LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS
Just as the origin of ships is lost in the darkness of shrouded time,
so is the origin of lighthouses lost. Perhaps to guide returning
fishermen who all day and into the night had spread their nets or cast
their spears for food, the women of some savage tribe of long ago built
bonfires on the beach. Still that is a custom among simple folk who
live hard by the sea and secure their livelihood from it.
From this the Egyptians of early times probably adopted their idea of
lights, that were burned every night at given spots near the shore, in
order that ships might find their way by them. Such fires were tended
in those early days by priests, and a priestly duty it was—and still
remains, although simple, quiet people now tend the lights and consider
it only a work to be done—but it is a work of infinite value to the
world of ships in which most of the reward lies in the knowledge of a
task well done.
A Greek poet, writing about 660 B. C., mentions a lighthouse at
Sigeum, a town near the site of ancient Troy, and this was one of the
very earliest lighthouses regularly maintained. But in the years that
followed this they probably became more and more numerous, and as their
importance was recognized they became more and more similar in external
appearance to those we know to-day. That this is probably true seems to
be borne out by the erection at Alexandria, Egypt, about 275 B. C., of
the famous Pharos, which, we are told, was 600 feet high and similar in
shape to the minarets so common in Mohammedan lands to-day. That the
structure was as high as it is said to have been seems doubtful, but
that it was of extraordinary height is proved by its inclusion among
the seven wonders of the ancient world. So impressive a lighthouse
could hardly have been the first of its kind, although, no doubt, it
far surpassed all others.
At the top of this great tower a fire was kept burning, and for nearly
sixteen centuries its great shaft stood the test of time, before it
collapsed in an earthquake. Centuries before its end, however, the
Mohammedan conquerors had come to be the rulers of Egypt, and near
the top of this great tower a small praying chamber was placed.
Perhaps from its great height the muezzin called the faithful to their
prayers, and certainly its graceful lines left a deep impression on the
Mohammedans, for from it came the idea that resulted in the erection
of the numerous minarets that mark almost every Mohammedan city of the
earth.
And ere the convulsion of Nature toppled this striking edifice to the
earth the idea of lighthouses had greatly widened, and widely separated
lands had built lighthouses of their own to guide the sailor as he
sailed the sea.
Rome built many along the coasts her ships were forced to visit, one at
Dover and one at Boulogne being, probably, the earliest on the shores
of England and of France. Both of these are gone, leaving only traces
of their existence, but the ruins of the ancient tower at Ostia, at
the mouth of the Tiber, still remain to remind us of great galleys
that were guided by its fire in the nights of the first century after
Christ. At Corunna, Spain, there still stands an ancient Phœnician or
Roman tower, known as the Pillar of Hercules, and from its top, in ages
now long dead, a flaring beacon marked the spot for sailors far at sea.
But all of these earlier lighthouses were built on dry land, sheltered
by the shore from the crash of waves. It was the city of Bordeaux,
on the Gironde River in France, that first built a lighthouse on a
wave-swept rock to warn ships from its treacheries.
[Illustration: THE PHAROS AT ALEXANDRIA
_One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and one of the first
great lighthouses._]
The Gironde River flows into the stormy Bay of Biscay, its wide mouth
often filled with foaming waves driving in from sea, which crash upon
a rocky reef that lies in the very centre of the estuary. So great a
toll of passing ships was taken by these rocks that the thriving city
of Bordeaux was like to lose its water-borne commerce, and to keep
the trade that meant so much to the city the citizens agreed to mark
the spot with a light. A simple tower was erected on this spot about
the year 805. For years it served, until Edward the Black Prince,
temporarily in control of the vicinity, erected a slightly greater
tower. For a time this, too, was kept, but finally, an aged keeper
having died, the fire was no longer lit. For many years the rocks
remained unlighted, and then, in 1584, during the reign of Henry II of
France, a new lighthouse was begun. For twenty-five years the work of
construction was under way, and when it was completed it was the most
magnificent lighthouse of all time. Nor has another been built since to
equal it in magnificence. About its base a great stone breakwater was
built, surmounted by a balustrade. The lowest floor of the structure
contains a beautiful hall and an apartment originally intended for
the king. Above is a chapel, beautifully designed and decorated, and
above this stands the tower which contains the light. This, originally,
placed the light about one hundred feet above the rocks. Later the
tower was increased in height to 207 feet and now it is equipped with
the most modern apparatus, visible in clear weather for twenty-seven
miles, to take the place of the blazing log fire that for so long did
its best to guide the mariners in from sea.
