white revolving light, at the western point
of Discovery Bay."

King Island, Bass Strait, lat. 39° 36'; fixed white
light, visible 24 miles ; circular white tower, 145 feet
from base to vane ; erected in 1861.

Shortlands Bluff, two miles within the entrance of
Port Philip, lat. 38° 16'; fixed lights, upper white,
lower white and red, visible 17 miles, 14 and 10
miles; blue stone building, 81 feet high; erected
in 1863.

Cape Schanck, on summit to the south, lat. 38° 10';
fixed white light, with flashes (two minutes) ; circular
stone tower, painted white, about 70 feet high ; focal
plane of lantern 328 feet above the sea; erected in
1859.

Wilson Promontory, south-east point, lat. 39° 8';
fixed white light, visible 24 miles ; circular stone

336 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

building, 70 feet high, with the focal plane of lantern
342 feet above the sea ; erected in 1859.

Gabo Island, south-west of Cape Howe, in Bass
Strait, lat. 37° 35'; fixed white light, visible 20 miles;
fine circular tower of gray granite, 156 feet in height;
erected in 1856.

Green Gape, lat. 36° 17'; white, flashing, one minute,
visible 19 miles ; lighthouse 68 feet high ; erected 1883.

Jervis Bay, lat. 35° 9'; light alternately white, red,
and green ; tower painted white, 61 feet high ; erected
1860.

Port Jackson (for Sydney), outer South Head, lat.
33° 51'; white light, revolving every minute, visible
21 miles ; circular stone tower, 76 feet high, with its
focal plane 344 feet above the sea; erected in 1817;
was lighted by electricity in 1883.

Port Jackson, inner South Head, or Hornby Light,
on edge of cliff, which is about 50 feet in elevation ;
white light, fixed, visible 14 miles ; tower painted with
red and white vertical stripes, 50 feet high ; erected in
1858. "About a mile before we reached the entrance
to Sydney Harbour we passed a slight inward curve
in the rocky cliffs, the scene of a terrible shipwreck
which took place in August 1857. The captain of the
Dunbar, a vessel containing amongst its passengers
many leading colonists returning home from Europe,
mistook in the dark this curve for the expected
channel, and steered his ship full upon the rocks.
It struck violently, and at once became a total wreck.

LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC. 337

Only one man on board escaped with life. He was
cast upon a ledge of rock high above the sea, and
remained there till the next day, when he was dis-
covered and rescued from his perilous position.

"An opening between the precipitous cliffs, called
the North and South Heads, gives access to Port
Jackson, so named after one of Cook's sailors, who
discovered the entrance. Cook himself is said never
to have sailed into the harbour. The area of Port
Jackson proper, now generally called Sydney Har-
bour, measures nine square miles, and that of Middle
Harbour, one of its arms, three square miles, while
the coast-line of the whole is fifty-four miles in
length. At the time of the wreck of the Dunbar
there was but one lighthouse at the entrance, and
that was upon the South Head. Under the sup-
position that the captain may have been misled by
the single light, another has since been placed there,
in the hope of preventing the repetition of so terrible
a catastrophe."

Port Stephens (south side of entrance), lat. 32° 45';
white and red light revolving alternately every minute,
visible 17 miles; circular stone tower, 73 feet high;
erected 1842.

Sandy Cape (on the summit of Great Sandy Island),
lat. 24° 43' S. ; revolving white light every two minutes,
visible 27 miles; iron tower 99 feet high, painted
white ; the focal plane of light elevated 400 feet above
high-water mark.

(241) 22

338 LIGHTHOUSES IN OUR COLONIES, ETC.

TASMANIA.

Banks Strait, Goose Island, lat. 40° 19' ; fixed white
light, visible 14 miles ; tower 74 feet high, upper part
red and lower part white ; erected 1846.

Banks Strait, East Point, lat. 40° 44'; white light,
revolving every minute, visible 15 miles; circular
tower, 74 feet high ; erected 1845.

NEW ZEALAND.

Poteaux Strait, Dog Island, lat. 46° 40'; white
light, revolving every half minute, visible 18 miles;
tower 118 feet high, painted with black, white, and
black bands ; erected in 1865. Illuminating apparatus
catadioptric, first order. This is the only first-class
lighthouse of which New Zealand as yet can boast.

CHAPTER X.

FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

WE have seen that the inner line of coast defences
which man has devised for the protection of
those that go down to the sea in ships is formed by our
lighthouses — lighthouses on shore and rock, on the
projecting headland and the outlying reef. But it is
obvious that these are inadequate to meet every re-
quirement of the mariner; that they can be of no
service, for instance, in the navigation of the shoals
and sandbanks which frequently lie at a distance of
twenty or thirty miles out at sea, and being sub-
merged at high water, present a very formidable,
because not easily detected, danger. We may point,
for an example, to the Goodwin Sands, off the shores
of Kent ; a fatal spot, which has been the destruction
of many a goodly vessel and her crew, and for cen-
turies has borne the burden of memories of sad
calamities. Long was it considered impossible to
supply any certain and permanent warning of its
hidden perils. No tower of masonry or iron could be

340 FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

erected on a foundation so unstable and treacherous ;
and it seemed as if this one wild waste must for ever
remain exposed to the pitilessness of stormy seas which
strewed it with frequent wrecks. At last, however,
the idea occurred to an inventive mind of stationing
floating lights at this and similar places ; that is,
of substituting lightships for lighthouses in positions
where permanent structures could not be employed.

Robert Hamblin was a respectable barber of King's
Lynn, who had married the daughter of a shipowner,
and in due time had become owner and master of a
vessel, with which he embarked in the Newcastle coal
trade. Accident introduced him to a man of remark-
able ingenuity named David Avery, whose career had
been marred by his great poverty. Discovering that he
had conceived the idea of floating lights, he advanced
the money necessary to carry it out, and in 1732 the
two men established at the Nore a lightship, and
proceeded to levy tolls on passing ships for her main-
tenance. Their illuminating apparatus, however, was
of the simplest construction — a small lantern provided
with flat -wick oil lamps, but unaided by optical
apparatus of any kind.

