436 



LIGHTHOUSE ESTABLISHMENT, THE UNITED STATES. 



the latter as its engineer-secretary. The board 

 met on October 9, 1852, and elected Commo- 

 dore Shubrick as its chairman; and then it 

 arranged to receive from the General Super- 

 intendent the property of the lighthouse estab- 

 lishment, and to make the necessary rules and 

 regulations for its governance. Those who 

 had made the programme which had guided 

 legislation to the creation of this board, and 

 who had in mind all the details necessary for 

 carrying out the plan, and who had the neces- 

 sary industry, perseverance, and patience to 

 put them into operation; those who knew all 

 the defects of the service and all the excellen- 

 cies of the French service on which the new 

 establishment was to be modeled ; those who 

 had so much at heart the interests of the 

 plan, and who had staked their reputation 

 on its success, were appointed on the board. 

 And their zeal was tempered by the addition 

 to it of the calm wisdom of Professor Henry, 

 whose habits of patient investigation, and im- 

 partial decision on the weight of ascertained 

 authority, and whose already great reputation 

 as a physicist, would go far to prevent any 

 unnecessary changes or any hasty action. 



The plans proposed by the provisional board 

 to Congress, and formulated in the organic 

 act, were put into operation by the permanent 

 board as rapidly as existing law and the funds 

 at the control of the board would permit. 



An inspector, who was either an army or a 

 navy officer, and, as soon as needed, an engineer 

 officer from the army were assigned to each 

 lighthouse district. The inspectors, under the 

 charge of the naval secretary, who also had 

 charge, in the absence of the chairman, of the 

 office of the board, were charged with the 

 maintenance of the lights and lighthouses and 

 with the discipline of the light-keepers. The 

 district engineers, under the direction of the 

 engineer-secretary, were charged with build- 

 ing the lighthouses, with keeping them in re- 

 pair, and with the purchase, the setting up, and 

 the repairs of the illuminating apparatus. Both 

 inspectors and engineers made regular and spe- 

 cial reports to the board, acting always under 

 its direction, and the board made a full annual 

 report to the Secretary of the Treasury, who, 

 in turn, made a full annual report to Congress. 

 The board assigned its members first to an ex- 

 ecutive committee, and then divided them into 

 committees on finance, engineering, light- 

 vessels, lighting and experiments, and placed 

 that one of its members most expert on each 

 particular branch at the head of the committee 

 having charge of that branch. The committee 

 on light-vessels was afterward charged with 

 the care of buoys also, when it was called the 

 " committee on floating aids to navigation." In 

 after-years, the committee on the location of 

 all aids to navigation was added. The execu- 

 tive committee, consisting of the chairman 

 and the two secretaries, were in perpetual ses- 

 sion, carrying on the routine business of the 

 establishment, while the other committees met 



frequently, and the full board met monthly, or 

 oftener, though required by law to meet but 

 once a quarter. 



The board, finding, from the experience of 

 the keepers of the lights at Navesink, that the 

 lenticular apparatus could be managed by the 

 average light- keeper after instruction by an ex- 

 pert, and that its use was more economical in 

 oil than was the reflector apparatus, pushed 

 its substitution with vigor, and, as they had 

 anticipated, with a diminution of the annual 

 expenditure for oil. 



It perfected the classification of lights, and 

 so differentiated them by proper distinctions 

 that mariners were enabled to identify and rec- 

 ognize each light. It substituted lighthouses 

 for light-ships, wherever practicable, as rapid- 

 ly as desirable, thereby making large saving in 

 expense for maintenance without diminution 

 of the light produced. When sperm-oil became 

 too expensive for economical use, the board 

 cast about for a substitute for it as a lighthouse 

 illuminant,and after trying and discarding colza, 

 a vegetable oil, it finally, after much experi- 

 mentation, adopted lard-oil, at a large saving 

 in cost, and without diminution of light. And 

 again, twenty years after, when it was evident 

 that a further economy could be made, it sub- 

 stituted mineral oil for lard-oil, after much ten- 

 tative action, resulting in the invention and 

 manufacture of lamps for its proper combus- 

 tion. It has tested gas as a lighthouse illumi- 

 nant without finding it adapted to the purpose, 

 although it still has several stations lighted with 

 gas from the neighboring cities, and one series 

 of stations lighted with compressed gas made 

 by its employees. 



It has carefully watched the results of the 

 experiments made in other countries with the 

 electric light, and has given much attention to 

 the various methods of producing it, without 

 result, however, as Congress has thus far failed 

 to act on the board's suggestion to provide 

 means for its practical test in a lighthouse. By 

 a long series of investigations into the laws^ of 

 sound, it ascertained the principles on which 

 fog-signals, as aids to navigation, were to be 

 constructed, and giving them to the public, 

 accelerated the invention of proper machines, 

 stimulated their manufacture, and then put them 

 into operation without other expense to the 

 Government than their purchase. 



When the commerce on the Mississippi had 

 induced Congress to authorize aids for river 

 navigation, the board devised and put into op- 

 eration a system of lights which has revolution- 

 ized steamboat navigation, making it so safe 

 that the boats which tied up at night now run 

 as by day, and that at a small cost, as compared 

 with the expense of the lights on the ocean and 

 even on the lake coasts. 



The board has organized and built up by de- 

 grees a corps of intelligent light-keepers, who, 

 entering the service in its lowest rank, after 

 examination are eligible to promotion in grade 

 and pay according to merit, as vacancies occur, 