Until the 18th Century the fires of these beacons burned wood, and then
coal came gradually into use. The objections to such fires are obvious.
They had no definite range, for fires died down or burnt furiously, and
when a strong wind drove in from sea the fire was often all but hidden
from sight of ships as it curled around in the lee of the tower.
But America had been settled and had such lighthouses on its own coast
ere other methods superseded this.
The first lighthouse in the United States was the one on Little
Brewster Island on the south of the main entrance to Boston Harbour.
It was built in 1716, although the lighthouse now occupying that site
was erected in 1859. During the Revolutionary War the structure was
destroyed and rebuilt three times. The third structure was a stone
tower sixty-eight feet high, and four oil lamps were used to illuminate
it.
Wood and coal fires continued to be used, here and there, until the
19th Century was well begun. The last one of these in England to give
way to more improved methods was the Flat Holme Light, in the Bristol
Channel, where coal was burned until 1822.
[Illustration: THE TILLAMOOK ROCK LIGHT STATION
_This great rock, which lies about a mile off the coast of Oregon,
was formerly a spot of terrible danger to ships. Great difficulties
had to be overcome in order to erect this lighthouse, but now its
160,000-candle-power light is visible, in clear weather, for eighteen
miles._
]
During the 19th Century, however, great improvements were made in
lights, and equal improvements were made in the design and construction
of lighthouses. The story of the development of lighthouses is one of
dramatic intensity, filled with accounts of heroism, of ingenuity and
perseverance. And not only in the building of lighthouses has heroism
been shown. The courage of the quiet men who man them—and women, too,
for there are many to whom lighthouses are entrusted—in itself is the
subject for a book. Courage and unselfish devotion to duty are the
fundamentals upon which keepers of lights base their helpful lives.
Regardless of comfort, regardless of danger, regardless of life itself,
_the light must burn_. No other duty or desire compares with that
determination. And so in calm or gale, in summer fog or storm-torn
winter night, the men who sail the sea have come to depend with simple
and abiding faith upon the lights, the foghorns, and the courage of
the lighthousemen. Whether the Atlantic pounds with mountainous seas
the slender shaft on Bishop’s Rock, or the Pacific piles its crashing
surges high at Tillamook; whether the hot winds of Arabia blister the
paint on the web of steel that holds the Red Sea light of Sanganeb
Reef, or ice encrusts the giant light that guards Cape Race, the light
must burn, and sailors out at sea sail past almost as confident of
these lights as of the stars.
To one who has not seen the vast strength of the angry sea my words
will mean but little, but any one who has seen needs no description
and will not forget. Imagine a slender tower, built amid the smother
of foam on a wave-swept rock. Imagine the supreme impudence of man who
boldly sets himself the task of building there a cylinder of stone
surmounted by a cage of glass. Nor does his impudence end there.
Although it may be that for weeks at a time no boat may come near the
spume and flying spray about the rocks above which stands the tower,
yet in the tower are men. They calmly go about the tasks assigned to
them. They polish the powerful lenses about the light. Each night they
light the lamp. When fog obscures the spot they set their foghorn
going. These are their duties.
And when storm threatens, do they leave? Not so, for then above all
times is their duty clear.
Overhead fly the scurrying clouds before the storm. Below, the sea
turns gray. A whitecap dots the surface of the water, and a sudden puff
of wind leaves a ruffle of little waves as it passes. The clouds grow
darker and the lightning flashes. The thunder snaps and roars and then
comes the wind. Its voice is low at first as it whisks away the wave
crests and tears them into spray. The tattered water slaps against the
brown rock of the tower. The wind increases, blowing up the waves.
They pound with growing strength against the foaming reef, and leap up
higher toward the glass cage that marks the tall tower’s crest.
[Illustration: CAPE RACE LIGHTHOUSE
_A 1,100,000-candle-power light now marks the great Newfoundland
headland of Cape Race. Near this cape lies the shortest sea route from
the English Channel to Boston and New York, and ships entering the St.