Though compelled to own that the new lightship
was of great assistance in the navigation of the
Thames, the Trinity House did not fail to regard the
action of Hamblin and Avery as an encroachment on
their privileges; and when they announced their in-
tention of stationing a similar vessel among the waters

FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS. 341

of the Stilly Islands, they laid a complaint before the
Board of Admiralty. As it was unable or unwilling
to interfere, the corporation next appealed to the
Crown, representing that it was illegal for any private
individual to levy a tax on the mercantile marine;
and they moved with so much energy as to obtain
the issue of a royal proclamation prohibiting the
exaction of dues in respect of the lightship at the
Nore. A very, on experiencing this severe check to
his plans, appeared in person before the Board, and
proposed terms of agreement. He stated that he had
expended on the Nore Lightship a sum of £2,000 ; and
he offered that all right and title to it should devolve
upon the Trinity Corporation, provided that he was
allowed to levy the tolls by his representatives and
heirs for a period of sixty-one years, on payment of
£100 yearly.

The Nore lightship had proved so beneficial that, at
the urgent request of all engaged in the coasting trade
on the east, a lightship was moored in 1736 at the
Dudgeon Shoal, at the entrance of the Wash. For a
long period nothing more was done, but in 1788
it was resolved to station a floating light on the
Owers Shoal, off the Surrey coast. In 1790 one was
placed close to the Newarp Sand, off the Norfolk
coast, and in 1795 a vessel was anchored to the
north-east of the Goodwins. Up to this date the light-
ship had shown only two lanterns, set horizontally
on a cross-yard on the mast; but from the Newarp

342 FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

ship were first suspended three lanterns in a triangle.
The Sunk Lightship, near to the entrance of the
Thames (which is now so copiously lighted), dates
from 1798; the Galloper from 1803; and the Gull
Stream, on the Goodwins, from 1809. The shore
waters of England and Wales are now lighted by
fifty-seven of those useful vessels. On the Scottish
coast, however, only four are employed, and on the
Irish only eleven, because these coasts are lined with
iron-bound cliffs, which do not form shoals or sand-
banks in the adjacent waters, and lighthouses, there-
fore, on prominent points afford all the guidance and
protection needed.

The rude kind of light which we have described was
in use on board our lightships until, in 1807, the late
Mr. Robert Stevenson, the eminent Scottish engineer,
designed a larger lantern to surround the mast of the
vessel, capable of being lowered when the light re-
quired trimming, and of being raised when the light
required to be shown. When the catoptric illumin-
ating system was introduced, an improvement was
effected in the light by the employment of Argand
burners, assisted by paraboloidal silvered reflectors,
burners and reflectors alike being properly " gimballed "
to insure the horizontal direction of the beam of light
during the motion of the vessel.

In 1872 the Trinity House increased the dimensions
of their lanterns and reflectors for floating lights, the
lanterns from six feet to eight feet in their diameter,

FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS. 343

with cylindrical instead of polygonal glazing, and
the reflectors from twelve inches to twenty-one inches
aperture, thus securing a tenfold increase in the in-
tensity of these lights. The cylindrical lanterns now
in use are large enough to admit the entrance of the
lamplighter to trim the lamps. Further improvements
have been made, with the result that some of these
lights have an intensity in the beam of about twenty
thousand candles. In 1875 the first group-flashing
floating light, showing three successive flashes at one-
minute periods,* was installed on board a new light-
ship moored at the Royal Sovereign Shoals, off
Hastings, and this class of floating lights has since
been considerably extended. In a few cases the
dioptric system has been adopted for light-vessels;
but, considering the special conditions under which
they act, the catoptric has on the whole been found
more efficient and satisfactory.

The English lightships are invariably painted red,
and the Irish black, with the name in large white
letters on both sides. By day they carry at the
masthead a large wooden sign, either circular, semi-
circular, triangular, or otherwise in shape. The mast
is encircled by the lantern, which is lowered during
the day. Sometimes the ship has two and even three
masts, and, of course, a lantern for each.

The lantern contains a certain number of lamps and
reflectors, each hung upon a gimbal, so that it moves

* In 1887 altered to three quick flashes every forty-five seconds.

344 FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

freely in all directions, and by virtue of its own grav-
ity maintains a vertical position, however much the
vessel may pitch or roll. For a fixed light, they are
adjusted so that a beam of light may uninterruptedly
be diffused all round; for a revolving light, on each
face (three or more) of the iron framework (which
rotates on a spindle) are set three, or five, or seven

A LIGHTSHIP.

lamps and reflectors, as the case may be. By in-
genious clockwork mechanism the revolution of the
framework is regularly kept up, and each face brings
round its lights at a fixed interval. The number of
lamps used on board a lightship varies from nine to
twenty-four, each of which consumes in a year about
thirty-six gallons of rape or of colza oil (mineral oils
are prohibited as too dangerous).

FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS. 345

That it is of primary importance a lightship should
be moored securely, the reader will at once perceive.
If she broke adrift, not only would the safety of the
crew be endangered, but her warning light would be
absent from its station possibly when most wanted.
Some twenty-five years ago such a mishap was not
of infrequent occurrence, but this was due to defects
which experience has revealed and increased know-
ledge removed. The links of the mooring cable now
in use are made of iron one-and-a-half inch diameter.
The chains are specially manufactured, and before they
are accepted the iron of each link is tested to bear a
tensile strain of twenty -three tons per square inch of
the original area, while the whole cable, when tested
for the welding, is required to bear a pressure of
sixteen tons per square inch of each side of the link.

The chains are made in fifteen-fathom lengths, with
a swivel to prevent kinking in the centre of every
alternate length, and are joined by shackles, all of
which are required to bear the same tests as the cable
links. To each ship are supplied from two hundred
and ten to three hundred and fifteen fathoms. The
method of mooring is either by a single mushroom or
Martin anchor (weighing two tons), in which case the
ship swings round as the tide changes ; or two mush-
room anchors are connected by a length of two-inch
ground chain, in the centre of which are a ring and
swivel attached to the one -and -a -half inch cable
chain, and in this case the vessel swings in a very

346 FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

limited area, suitable for a narrow fairway or channel.
Each lightship also carries two bower anchors for use
in emergencies, and an additional length of one hundred
and fifty fathoms of one-and-a-half inch chain.

