Figure 62. — Detail of card, Warren surveying compass shown in figure 61. 



of Weights and Measures at Yale University. The instrument, 

 which appears to have been made from walnut, has a compass 

 card with the following inscription around the central medallion: 

 "Made and sold by benjamin warren Plymouth New Eng*^," 



The medallion (fig. 62) encloses a harbor scene with a brigantine 

 of the 1740 period off a promontory on which is prominently 

 situated a lighthouse with a smaller building partly visible at the 

 left. The lighthouse is unusual in construction in that it features 

 twin towers rising from a large rectangular wooden building. 



As far as can be determined from available records, the only 

 lighthouse in America of this period having such construction was 

 the noted Gurnet Light, which was built at the tip of Duxbury 

 Beach in Plymouth Bay in 1768. D. Alan Stevenson "^ relates that 

 the Governor's Council of Massachusetts, when it decided in 1768 



"^ D. Alan Stevenson, The World's Lighthouses before 1820 (London: Oxford 

 University Press, 1959), p. 179. 



115 



