364 WRITINGS OP JOSEPH HENRY. [1873 



REMARKS ON THE UNITED STATES LIGHT-HOUSE SERVICE. 



(Report of the United States Light-House Board for 1873, pp. 3-7.) 

 October 14, 1873. 



No part of the executive branch of the Government 

 includes more diversified duties or involves greater responsi- 

 bilities than the Light-House Establishment. 



The character of the aids which any nation furnishes the 

 mariner in approaching and leaving its shores, marks in 

 a conspicuous degree, its advance in civilization. What- 

 ever tends to facilitate navigation, or to lessen its dangers, 

 serves to increase commerce, and hence is of importance not 

 only to the dwellers on the seaboard, but to the inhabitants 

 of every part of the country. Whoever has surplus products 

 of industry to dispose of has a pecuniary interest in the 

 improvement of commerce. 



Every shipwreck which occurs enhances the cost of trans- 

 portation, and therefore affects the interests of the producer. 

 But it is not alone in view of its economical effects that 

 the light-house system is to be regarded. It is a life-preserv- 

 ing establishment, founded on the principles of Christian 

 benevolence. None can appreciate so well the value of a 

 proper system of this kind as he who has been exposed for 

 weeks and perhaps months to the perils of the ocean, and is 

 approaching in the darkness of night a lee shore. He 

 looks then, with anxious gaze, for the friendly light which 

 is to point the way amid treacherous rocks and sunken shoals 

 to a haven of safety. Or it may be in mid-day, when obser- 

 vations cannot be had, the sun and coast being hid by dense 

 fogs, such as imperil navigation on our northern and west- 

 ern coasts. He then listens with breathless silence for the 

 sound of the fog-trumpet which shall insure his position and 

 give him the desired direction of his course. 



With that entire confidence which is inspired by a perfect 

 light-house system the alternatives of life and death, of riches 

 and poverty, are daily hazarded ; and therefore it is of the 