"But although it is of the utmost importance,"
says Mr. Edwards, "that every precaution be taken
to obtain the very best quality of materials, yet it
is chiefly by the skilful management of the mooring
cable that a lightship is enabled to ride out the
fiercest storms in safety. With a smooth sea a short
cable is sufficient, but when the waves run high it is
necessary to pay out a long scope of chain, so that the
ship may ride over the highest crests and plunge down
into the lowest depths of the trough of the sea. It is
also necessary to have a very great deal more cable out
than is actually required to enable the vessel to sur-
mount the highest waves ; she must never be allowed
to go to the end of her tether and pull directly upon
her mushroom : as the vessel rises she takes as much
chain as she requires, but still must have a consider-
able quantity on the sea-bed. This surplus cable by
its own weight acts as a spring, and entirely prevents
any direct jerking or straining at the mushroom. The
experience of years has educated the officers of our
lightships to regulate the scope of cable paid out to
the necessities of the occasion. The constant rise and
fall of the cable and the swinging round of the vessel
with the tide are at times the cause of strange en-
tanglements, and it is by no means an uncommon

FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS. 347

duty for one of the steamers of the service to go out
to ' clear the moorings ' of a lightship."'

When first seen, and especially if seen from a dis-
tance, a lightship closely resembles, during the day, an
ordinary vessel — a vessel of one hundred and sixty to
one hundred and eighty tons, measuring eighty to
ninety feet from stem to stern. She is generally built
of wood, or of composite construction, fastened and
sheathed with a patent metal. A few vessels have been
built of iron, but these are found at the end of one or
two years to require removal from the station, docking,
and the external submerged portions of the hull to be
cleaned and painted. On examining our lightship
from a nearer point of view, we discover some marked
peculiarities. Though she floats, she does not move ;
other ships represent motion, she represents immo-
bility. Her form varies according to locality, — for in-
stance, in Ireland the hull is more elongated than in
England,— but always the primary consideration is, how
best to secure resistance to the force of the winds and
waves.

We believe there is no instance on record of the crew
of a lightship having, under any circumstances, volun-
tarily abandoned their position. With a steadfast
courage and coolness worthy of the highest praise, they
brave the fury of the most violent tempests, though
unsupported by that excitement of constant action
which the sailor experiences out in the open. Should
it so happen that their vessel is driven from its moor-

348 FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

ings by the stress of the gale, they hoist a red signal and
fire a gun, and generally assistance is immediately
forthcoming. As it is necessary to be prepared for every
contingency, a spare vessel is always kept in readiness
at the central station of each district. Owing to the
telegraphic network with which our shores are now
surrounded, an accident is speedily made known to the
authorities, and often before sunset the reserve ship,
towed by a powerful steam-tug, replaces the one which
has temporarily been disabled.

The crew of a lightship consists of eleven men, — a
master, a mate, three lamplighters, and six seamen.
Of these, seven only are on board. The master and
mate have alternate months afloat and ashore ; the
others have each two months afloat and one month
ashore. When ashore the men are employed upon
certain duties at the district depot. Once a month
every lightship is visited by the official steamer, which
carries out the men whose month ashore has expired,
and brings back those whose turn it is to be relieved
from sea-duty. On this occasion, moreover, fresh sup-
plies of fuel, oil, water, and provisions are put on board.
Experience has proved that continuous service afloat is
too much for the moral and physical forces of human
nature to endure. The crushing pressure of monotony,
the unchanging spectacle of rolling waters, the cease-
less murmur of the winds, ocean's everlasting voices —
these necessarily exercise a depressing influence on both
body and mind. Even with the relief of the monthly

FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS. 340

sojourn ashore, the life is so uniform, and, on the
whole, so devoid of active interest, that it is wonderful
men can be found to submit to it, and the crews of our
lightships may fairly be ranked among the curiosities
of civilization. We know not whether the confession
of an old lightship hand would be adopted by all his
comrades — that when he was ashore he dreamed con-
stantly of the sea, and when he was afloat, could dream
of nothing but the land ; but this at least is certain,
that they submit to discipline with the most exemplary
obedience, and always exhibit the utmost patience and
cheerfulness. In fact, whoever visits one of our float-
ing lights must needs be impressed by the fine appear-
ance of its crew. Weather-beaten and sun-tanned,
they are models (says Esquiros) of English seamen
— frank, self-reliant, unassuming, obedient, vigorous,
agile, and resolute. Their wages average fifty-five
shillings per month, with rations ; the master receives
£80 per annum.

The lightships, besides lights, are supplied with guns
and gongs, rockets, and, in some cases, with fog-horns.
The following regulations apply to those moored off the
coasts of England and Ireland : —

A white light is exhibited from the forestay, at a
height of six feet above the rail, to show in which
direction the vessel is riding, when at her station.

When she is driven from her proper position to one
where she is of no use as a guide to shipping, she will
not exhibit her usual lights, but a fixed red light both

350 FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

at stem and stern, and a red flare every quarter of an
hour. By day, the balls or other distinguishing mast-
head marks will be struck.

If from any cause she is unable to show her usual
lights whilst at her station, the riding light only will
be displayed.

The mouths of fog-horns in light- vessels are pointed
to windward ; also those on the land to seaward.

When, from any lightship, a vessel is seen standing
into danger, a gun will be fired and repeated until ob-
served by the vessel; also, the two signal flags "S. D." of
the Commercial Code, " You are standing into danger,"
will be hoisted and kept flying until answered.

In England and Ireland, whenever a light-vessel or
other craft is anchored to mark the position of a wreck,
the top-sides will be coloured green, and she will be
further distinguished, by day, by three balls placed on
a yard thirty feet above the sea, two balls (vertically)
on the side on which navigating vessels may safely
pass, and one on the other ; and by night, by three
fixed white lights similarly arranged, and with the
same meaning. Those marking vessels, when so em-
ployed and fitted, will not show the ordinary riding
light.

Note.— The firing special rockets (of little sound, but
of great brilliancy) immediately after a gun from a
light-vessel will denote the need of assistance from the
shore.

The chief danger to which a lightship is exposed

FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS. ar.i

arises from collisions, and unfortunately these are of
frequent occurrence. "Some years ago the Tongue
Lightship, at the entrance of the Thames, was run into
by one of the steamers which trade regularly into and
out of the river, and was cut down to the water's edge,
so that she sank almost immediately, the master and
crew being saved with difficulty."

