LIGHTHOUSE ESTABLISHMENT, THE UNITED STATES. 



457 



lighthouses when authorized by Congress, but 

 it is customary to furnish Congress reasons for 

 refusing appropriations for building unneces- 

 sary lighthouses. Each lighthouse is estab- 

 lished by Congressional enactment. A petition 

 from those interested, usually ship-owners and 

 ship-masters, is presented by a Senator or the 

 Representatives in whose district it is proposed 

 that the lighthouse shall be located. The peti- 

 tion is referred to the Committee on Commerce, 

 which asks the opinion of the Secretary of the 

 Treasury, who refers the question to the Light- 

 house Board, which in turn calls on the in- 

 spector and engineer of the proper lighthouse 

 district to examine and report on the necessity, 

 practicability, and cost of the proposed struc- 

 ture. Their reports, with such other informa- 

 tion on the subject as the board may have at 

 hand, are referred to its own committee on loca- 

 tion, when a formal report and recommenda- 

 tion is made to the board, which report is trans- 

 mitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, who in 

 turn sends both his own opinion and the board's 

 recommendation to the committee of the Sen- 

 ate or House asking the information, and on 

 the report of that committee, if it is favorable, 

 is based the report of the Committee on Appro- 

 priations and the action of Congress. But 

 frequently the reports are unfavorable, and it 

 has happened that the board has been inter- 

 pellated on the same matter by several suc- 

 cessive Congresses, and has been required to 

 build the lighthouse it has reported was not 

 needed. 



The board often receives from those inter- 

 ested statements bearing on a case intended to 

 affect favorably its report as to the need for 

 a proposed lighthouse. Thus it often weighs 

 rather than finds evidence, and supplements 

 rather than institutes investigation. 



The board has been called on several times 

 to show cause why it should not be transferred 

 from the Treasury to some other department. 

 It has already made report against its transfer 

 to the Navy Department and to the War De- 

 partment ; a bill recently was before Congress 

 providing for its transfer to the Interior De- 

 partment, and the Forty-third Congress re- 

 jected a bill providing for abolishing the board, 

 placing the establishment again under the 

 charge of a superintendent. 



The heavy tax laid on American commerce 

 by Great Britain as light-dues has provoked 

 American merchants into taking steps for re- 

 taliation. Hence the Lighthouse Board has 

 several times been called on to show cause 

 why light-dues should not be charged upon 

 British shipping coming into American ports, 

 and also why the lighthouse establishment 

 should not be made self-supporting by charging 

 light-dues against our own commerce. It has 

 uniformly responded that light should be as 

 free as air, that its work was done not only in 

 the interests of commerce, but for the sake of 

 science and humanity, and that it should be 

 supported from the national treasury as are the 



army, the navy, or as is the Coast Survey or 

 Life-Saving Service. 



The board has its own drafting room, where 

 it prepares the plans and specifications of many 

 of its more important lighthouses and light- 

 ships, and where it examines and revises, if 

 need be, the plans submitted by its engineers. 



In the home office at Washington, the board 

 has preserved, bound in some five hundred vol- 

 umes of from five hundred to one thousand 

 pages each, the letters it has received, and in 

 as many more volumes the copies of letters it 

 has written. In those received are recorded the 

 results of the experience of the lighthouse es- 

 tablishment. The board has made that avail- 

 able by a unique subject card index. It is con- 

 tained in six cases, each of which has thirty- 

 two drawers, in each of which is an average 

 of 1,750 cards, all containing something over 

 300,000 cards. In addition to this subject in- 

 dex, which of course has many cross entries, 

 and therefore many duplicates, it has a chrono- 

 logical personal index of the same matter run- 

 ning through some thirty volumes, in which 

 there are, say, 130,000 entries. 



There were on July 1, 1880, in use the fol- 

 lowing aids to navigation operated by the 

 lighthouse establishment: 



First-order lights 4T 



Second-order lights 26 



Third-order lights 65 



Fourth -order lights 204 



Fifth-order lights 128 



Sixth-order lights 160 



Kange lenses 10 



Lens lanterns 14 



Reflectors on lighthouses 10 



Stake-lights ou rivers 819 



Light-ships 31 



Whistling-buoys in position 25 



Other buoys in position 3,115 



Fog-signals, steam or hot air 57 



The average sum paid for maintaining an 

 average light-station of each class was during 

 the year ending June 30, 1880 : 



For a first-order light-station 



For a second-order light-station 



For a third-order light-station 



For a fourth-order light-station 



For a fifth-order light-station 



For a sixth-order light-station 



For an outride lightship ot recent build 



For an inside lightship of old build 



For an average fog-signal operated by steam or 

 hot air, not counting the salary of its operator, 

 who was paid as lightkeeper 



For a steam-tender of recent build 



$2.534 67 



2,205 91 



1,851 92 



1,258 38 



870 66 



502 27 



8,140 42 



8,985 54 



484 00 

 15.722 20 



There are 9,959 nautical miles of lighted coast 

 on the ocean, gulf, bay, sound, lake, and river 

 shores, not counting the Ohio, Mississippi, and 

 Missouri Rivers, which are lighted on a dif- 

 ferent and cheaper plan. The sums actually 

 expended in lighting and buoying these 9,959 

 miles of coast during the year ending June 30, 

 1879, amounted to $1,708,700. And in this 

 sum the $97,000 expended in maintaining the 

 fifty -four fog-signals operated that year is not 

 included. Hence the cost of lighting and buoy- 

 ing the United States coast was for that year 

 $171.57 per nautical mile. 