Lawrence River also must pass near it._
]
The lightning flashes more, the thunder roars again. The wind goes wild
and shrieks like mad, tearing water from the sea and throwing it high
over the summit of the tower. The great waves boom as they pile up on
the rocks. They crash against the tower which shudders with the blows.
Surge after surge pounds savagely on the great rocks of the reef, and
finally a mighty wave that seems to be a giant effort of the madly
tortured sea lifts a raging crest high up, and drops it in the roaring
surf. A great rock splits beneath the blow, the wave runs up the tall
thin shaft and dashes high above its top, and then drops swiftly down,
while there, unharmed amid the vastness and the terror of the storm
still stands the tower that puny man has built to warn ships from the
dangers that surround it.
The story of lighthouses is one to hold the interest of any one, and
many books have been written telling it. “Lighthouses and Lightships,”
by F. A. Talbot, is one of these, and from its pages one may take a
new impression of the men who spend their lives in making the sea less
dangerous for those who travel on it.
My task is different. I have space only to devote to why lighthouses
exist and how they help sailors. And with lighthouses I shall include
lightships—which, of course, are merely lighthouses that float—and
buoys, which are used for many things.
Originally it is likely that lights were built ashore in order that
sailors overtaken by night while on the sea could be directed to a
landing place. Compasses, of course, were unknown, and while it is
possible to sail a course by the stars, it is quite another matter to
find a landing place by such means. Consequently, lights were built to
mark shelving beaches or the entrances to harbours where ships could be
landed.
But the light erected in 805 by Bordeaux was for the opposite purpose.
It marked a place to keep well clear of, and lighthouses do that to-day
almost exclusively.
[Illustration: MINOT’S LEDGE LIGHT
_Which marks, near the entrance to Boston Harbour, a rocky reef seldom
seen above the surface of the water. From this spot, the famous old
skeleton iron lighthouse that formerly marked the reef was swept by a
gale in 1851._
]
If a reef lies near a course followed by ships a light must guard it.
If a sand bank is hidden from the sight of ships that might ground
on it a light must be there as a warning. If an island constitutes a
menace because swift currents flow past its shores a light must tell
the sailor where the danger lies. Nor are lighthouses useful only at
night. In daylight they form conspicuous marks from which the navigator
may learn his exact position. In fog their huge foghorns wail like
lost souls, sending warnings far into the engulfing mist in order that
sailors may hear and know that land is near. Then, too, each light
is individual. One flashes regularly, one irregularly, one red and
white, one red alone. Other lights are steady beams, but each can be
recognized, and so they are like friendly faces, recognizable, every
one.
Perhaps the coast of France is the best lighted in the world. Certainly
it would be difficult to imagine one with a more perfect system. I have
sailed the coast of Brittany at night, fearful of the currents and
the storms that often blow on the stormy Bay of Biscay. But always,
to minimize the dangers of the rocky coast and hidden reefs, the
lighthouses blinked, and the task is simple to determine one’s position
any time, except in fogs. For the French have placed their lighthouses
so that as a ship sails along the coast there are always at least two
lights in sight at once. From these, cross bearings can be taken at
almost any moment, and the careful navigator, in clear weather, need
never feel uneasy as to his position. Ushant Island, that rocky islet
just off the coast of Finisterre, was long a graveyard of ships—and
still, from time to time, some ship is caught on its rocks—but now bold
lights stand high above the smother of foam and the roar of breakers,
marking the spot in order that ships may carefully give it a wide berth.
Formerly every lighthouse had to have attendants, as the most important
still have, but modern improvements are making unattended lights more
and more common. One finds them everywhere. The rocky coast of Sweden,
the firths of Scotland, the mountains of the Strait of Magellan, the
gorgeous coast of Indo-China all have many of these new beacons.
They flash accurately at regular intervals. They light their lights at
dusk and turn them out at dawn. Some roar through the fog with their
great warning voices, and all of this is automatic or semi-automatic.
So far as the lights themselves are concerned they require no attention
for months at a time. The sun turns them off as it rises in the
morning, and as it sets, the delicate apparatus that its light expands
contracts once more and the light is turned on. From time to time a
tender visits each of these. The apparatus is overhauled, the supply of
fuel renewed, and again for months the light performs its task.
Nor are all lights placed in lighthouses. Many spots require other
means, and lightships have been designed and built to perform the
duties of lighthouses where lighthouses cannot be built.