Chinese gongs, about two feet in diameter, sounded
at short intervals, have long been the recognized
standard fog-signal of lightships, owing perhaps to
their peculiar distinctive sound. At short distances
this is very serviceable, but, like the sound of a bell,
it is soon dissipated, and has no considerable range.
Many of our ships are now provided with powerful
sirens or whistles, sounded by compressed air or steam.
Owing to their positions (generally some miles from the
shore) they are found, owing to the uncertain range of
fog-signals, to be more efficient aids to navigation than
those installed at shore stations.

On board all lightships the life of the crew is much
the same. At dawn, on Sunday, the lantern is lowered,
and the lamplighter cleans and prepares his lamps for
the next night's work. At eight o'clock every man
must be on the alert ; the hammocks are hung up, and
breakfast is served. Afterwards, the men wash, and
proceed to don their uniform, of which they are very
proud, for the arms of the Trinity House are blazon «'<!
on the buttons. At half-past ten they assemble in the

352 FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

cabin, and the captain or mate reads prayers. The day
is spent quietly, with as much cessation from labour as
the conditions of lightship service permit ; and at sun-
set the lighted lantern is hoisted, and the crew again
meet together for prayer and the reading of the
Scriptures. Apart from the morning and evening
services, most of the week days bear a close resem-
blance to the Sunday. The two cleaning days are
Wednesday and Friday, when mop and bucket are in
active requisition. To watch over and maintain in
perfect order the illuminating apparatus ; to keep
watch on deck ; to record seven times in every twenty-
four hours the direction of the wind and the state of
the weather; to test the continued efficiency of the
mooring-chains — such is the almost invariable circle of
their daily occupations. Their leisure, which is by no
means inconsiderable, they employ in reading. A
library is always kept on board, and the books are cir-
culated from hand to hand and ship to ship.

Mr. Ballantyne, who once spent a week on board the
Goodwin Sands Lightship, has published a lively narra-
tive of his experiences. " That curious, almost ridicu-
lous-looking craft," he writes, "is among the aristocracy
of shipping. Its important office stamps it with no-
bility. It lies there, conspicuous in its royal colour,
from day to day and year to year, to mark the fairway
between old England and the outlying shoals, distin-
guished in daylight by a large ball at its masthead,
and at night by a magnificent lantern, with Argand

FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS. 353

lamps and concave reflectors, which shoots rays like
lightning far and wide over the watery waste ; while
in thick weather, when neither ball nor light can be
discerned, a sonorous gong gives its deep-toned warn-
ing to the approaching mariner, and lets him know his
position amidst the surrounding dangers."

He goes on to say of the wave-tossed craft that it
is "an interesting kingdom in detail." The visitor,
standing abaft the one mast, sees before him the
binnacle and compass and the cabin skylight. On his
right and left the territory of the quarter-deck is
seriously circumscribed and the promenade much in-
terfered with by the ship's boats, which, like their
parent, are painted red, and do not hang at the davits,
but, like young lobsters of the kangaroo type, find
shelter within their mother when not at sea on their
own account. Near to them stand two signal carron-
ades. Beyond the skylight rises the bright brass
funnel of the cabin chimney, and the winch by means
of which the lantern is hoisted. Then come another
skylight and the companion hatch about the centre of
the deck. Just beyond is the most important part of
the vessel — the kntem-house, a circular wooden struc-
ture, about six feet in diameter, with a door and small
windows, which encloses the lantern, the beautiful
piece of mechanism for which the lightship, its crew
and appurtenances, are maintained. Eight through
the centre of this house rises the thick, unyielding
mast of the vessel ; and the lantern, which is only just

(241) 23

354 FLOATING LIGHTS, OR LIGHTSHIPS.

a little smaller than its house, surrounds the mast and
travels upon it. It is, of course, connected with the
rod and pinion by means of which, with the ingenious
clock-work beneath, the light is made to revolve and
flash once every third of a minute.

Such is a general survey of the Gulf Stream light-
vessel, and other light-vessels resemble it in all leading
particulars. Ex uno disce omnes.

CHAPTER XL

LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, AND FOG-SIGNALS.

TO complete our account of the aids to navigation
devised by man's thought and skill, we must
bring under review some works of less ingenuity and
pretension than our lighthouses and lightships, and of
less importance, but still of unquestionable utility.
We refer to those which are known as landmarks,
buoys, and beacons.

As to landmarks and beacons, we may say that, in
general terms, they include every kind of terrestrial
object which assists the mariner in steering his course.
For this purpose, the spire of a church, the tower of a
ruined castle, a windmill on its breezy height, an
isolated tree, or even a rock if of characteristic con-
figuration, may be useful, and landmarks of this
description will be found laid down with much care in
our seamen's charts. Of those which are artificial and
specially erected as guides to navigation, we may cite
a famous example. We pass over the so-called Pillars
of Hercules, which legend placed on either side of the

356 LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS.

Strait of Gibraltar, at Calpe and at Abyla, because
their existence may reasonably be doubted; but a word
or two must be given to the tall and shapely shaft of
granite which overlooks Lake Mareotis and the modern
city of Alexandria. Its total height, including base
and capital, is 98 feet 9 inches. For generations it has
been known as " Pompey's Pillar," but an inscription on
its pedestal informs us that it was erected by Pompius
or Publius, a Roman prefect of Egypt, in honour of
the Emperor Diocletian, " The Invincible," and to com-
memorate the deliverance of Alexandria from the in-
surgent forces of the pretender Achilleus in A.D. 297.
It now serves as a. notable landmark for ships leaving
or entering the port of Alexandria.

As commerce developed its proportions, and dis-
covered new channels for its development, it became
necessary to multiply along every coast the beacons
which performed by day the same useful part as that
played at night by the signal-fires. According to
Coulier, we owe to the Etruscans the invention of that
system of landmarks which, after long neglect, has,
within the last half -century, been revived and carried
out on an extensive scale. Where no natural land-
marks are available, or no existing buildings, we raise
at suitable points small structures of timber or of
masonry, painting them of a brown colour, if they
stand defined against the sky, as on the summit of a
lofty hill, or white, if they stand projected upon the
sea. But where permanent beacons are impracticable,

COLUMN AT ALEXANDRIA KNOWN AS POMPEY'S PILLAR.

LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS. 359

as in estuaries, rivers, and narrow channels, we substi-
tute buoys — that is, floating frameworks of wood or of
iron, with or without a ball, and painted of different
colours. Who invented the buoy history has failed to
record, but it was probably suggested by the piece of
wood or of cork that marked out the position of the
fisherman's net. For more than a century buoys con-
structed with staves of wood, and banded with hoops
of iron, have been in use among maritime nations ; but
these are now in course of swift supersession by buoys
of iron or steel. In 1845 the first iron buoy was sub-
mitted to the Trinity House by the late Mr. George W.
Lenox, and since that date important improvements
have been effected in the form and construction of
buoys generally. Messrs. Brown and Lenox invented a
buoy, ingeniously contrived to render its bell audible,
even when the buoy itself is submerged, the stream of
water as it passes through the lower part of the frame-
work keeping in motion an undershot water-wheel,
which rings the bell continuously.

A buoy invented by the late Mr. George Herbert in
1853 is so constructed with regard to the centre of
flotation, and the point where the mooring-chain is
attached, that it will keep upright even in a very
agitated sea.

In 1878 the lighting of buoys with compressed oil
gas was effected by Messrs. Pintsch. Since that date
the system has been developed considerably, both in
this country and abroad ; so that these important aids

360 LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS.

to navigation are being rendered useful by night as
well as by day, and therefore more valuable as
accessories to lighthouses and lightships. The Pintsch
gas-buoys now in use are found to burn continuously
for three or six months, according to size, and to
require no attention. Neither oil nor electricity has
yet been applied to this purpose with success, but I
think it is scarcely doubtful that electricity from
storage batteries may and will be adopted satisfactorily
and economically.

Automatic bell buoys, of various designs, and the
Courtenay automatic whistling buoy, are found to
render valuable assistance in foggy weather ; but it
has been remarked that none of these apparatus, un-
fortunately, possess that reliability and certainty of
effect which should be characteristic of a coast signal.
They must be used, therefore, with caution, their action
being dependent on the motion of the sea surface.

We have spoken of beacons and landmarks hitherto
as day-signals, but there is no reason why they should
not — at all events, in many cases — be made useful also
by night. The successful lighting of several by auto-
matic apparatus in occasionally inaccessible positions —
the light being furnished by electricity, compressed
mineral oil gas, or petroleum spirit — is an important
and a very significant fact. In 1884 an iron beacon,
lighted by an incandescent lamp and the current from
a secondary battery, was erected on a tidal rock near
Cadiz. Contact is made and broken by a small clock,

LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS. 363

which runs for twenty-eight days, and causes the light to
show a flash of five seconds, followed by a total eclipse
of twenty -five seconds. The clock has also a device for
eclipsing the light between sunrise and sunset. This
apparatus was the invention of Don Isas Lavaden.

In 1881, a beacon, automatically lighted by com-
pressed oil gas, on the Pintsch system, was erected in
the river Clyde ; and it has had numerous successors,
both in this country and in the United States. In
1881-82, several beacons lighted automatically by
petroleum spirit on the system of Herr Lindberg and
Herr Lyth of Stockholm were established by the
Swedish lighthouse authorities, and they have worked
satisfactorily. In 1885, a beacon light on this system,
and another lighted by Pintsch's compressed gas, were
erected by the Trinity House on the banks of the
Thames, near Erith. The petroleum spirit lamp burns
day and night at its maximum intensity, and shows a
white light with a short occultation at periods of five
seconds. The occultations are effected by a screen,
rotated round the light by the ascending current of
heated air from the lamp acting on a horizontal fan.
As there is no governor, the periods of occultation are
subject to slight errors; but the gas beacon, which
shows a white flashing light at periods of two seconds,
is provided with a clock (specially designed for this
beacon), which not only regulates with precision the
flashes and eclipses, but also extinguishes the light a
few minutes before sunrise and relights it just before

364 LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS.

sunset, a very feeble pilot light being left burning
during daylight. Arrangement is made in the clock-
work for a bi-monthly adjustment to meet the length-
ening or shortening of daylight. These two lighted
beacons are in the charge of a boatman, who visits them
at least once a week, when he cleans and adjusts the
apparatus, and cleans the lantern glazing. "These
systems of lighted beacons," says Sir James Douglass,
" are not yet sufficiently matured for forming a decided
opinion as to their relative efficiency and economy, but
it may be considered certain that they will both be
extensively adopted, because, in numerous cases, for
the secondary illumination of ports, estuaries, and
rivers, automatic beacons can be installed to meet
fairly the local requirements of navigation, at a frac-
tion of the first cost and annual maintenance of a
lighthouse with its keepers and accessories."

Buoys have been constructed as much as twenty
feet in length, and as little as four feet, but the di-
mensions now generally adopted range between six
and thirteen. As they vary in size, so they vary in
colour ; usually the buoys in a river channel are
painted red, striped with white, if the homeward
bound vessel is to leave them on the right, and black
when she has to pass them on the left. Others are
painted with horizontal stripes of red and black, or
in squares and diamonds, according to the various
purposes they are intended to serve. Obstacles, such
as wrecks, are indicated by green buoys.

LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS. 365

Nearly a thousand buoys are moored about the
coast of England and in the tideway of her rivers.
Scotland and Ireland have about two hundred each.
These bear their own particular designations, form-
ing a very diversified and somewhat amusing vocabu-
lary. We find amongst them an " Eagle," a " Gull," a
"Swallow," a "Horse," a "Mussel," a "Firefly;" also,
a "Cutler," a "Constable," a "Columbine," and a
" Fairy ; " a " Eoyal Sovereign," a " Protector ; " a
"Tongue," an "Elbow," a "Longnose." Formerly,
quite a host of different kinds of buoys was in favour,
and each kind had its distinctive name. As thus :-^-
Kun Buoys, Cone Buoys, Cone Reversed, Keel Cone,
Egg Bottom, Hollow Bottom (Herbert's patent), Flat
Bottom, Convex Bottom (Poulter's), Keel Buoys, and
Spiral Buoys. But a Trinity House committee, in
1883, decided in favour of " cone " and " conical "
buoys, as the most convenient for adoption as con-
trasting shapes; further, that middle grounds occur-
ring in a channel, or which may divide two channels,
should have at each end a spherical buoy ; and, finally,
that outlying dangers or positions requiring an extra-
ordinary mark should be indicated by pillar or spar
buoys.

