1872.] Illumination of Beacons and Buoys. aI 
The brand-scorcht floor 
a mound covered 
mighty and worshipful, 
as found most fitting 
their famousest sages. 
Within the Barrow 
laid they beighs and ornaments, 
and such driven drink-cups 
as in the drake-hoard 
the furious warriors 
a-fore had taken. 
The earth be-gem they 
with Earl-sprung jewels, 
fling gold on the gravel, 
where again it shall lie 
to all as useless 
as erewhile it was. 
Round the How rode then 
those Hilde champions, 
all the troop 
of those twelve athelings, 
their Keen raising, 
their King mourning, 
word lays chaunting 
and of (Walhall) speaking. 
Mr. Spence Bate attributes the presence of the numerous 
megalithic sepulchres and monuments of Dartmoor to the 
Vikings of the North, who came thither in search of tin, as 
testified by the enormous extent of ancient stream workings 
on the West Webber, under Warren Tor; and supports his 
theory as a philologist by an exhaustive analysis of the 
etymology of the names of the rivers, hills and places, 
fortified positions, &c., in the neighbourhood, the majority 
of which he traces to a Scandinavian origin. 
Whether the Scandinavian Norsemen derive their blood 
from an Asiatic stock is a question for anthropologists to 
discuss. 
Il. THE ILLUMINATION OF BEACONS AND 
BUOYS. 
i UCH has been done to reduce the chances of ship- 
wreck upon our coast, always so difficult of naviga- 
tion, and yet very little is generally known of the 
progress in the application of science to indicate to the 
mariner his proximity to danger. There are two ways of 
assisting seamen in their passage on a coast-line—by the 
lighthouse, of use by day and night; and by the buoy 
or beacon, of use by day alone. But often, and indeed 
in the majority of cases, the rock or projecting spit is 