[Illustration: BISHOP ROCK LIGHTHOUSE
_On a cluster of rocks off the Scilly Islands near the entrance to the
English Channel where converge the most important of all the world’s
shipping lanes._
]
To transatlantic travellers perhaps the most familiar of these is the
Ambrose Channel Lightship, that rolls and pitches at its anchor outside
the entrance to New York Harbour. But the most famous lightship on the
American coast is the one that marks Diamond Shoal, that infamous spot
just off Cape Hatteras. Several times the Government has attempted to
build a lighthouse on this shoal, but the attempts have invariably been
frustrated by the sea. A lighthouse does mark the Cape, but Diamond
Shoal runs out beneath the stormy water for about nine miles from the
Cape, and it is this dangerous sand bank that the lightship guards.
Four and a half miles out from the bank the lightship is anchored in
a stretch of water that has hardly a peer on earth for the frequency
and suddenness of storms. Here this little ship jerks at her anchor,
pounded by great seas, tugged at by swift currents, swept by fierce
winds. She rolls and pitches, shipping seas over this side and then
that, and jerking—always jerking at her cable. There is no easy
smoothness to her roll as there is with a free ship at sea. There is
no exhilaration to her pitch as she rises over the seas and plunges to
the troughs, for always the jerk of the cable interferes, and from one
month’s end to the next the little crew endures the discomfort and the
hard work, in order that ships may be warned away from the treacherous
sand of Diamond Shoal.
These sturdy little ships do mark other things than dangers. In many
cases they are the modern counterparts of the beach fires of those
early peoples which lighted belated boats in to shore. To-day, however,
those lightships which perform this task swing at their anchors outside
the entrances to harbours, marking the channel through which the ships
must pass on their way in from sea.
In this duty they are similar to the lighted buoys which, in recent
years, have been put to so many uses, the lightships being, however,
greatly more conspicuous and generally marking a spot well outside the
entrance to the channel.
Buoys are of many uses and of many shapes and sizes, marking danger
spots, submarine cables, sunken wrecks, channels, as well as temporary
obstructions. Some are used for mooring ships in harbours, some carry
bells or whistles for sounding warnings, some carry lights. Attempts
have been made to standardize the shapes and markings of buoys in all
countries, but many lands still maintain their own designs, and the
officers of a ship visiting strange waters must acquaint themselves
with the particular designs there in use.
[Illustration: FIRE ISLAND LIGHTSHIP
_This lightship is anchored off Fire Island, near the southern
coast of Long Island, U. S. A. Lightships sometimes mark shoals,
and sometimes mark the entrances to harbours. They are always kept
anchored in given spots and are merely floating lighthouses, although,
of course, they are sometimes relieved by other lightships so that
they may undergo repairs._
]
Buoys are of scores of different sizes and designs. They may be nothing
more than tall painted poles of wood anchored to the bottom in shallow
water and standing more or less vertically. These are called “spar”
buoys, and are useful if ice is floating in the waters that they mark,
for as the ice floats against them they give way, the ice passes over
them and they serenely reappear, none the worse.
On the other hand buoys may be huge structures of steel many tons
in weight, forty feet from top to bottom, ten feet in diameter, and
complex in their equipment of lights or whistles or bells. Or they
may be great barrel-like steel floats, or conical ones, or great
turnip-shaped floats. Some are spherical, some are of stranger
shapes. They may be red or black or green. Some are striped, with
weird decorations gracing their tops. Some support small triangles or
spheres, some crosses, some paint-brush-like affairs. But each one has
its particular uses, and one should hesitate to pass a buoy unless the
thing it stands for is understood.
In United States waters, for instance, one needs to know that in
coming in from sea a ship should pass with the red buoys, which are
conical in shape and are called “nun” buoys, on the starboard, or right
side. These buoys are further distinguished by being numbered with
even numbers. At the same time all “can” buoys, which are black and
cylindrical, with odd numbers painted on them, should be kept to the
port or left side. Sometimes “spar” buoys replace these, but the buoys
to starboard will always be red, the buoys to port black, as the ship
comes in from sea.
Buoys painted with red and black horizontal lines mark obstructions
with channels on both sides. Buoys with white and black perpendicular
stripes sometimes mark the middle of a channel and a ship should pass
close to them. Buoys marking quarantine are yellow, while buoys marking
the limits of anchorages are usually white.