The reader's attention must be directed, in the last
place, to the modes of signalling adopted along our
coasts in foggy and heavy weather, when lights are
unavailing, or too vaguely defined to be regarded as
safe guides. It is obvious that such modes must

366 LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS.

appeal to our sense of hearing ; and that the principles
governing them must depend on the greater or less
facility with which sound is conveyed by the atmos-
pheric medium, and the degree of ease with which
the human ear appreciates and distinguishes it. For
a long time it was believed that fog and snow exer-
cised a deadening effect on sound ; but it has been
proved by experiment that this is not the case, at
least to any considerable extent, and that, in truth,
sound is assisted rather than obstructed by a moist
atmosphere. During some experiments at the South
Foreland, it was demonstrated that a certain atmos-
pheric clearness is not a good medium for either sound
or light. It was observed that singular changes in the
transparency of the air occurred without any visible haze
or mist intervening between the eye and the lighthouse
towers. Sometimes the French lights at Calais and
Cape Grisnez showed brilliantly when the photometer
proved that the lights from the experimental towers,
only a mile and a quarter away, had lost one-fourth to
one-third of their power. It is also known that what
the late Professor Henry called " the combined action of
the upper and lower currents of air " — what Professor
Tyndall has described as " water in a vaporous form,
mingled with air so as to render it acoustically turbid
and flocculent," impedes the transmission of sound;
and that this "acoustic turbidity" often occurs on
days of surprising optical transparency. Strong wind
is, of course, a great obstructer ; though instances are

LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SH; .\.\LX. 367

on record of sound having been transmitted much
further against the wind than with it. Sometimes a
sound will be distinctly audible, then die away for
some distance, and then become audible . again at a
much greater distance in the same direction. A re-
markable illustration of the aberrations of sound oc-
curred in the wreck of a vessel on the American coast.
On Little Gull Island (in Long Island Sound) is
established a powerful steam siren, which was sound-
ing during a dead calm and dense fog, when a vessel
went on shore within a furlong of the signal station
without the signal being heard, while it was distinctly
audible at a distance of fifteen miles in another direc-
tion. Then again, much difficulty is often experienced
in " locating " the sound ; that is, in determining from
what quarter it proceeds. Notwithstanding these dis-
advantages, sound-signals are of unquestionable value
as aids to navigation, and in foggy weather are ab-
solutely indispensable. Fogs, it must be remembered,
are experienced everywhere along the coast, and in
particular localities are, at certain seasons, of daily
occurrence. The average duration in England and
Scotland is about four hundred hours annually, but at
Morecambe Bay there are nearly twelve hundred hours
of fog. At some points, however, there will be prolonged
mist in one year and very little in another ; but, never-
theless, some fog there will most surely be, and in these
days of quick steamers, it is essential that fog-signals
should be everywhere, and everywhere efficient.

368 LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS.

The earliest sound signal, if we accept the old legend,
was 'the bell on the float which the Abbot of Arbroath
placed over the Inchcape Rock. Bells have frequently
been employed as fog-signals at the entrances to har-
bours, and at rock lighthouses, as, for instance, at the
Eddy stone. In 1811 Mr. Robert Stevenson provided
the Bell Rock tower with a couple of sonorous bells.
These are struck every half -minute by the machinery
which causes the rotation of the illuminating apparatus.
His example has been very generally followed. The
bells are struck by the hammer from outside, instead
of by a clapper from the inside, and a more powerful
sound is thus secured. The range depends, of course,
on the size of the bell, and here a limit is fixed by
inflexible conditions. Probably the bells placed at the
new Eddystone, which weigh two tons each, are as
heavy as can safely be used. The Scottish lighthouse
engineers have found that the sound is transmitted
farthest when the bells are struck in rapid succession ;
and therefore, at the Dhu Heartach Lighthouse, they
are struck very quickly for ten seconds, and are then
silent for half a minute. This arrangement is effective.
But in inland waters frequented by shipping carrying
bells of their own, a new distinction becomes necessary,
and at Fort Matilda, near Greenock, Messrs. Stevenson
have therefore adopted the device of two bells of
different tones, which are worked by gas engines with
great success. Bells have also been attached to buoys,
and are much used on the English coast. Such bells

LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SK! XM.S. 369

weigh about eight hundredweight, and are struck by
hammers hanging outside, the hammers being set in
motion by the movement of the waves. The sounds
thus obtained are audible only at short distances.

Lightships are now being equipped with powerful
fog-signal apparatus, which will supersede the tradi-
tional gongs. Guns are also made use of, and during
fogs are generally fired every ten or fifteen minutes,
each discharge costing two shillings. Recently, a gas-
gun has been invented by Mr. J. R. Wigham of Dublin,
which, for signalling purposes, possesses several ad-
vantages— whenever, that is, a supply of gas is avail-
able. It can be loaded and fired at a considerable
distance from the point of explosion, which insures
the safety of the men who discharge it; and it can
be applied when wanted without a moment's delay—
a desideratum of considerable importance when a ship
is running into danger. The so-called gun is, in
reality, a tube about twelve feet long and eighteen
inches bore, fixed where the signal is required to be
made, and connected with the gas supply by iron
piping. It is loaded with an explosive mixture of
gas and atmospheric air by simply turning on a tap,
and fired by a light applied by percussion or otherwise
to one end of the tube, the explosion taking place at
the mouth of the gun almost instantaneously. An
invention of so much ingenuity and efficiency ought
to come into very general use.

A new form of rocket, the " sound rocket," has been

(241) 24

370 LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS.

introduced since 1874, when experiments at Woolwich
Arsenal demonstrated the superior value of gun-cotton
as an explosive, the detonation of half a pound of
gun-cotton giving a result fully equal to that of the
firing of a three-pound charge of gunpowder. The
rocket is thus composed : — 1. The rocket itself is a case
charged with the ordinary rocket composition, and
is intended merely to carry up the explosive charge
to the required height, and then to ignite the de-
tonator which is to explode the tonite. 2. The de-
tonator is an enlarged percussion cap, filled with
fulminate. Its duty is to cause an explosion to take
place in the heart of the tonite charge. The detonator
is ignited by the burning of the rocket composition.
3. The tonite cartridge. This is the explosive which
produces the report, and, with the detonator placed
inside it, is to be fitted in the head of the rocket when
required for immediate use. The adjustment of the
three parts can be accomplished in less than a minute.
The rocket is then lighted by the application of an
ordinary fusee to a piece of Bickford fuse, communi-
cating with the rocket composition. In less than two
minutes the whole operation is effected ; the explosive
charge mounts to a height of six hundred feet, and
bursts with a loud report. The cost of the rocket is
about one shilling and fourpence. It is cheaper, there-
fore, than the gun, and has the advantage of being
adapted for use in the limited space offered by a rock
lighthouse station. It has been furnished to the

LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS. 371

lighthouses at Lundy Island, Flamborough Head, the
Smalls, the South Bishop Rock, the Tuskar Rock, and
Heligoland.

