44G 



LIGHTHOUSE ESTABLISHMENT, THE UNITED STATES. 



ing its use, he attempted to extinguish the lamp 

 by blowing down its chimney, when it exploded. 

 He had scarcely reached the foot of the stair- 

 case, with his clothes on fire, when another 

 explosion took place, which blew the whole 

 lantern from the tower, and effectually de- 

 stroyed the lenticular apparatus. But, as min- 

 eral-oil was, in one form or another, in suc- 

 cessful use in European lighthouses, the board 

 set about solving the problems connected with 

 its uniform and economical combustion, its 

 purchase in the large quantities needed, the 

 tests as to purity, and the degrees of heat at 

 which it should burn and flash, the degrees of 

 cold at which it should remain limpid, meth- 

 ods for its transportation and storage, and the 

 other questions connected with its safe and 

 economical use. 



The first difficulty was that of the lamp in 

 which it should be burned. At the outset a 

 claim was set up that mineral oil could not be 

 burned in a lighthouse without infringing on a 

 certain patent. The board, always ready to 

 encourage inventive genius when applied to 

 lighthouse matters, .asked the necessary au- 

 thority to deal with the patentee, when the 

 Secretary 'of the Treasury, as the custom is, 

 referred the legal questions involved to the 

 Attorney-General. Thus a legal controversy 

 arose which continued some three years, run- 

 ning through the Patent Office, and was finally 

 adjudicated in the courts, where it was decided 

 that mineral-oil could be burned in any light- 

 house lamp except one without infringing any 

 patent. Meantime, the board had, after much 

 experimentation in its own laboratory and work- 

 shops, succeeded in producing a mineral- oil 

 lamp capable of consuming all the carbon it 

 set free, and introduced it into its lighthouses. 



The chairman of the board, the venerable 

 Professor Henry, had been during this time 

 dealing with other difficulties practically and 

 personally in laboratory and workshop, and in 

 them had more than once endangered his per- 

 son, if not his life, and thus the board reached 

 in advance certain determinate results. It 

 fixed the flashing test of the mineral-oil that 

 would be accepted for lighthouse use at 140 

 Fahr., the fire test at 154, and the freezing 

 test at which it should remain limpid at zero. 

 Litmus paper immersed in it for five hours 

 must, by remaining unchanged in color, show 

 its freedom from acid ; its specific gravity 

 must not be less than 802 ; and it is to be 

 paid for by weight, at the rate of 6-& pounds 

 net weight to the gallon. The board has 

 contracted for several lots deliverable at dif- 

 ferent periods at New York, Detroit, and San 

 Francisco, amounting to 75,000 gallons in all, 

 at an average price of 14 T 8 / 7 cents per gal- 

 lon. The difficulty of storing and transport- 

 ing such quantities in bulk was conceded, but 

 its danger was evaded by having the oil placed 

 at once in five-gallon cans, where it was to 

 remain until transferred to the lighthouse burn- 

 ers for combustion. Mineral-oil is now used 



throughout the lighthouse establishment, ex- 

 cept in the seventy -three lights of the highest 

 powers, in which this illuminfint fails yet to 

 burn to as good advantage as does lard-oil. It 

 is claimed that five gallons of mineral- oil will 

 give as much light as four gallons of lard-oil, 

 while mineral-oil at the present writing costs 

 about fourteen cents and lard oil about seven- 

 ty-five cents per gallon. Thus it may be stated 

 roughly that mineral - oil, as compared with 

 lard -oil, gives one fifth more light and costs 

 four fifths less money. 



The propriety of using gas as a lighthouse 

 illuminant has several times been considered. 

 An effort was made in 1S44 to use a rosin gas 

 at the Christiana light station, near Wilming- 

 ton, Delaware, but, after something less than 

 a year of trial, it was abandoned as impracti- 

 cable. Another unsuccessful attempt was af- 

 terward made at the light station on Eeedy 

 Island, mouth of Delaware River. 



From time to time, lighthouses near cities 

 have been illumined with gas from the city 

 gas-works : it is now used in but three stations, 

 namely, Cleveland, Ohio, Alexandria, Virginia, 

 and Newburyport, Massachusetts; and even 

 at these three it lias been found necessary to 

 guard against the accident to gas-pipes, most 

 likely to happen in the coldest weather, by keep- 

 ing a set of oil-lamps ready to take the place 

 of the gas-burners at a moment's notice. But, 

 while the board has not found the use of gas 

 practicable thus far, it keeps itself informed as 

 to the progress made in its manufacture and 

 its combustion. 



The board is using compressed gas to light 

 the ten lights at the northern entrance to Cur- 

 rituck Sound, North Carolina. This gas is made 

 and compressed at its own gas-works, and it 

 is carried to each of the beacons in tanks, built 

 into a scow, which is towed by a steam-launch, 

 manned by the keepers of these ten small 

 lights, who reside on board. The gas in each 

 will burn for ten days and nights, if need be. 

 Though the action of this illuminant is not 

 unsatisfactory, it can hardly be said that it 

 has yet passed beyond the experimental stage. 

 The board has watched the experiments 

 made in other countries with the electric light 

 as a lighthouse illuminant, and, while it does 

 not consider that this light can be seen farther 

 than its own best lights which are seen, lo- 

 cated, and identified as far as the curvature 

 of the earth will allow and while it is not con- 

 vinced that the electric light can be located or 

 identified better, or even seen in fog farther, 

 than its oil lights, still, for purposes of practi- 

 cal experimentation, it has unsuccessfully, 

 however for several successive years, asked 

 Congress for such an appropriation as would 

 enable it to erect and put in operation an elec- 

 tric light by the side of and in competition 

 with an oil light. Meantime it has tested 

 every prominent American-built machine for 

 making the electric light, that it might be 

 ready to use the best when Congress had pro- 