[Illustration: AUTOMATIC BUOYS
_The whistle buoy at the left utilizes the motion of the waves to blow
a whistle. The light buoy in the centre has an automatic light that
burns gas stored in the body of the buoy. The bell buoy at the right
carries a bell, against which four clappers are pounded by the action
of the waves._
]
The whistling buoys and lighted buoys are, perhaps, the most
interesting of the lot. Imagine a huge steel top, with a whistle placed
at its point, and a large steel tube running through it from top to
bottom, extending more than the height of the top above it. Imagine
this top ten or twelve feet in diameter, and, with the tube, forty
feet in height. Imagine this, then, floating in the water, point up,
and with the tube below the surface. The end of the tube below the
water is open. The end on which the whistle is mounted contains two
openings. In one of these the whistle is placed. The other opening
is closed by a valve which permits air to enter, but closes when the
air tries to escape. This buoy is anchored in the water, and as the
waves toss it up and down they rise and fall in the lower part of the
tube. As they rise the air inside is compressed and is blown through
the whistle causing it to sound. As the water in the tube falls, air
is drawn through the valve, and again the waves force it through
the whistle. This ponderous but simple “whistling” buoy requires no
supplies and almost no attention. Periodically it is visited by a
tender and is temporarily relieved of work while it is taken to the
repair shop to be examined, repaired, and painted. Aside from that it
needs no attention, yet constantly it moans as the waves sweep under
it, and the greater the waves the greater is the volume of its sound.
Bell buoys are equally simple and effective. These buoys are surmounted
by a framework of steel from which a large bell is rigidly suspended.
Several “clappers” are hinged about it so that, no matter how a wave
may move the buoy, a clapper strikes the bell.
The light buoys are more complicated and more diverse. There are
more than a dozen different sizes and shapes, and the fuel is
usually compressed oil gas or compressed acetylene gas. The buoys
themselves—that is, the floats—may be of almost any shape. Some are
spherical, some cylindrical. Some are long and thin, and others short
and fat, but each one has a framework or a shaft of steel extending
from ten to twenty feet above it. At the top of this the light is
fixed, while the body of the buoy holds the gas. These lights flash
intermittently, the gas, which is under pressure, operating a valve
while a tiny “pilot light” in the burner remains always burning in
order to ignite the gas when it is turned on to cause each flash.
Some of these buoys carry a supply of fuel great enough to last for
three months, and during that time they flash their lights every few
seconds without fail, marking a danger or a channel, and are visible,
sometimes, from distances of several miles.
Thus the dangers of the sea are marked by lighthouses, lightships,
and buoys, while harbour entrances and channels are marked as well.
This has been done in order to save life and property and in order to
expedite the passages of ships. No more do captains have to depend on
guess and luck. Their accurate sextants and chronometers tell them
where they are on the trackless sea. Their barometers tell them of
approaching storms. Their compasses tell them their directions.
And men ashore have built great lights on wave-washed rocks and
surf-pounded beaches, on mighty headlands and shoals of sand.
Lightships mark the treacherous spots where lighthouses cannot be
erected, and mark, as well, the entrances to many harbours around the
world. And once past these the mariner is led into the shelter of the
harbour between long lines of buoys, each telling him its message,
each aiding him on his way. He rounds a rock in mid-channel unscathed,
because a buoy anchored there tells him how to turn. He finds his
anchorage because of other buoys, and perhaps he makes his ship fast to
still another, and knows that once more the ocean has been crossed in
safety and his voyage is ended.
Almost the whole of the surfaces of all the lands of earth bear the
marks of man. Most people live their lives ashore amid nature that
has been radically changed by man. Cities have been built, railroads
flung across the land. Farms flourish and ploughs have turned up every
inch of all their acres. A hundred years ago America was wild from the
Alleghanies to the Pacific. Now one cannot cross it and be for more
than a few minutes out of sight of signs of men.
But the ocean rolls ever on just as it rolled in prehistoric times. No
mark that man has made has changed the sea. Yet, while man is unable
to change one single thing about its solitary waste, he has marked its
greater perils and has conquered it. The perils of the sea are growing
ever less, and ships owe much of this to the lights that mark its
danger spots.