Another form of explosive signal is fired by elec-
tricity, the charge with the detonator being suspended
from the end of a portable arm which is projected from
the lighthouse tower. This is adopted at the Long-
ships Lighthouse, and on board the Breaksea Light-
ship; but great precautions are necessary to prevent
accidents, and we do not anticipate that it will ever
come into very general use.

Some eighty years ago, Mr. Robert Stevenson, as the
result of some experiments on the effect of sound dur-
ing fog, came to the conclusion that the " tremulous "
and sustained noise produced by a horn or bugle is
preferable to that of a bell or even a gun. To the
same conclusion the American and other Lighthouse
Boards have arrived. Thirty-five years ago, Mr. C.
L. Daboll, an American, introduced a reed horn, or
trumpet, with a metallic reed, sounded by compressed
air, and at the suggestion of Messrs. Stevenson it was
tried at the Cumbrae Lighthouse in 18G5. This signal
has been heard during fog at a distance of seven to
nine miles against a light breeze, and at greater dis-
tances down the wind. It has proved of immense value
to ships navigating the estuary of the Clyde, enabling
them to proceed to their destination during thick fogs.
So complete has been its success that it has been in-
troduced at several other stations in Scotland.

372 LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS.

There are now five fog-signal stations in the estuary
of the Clyde, besides one worked by hot-air engines
on Pladda Island; one at St. Abb's Head, Mull of
Kintyre, and Sanda, each worked by hot-air engines ;
and at Ailsa Craig and Langness, worked by a gas
engine. At all these lighthouses the " siren," the most
powerful sound-signal known, has been adopted. It
was patented, before 1872, by Messrs. Brown of Pro-
gress Works, New York, and consists of a long cast-
iron trumpet, into the throat of which is fitted a fixed
flat disk, the other end of the trumpet being connected
with a steam or an air-pipe. The disk has twelve radial
slits, and behind it is a rotating disk with twelve
similar slits, the rotation being accomplished by sepa-
rate mechanism. As one disk is fixed and the other
revolving, it is obvious that the slits of each disk will
frequently coincide; and as they coincide a blast of
air, compressed to twenty pounds on the square inch,
escapes into the siren and produces a piercing sound
of unmistakable force and distinctness. " The sound of
the St. Abb's signal can be heard at Crail — a distance
of twenty-six miles — but this is only under peculiarly
favourable conditions. No mariner could, however, de-
pend on hearing this signal at such a distance, and, in-
deed, it has been laid down as a maxim in coast-signalling
that the minimum and not the maximum range is what
must be relied on. This minimum distance is between
two and three miles : want of attention to this point
may be followed by disastrous consequences."

LANDMARKS, BEACONS, BUOYS, FOG-SIGNALS. 373

Great improvements have been introduced into the
mechanism of this modern "siren," which, unlike the
siren of the old mythology, instead of luring the
mariner to his destruction, seeks to compass his safety.
The patent siren of Professor Holmes consists of two
cylinders with angular slots, one cylinder being fixed,
and the other left free to revolve within it ; the com-
pressed air impinging against the inclined sides of the
slots causes the inner cylinder to revolve, so that the
rapid passage of one row of slots over the other pro-
duces a series of vibrations which yield the desired
note. Mr. Slight and Sir James Douglass have also
effected improvements, which increase the intensity of
the sound ; and Messrs. Smetter, Lemonnier, & Co.,
have invented a double siren, in which two sirens,
with different numbers of orifices in their respective
cylinders, simultaneously produce two notes in the
trumpet, thereby increasing its usefulness very con-
siderably. At one station, for example, two blasts in
quick succession are given, the first a low note, and
the second a high note, the blasts being repeated at
intervals of four minutes. At another station the
signal is arranged to give blasts of five seconds' dura-
tion, with silent periods of forty seconds. In this way
the variations are secured which help to indicate to
the sailor the particular part of the coast he is ap-
proaching when the voice of the siren strikes upon his
attentive ear.

CHAPTER XII.

LIFE IN THE LIGHTHOUSE.

IT is impossible to deny that the life of a lighthouse-
keeper is distinguished by a somewhat sombre
monotony ; yet, on the other hand, to a serious mind,
it must be cheered and elevated by the reflection that
it is devoted to a high and holy service. An almost
heroic simplicity invests it with peculiar dignity ; it is
set apart, in no inconsiderable degree, from the com-
monplace aims and concerns of the work -day world;
it is pervaded, moreover, by an air of moderation,
self-control, and almost of austerity, which resembles
the lives formerly led in grotto and cavern by saint
and hermit. The light-keeper is of the world, but not
in it ; and one would suppose that in the dwellers on
the Eddystoiie or the Bell Rock the contests, the
rivalries, the pleasures, the interests of work -day
existence awake no emotion or anxiety.

The first article of the instructions which every light-
keeper is bound to obey — and to obey as implicitly as a
soldier obeys the laws of military discipline — run thus :

LIFE IN THE LIGHTHOUSE. 375

"You are to light the lamps every evening at sun-
setting, and keep them constantly burning, bright and
clear, till sun-rising."

