MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 105 



extending and improving our present system of construction, illumi- 

 nation, inspection, and superintendence. The Board consisted of 

 Commodore Shubrick and Commander Du Pont, of the Navy, Gen. 

 Totten and Col. Kearney, of the Engineers, Prof. A. D. Bache, 

 Superintendent of the Coast Survey, and Lieut. Jenkins, of the Navy 

 as Secretary. The results of the investigations of these officers have 



c_j 



been given in a voluminous and valuable report to Congress, which 

 discloses a state of things in reference to our lighthouses, which is 

 highly discreditable to the nation, and requires instant change. It 

 appears that there is no system whatever, no proper mode of deter- 

 mining the position or character of the lights ; that the lights them- 

 selves are of a kind obsolete in Europe, badly placed, badly con- 

 structed, badly furnished, and badly tended ; that the towers are not 

 always well placed, and are very frequently badly built ; and that 

 with a very low useful effect, our lighthouses cost as much as, or more 

 than, a proper system of first rate lights. The remedy proposed is a 

 simple one, the establishment of a permanent Lighthouse Board, 

 properly constituted, who shall superintend the arrangement of all 

 lights ; employ competent persons to select proper sites, and deter- 

 mine the character of the lights, which are to be of the most efficient 

 construction; competent engineers to design the lighthouses, and super- 

 intend their construction ; proper persons to test the quality of the sup- 

 plies purchased, and to deliver them in proper quantities to the keepers ; 

 and, finally, shall draw up a set of proper regulations for light keepers, 

 and see them attended to. 



We also learn from the Report, that there is not in useful effect, a 

 single first class light on the coast of the United States. That the 

 lights at Neversink, (two lens.) New York, and the second order lens 

 light at Sankaty Head, Nantucket, are the best lights on the coast of 

 the United States. That there are few, if anv, reflector lights on the 



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coasts of the United States, better in useful effect than the third 

 order lens light, erected by the Topographical Bureau, on Brandy- 

 wine shoal, while the economy of the lens light is in the ratio of at 

 least 4 to 1. That the Fresnel lens is greatly superior to any other 

 mode of lighthouse illumination, and in point of economy is nearly 

 four times as advantageous as the best system of reflectors and Argand 

 lamps. 



The whole subject of lighthouse illuminations and improvements, 

 although one of occasional discussion in Congress, and in certain cir- 

 cles, within the last ten years, has not occupied the public mind to 

 any great extent in this country ; while in Europe generally, but 

 more especially in France, England, Scotland, and Ireland, the ablest 

 and most distinguished statesmen, philosophers, and philanthropists, 

 have devoted themselves, for the last twenty-five years, to this subject, 

 in endeavoring to apply practically the aids which science and the 

 mechanic arts have developed. Experiments to ascertain the truthful 

 practical test of the relative useful and economical value of illuminat- 

 ing apparatus, and their accessories, in the most minute detail, have 

 been made by Fresnel, Faraday, Stevenson, and other distinguished 

 individuals ; the results of their investigations have been published 



