450 



LIGHTHOUSE ESTABLISHMENT, THE UNITED STATES. 



ing such a structure. But the light-ship should 

 have the permanency and efficiency of a light- 

 house, and should give as good a light in clear 

 weather and sound as far-reaching a fog-signal 

 in thick. To insure permanency of position is 

 a matter of great difficulty. When moorings 

 have been made too heavy to drag, chains have 

 broken ; when they have held, mooring-bitts 

 have been torn out ; when they have held, the 

 ship has foundered at her anchors, or the ca- 

 ble has been slipped, and the ship has sought 

 a harbor or gone to sea for safety. But under 

 the present rules of the board rigid inspection 

 is frequently made of their riding-gear, and the 

 absence of a light-ship from her moorings is 

 now quite unusual. 



The board has thirty light-ships of various 

 sizes on duty in the service. The smaller, 

 slighter built, and older vessels are moored in 

 sounds and bays. The larger, stronger, and 

 later built are anchored in the open ocean. 

 Among the latter is that on New South Shoals, 

 some twenty-seven miles at sea, the nearest 

 land being Nantucket ; Pollock Rip light- 

 ship, moored at the eastern entrance to Nan- 

 tucket Sound ; another is moored at the west- 

 ern entrance to Vineyard Sound; two off 

 Sandy Hook entrance to New York Bay ; an- 

 other off the mouth of Delaware Bay ; an- 

 other on Winter Quarter Shoal, off the coast 

 of Virginia ; another on Frying Pan Shoal, 



off the mouth of Cape Fear River, North Car- 

 olina; another on Rattlesnake Shoal, off the 

 entrance to Charleston, South Carolina ; an- 

 other off Martin's Industry Shoal at the en- 

 trance to Port Royal, South Carolina ; and 

 the last light-ship built (1880) is on Trinity 

 Shoal, off the coast of Louisiana. This last is 

 fitted with a twelve-inch steam-whistle fog- 

 signal, and is perhaps the strongest and best- 

 equipped light-ship afloat. The light-ships on 

 Pollock Rip and at the mouth of Vineyard 

 Sound have fog-signal sirens operated by hot- 

 air engines, which are to be replaced by steam- 

 engines, as it is found that hot air endangers 

 the health of the crew and shortens the life of 

 the ship. 



Each light-ship shows either one or two 

 lights. Each light has eight reflectors, each 

 twelve inches in diameter, set upon a ring 

 which encircles the mast, and can be lighted 

 and hoisted to the masthead by night and 

 lowered and housed by day. These reflectors 

 are illumined by a kind of Argand lamp, in 

 which the sperm-oil formerly burned was suc- 

 ceeded by lard-oil, and that is now super- 

 seded by mineral-oil, burned in a lamp spe- 

 cially adapted to the purpose. The lighting 

 apparatus is inclosed in a lantern, with large 

 panes of glass which protect the light from the 

 wind. 



The light-ship shown in the accompanying 



POLLOCK KIP LIGHT-SHIP. 



cut is that upon Pollock Rip Shoal, in the 

 broken water at the eastern entrance to Nan- 



beam, twelve feet five inches hold, and is of four 

 hundred and ten tons burden, She is schoon- 



tucket and Vineyard Sounds, Massachusetts. It er-rigged, with a lighting apparatus upon each 

 was built in 1877, is about one hundred and mast supplied with eight burners and reflec- 

 twenty feet long, -nearly twenty-seven feet tors. It has been found so difficult to keep 