This is the primary condition of a light -keeper's
duty ; for this he lives, toils, and watches, in order that
the warning light, which has been the salvation of so
many tall ships and their gallant crews, may burn with
uninterrupted and steadfast ray through the hours of
darkness. "Whatever else happens," says a graphic
writer, " he is to do this. He may be isolated through
the long night-watches, twenty miles from land, fifty
or a hundred feet above the level of the sea, with the
winds and waves howling round him, and the sea-birds
dashing themselves to death against the gleaming lan-
tern, like giant moths against a candle ; or it may be a
calm, voluptuous, moonlight night, the soft air laden
with the perfumes of the Highland heather or the
Cornish gorse, tempting him to keep his watch outside
the lantern, in the open gallery, instead of in the
watch-room chair within ; the Channel may be full of
stately ships, each guided by his light, or the horizon
may be bare of all signs of life, except, remote and far
beneath him, the lantern of some fishing-boat at sea.
But whatever may be going on outside, there is within
for him the duty, simple and easy, by virtue of his
moral method and orderly training, ' to light the lamps
every evening at sun-setting, and keep them constantly
burning, bright and clear, till sun-rising.' "

That this great article of the lighthouse -keeper's

376 LIFE IN THE LIGHTHOUSE.

faith may be the more easily carried out, he is sub-
jected, both when on probation and afterwards, to a
strict discipline, and is required to gain a thorough
acquaintance with all the materials he has to handle —
lamps, oil, wicks, lighting apparatus, and revolving
machinery. Before being admitted into the service, he
is carefully examined as to his physical qualities by
keen medical eyes ; and as to his moral qualities, the
best testimonials are necessary from persons in whose
competency and honesty of judgment implicit confi-
dence can be placed. He receives liberal wages, and,
when past work, a fair pension ; and a deduction from
his pay is regularly applied to the discharge of a pre-
mium on his life insurance. He is enjoined to " the
constant habit of cleanliness and good order in his own
person, and to the invariable exercise of temperance
and morality in his habits and proceedings, so that, by
his example, he may enforce, as far as lies in his power,
the observance of the same laudable conduct by his
wife and family." The utmost vigilance is expected
of him when it is his turn to attend to the lantern.
" He whose watch is about to end is to trim the lamps,
and leave them burning in perfect order, before he
quits the lantern and calls the succeeding watch ; and
he who has the watch at sunrise, when he has extin-
guished the lamps, is to commence all necessary pre-
parations for the exhibition of the light at the ensu-
ing sunset." No bed, sofa, or other article on which
to recline, is permitted, either in the lantern or in

LIFE IN THE LIGHT UOU Si:. 377

the apartment under the lantern known as the watch-
room.

From these requirements we may infer what kind of
life is led by the lighthouse-keeper, and what are its
leading requisites — temperance, cleanliness, honesty,
conscientiousness, zeal, watchfulness. At different sta-
tions it varies considerably in its lighter occupations.
In the rock lighthouse — such as the Eddystone — the
keeper's chief amusements are necessarily reading and
fishing: the only capability of exercise is within the
circle of the outer gallery, or on the belt of rock sur-
rounding the lighthouse base : and the sole incidents
which break up the uniformity of his daily life are the
inspections of the committee, the visits of the district
superintendent, or the monthly relief which takes the
men back to shore. In the shore lighthouse — as at
Harwich or the Forelands — there is a plot of ground to
cultivate, frequent intercourse with visitors from the
neighbouring watering-places, and the wider range of
occupation and entertainment which necessarily can be
enjoyed upon terra firma.

As a rule, the public take but little interest in the
economy of our lighthouses; and yet there is some-
thing singularly romantic in the idea of the lone tower
encircled by boiling waters, with its warning light
flashing through the deep night shadows, and the
heroic men who hour after hour watch with anxious
care lest its radiance should be obscured or extin-
guished.

378 LIFE IN THE LIGHTHOUSE.

" And as the evening darkens, lo ! how bright,

Through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light
With strange, unearthly splendour in its glare !

" Not one alone : from each projecting cape

And perilous reef along the ocean's verge
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge.

" Like the great giant Christopher it stands

Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave ;
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,
The night-o'ertaken mariner to save.

" And the great ships sail outward and return,

Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells ;
And ever joyful, as they see it burn,
They wave their silent welcomes and farewells." *

As a proof of the romance that formerly invested
lighthouse life, we may lay before the reader one or
two " true stories."

Smeaton speaks of a shoemaker who entered the
Eddystone Lighthouse because he longed for a solitary
life ; he found himself less a prisoner on his wave-beaten
rock than in his close and confined workshop. When
some of his friends expressed their astonishment at his
choice — " Each to his taste," said he ; " I have always
been partial to independence."

Perhaps it was the same individual who, after having
served at the Eddystone upwards of fourteen years,
conceived so strong an attachment to his prison that for
two consecutive years he gave up his turn of relief.
He would fain have continued the same course of

* Longfellow.

LIFE IN THE LIGHTHOUSE.

life for a third year, but so much pressure was brought
to bear upon him that he consented to avail himself of
the usual privilege. All the years he had spent in the
lighthouse he had been distinguished for his quiet and
orderly behaviour ; on land he found himself " out of
his element," and drank until he was completely intoxi-
cated. In this condition he was carried back to the
Eddystone, where, after languishing for a few days, he
expired. -

Some men have gone mad, or nearly so, by dint of
contemplating the same scenes and the same external
impressions. About a mile and a quarter from the
Land's End, on a group of granite islets washed by the
sea, stands the Longships Lighthouse, constructed in
1793. The particular rock on which it is built — the
Carn-Bras — rises about forty -five feet above the level
of low water. In winter both the rock and the build-
ing— as is the case at the Eddystone — will sometimes
be covered for a few seconds by the leaping waters,
which have even been known to surmount the lantern,
and, on one occasion at least, to break through its
crystal walls and extinguish the lamps.

One day, in 1862, two black flags floated from the
summit of the tower. They were evidently intended as
a signal of distress. What, then, had happened ?

Of the three men who inhabited the lighthouse, the
one whose turn it was to keep watch had thrust a knife
into his breast. His companions attempted to stanch
the blood by plugging up the wound with bits of tow.

380 LIFE IN THE LIGHTHOUSE.

Three days passed by before the people on shore could
reach the lighthouse ; and the sea was then so rough and
disembarkation so dangerous that the wounded man
had to be lowered into the boat, suspended from a kind
of impromptu crane. When he was conveyed ashore
he received every attention which his condition
demanded, but he lived only a few days. The jury,
acting upon the evidence of his companions, declared
that he had committed suicide under an attack of tem-
porary insanity. Perhaps it is not astonishing that
persons of a susceptible or excitable temperament
should, under the influence of ever-murmuring seas
and ever-blowing winds, and while living in a state of
almost continual solitude and comparative monotony,
feel the vertigo of the abyss ascend to their brain, so
that the control of reason is loosened, and the mind
yields to the first impulse which passes over it.

THE END.

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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

1057
M
1891

Adams, William Henry Davenport

The story of our light-
houses and lightships

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