WRECKS AXD M/.VOy UGHT. 48 1 



and is crowned by the lantern itself, strapped and bolted to the 

 unyielding stone. High guards of iron railing encircle both the 

 cornice and the parapet, and from this dizzy height the curving 

 outlines of the awful reefs can be traced for many a fathom. 



What an ocean graveyard is guarded by the gray old tower, its 

 foot streaked slimy and green with the washings of the tides ! 

 The stanch pilot boat Lawlor has within the past twelvemonth 

 added her bones to the bleaching skeletons of oak which strew 

 the bottom between the Minot and the dreaded Harding's, — 

 "somewhere within two or three miles," says her survivor; and 

 about the same "somewhere " from the light, perhaps nearer, the 

 Allentown went down in the blizzard of 1888, a fine iron steamer 

 sinking with all on board. It is said that in one spot the ledge 

 runs evenly but a few feet below the surface for several fathoms, 

 parallel with the shore, with its outer wall a sheer drop of nine* 

 fathoms ! 



The keepers and their monotonous life have been thoroughly 

 introduced to a public which has only of late begun to remember 

 the pride with which this noble triumph of peace was at the time 

 received. 



The day of the corner-stone oration, with no less a personage 

 than Edward Everett for orator of the day, still lives, a vivid 

 memory in the minds of the people of the South Shore. 



The powerful light of the second order has for more than thirty 

 years sent its aggressive rays out upon the ugly expanse of black 

 ocean which nightly encircles the tower with its vast cold plain. 

 But of late a change has come over the staid old sentinel. Weary 

 with his quarter-century vigil, has he given up the struggle and 

 tossed his superb torch hissing into the restless waters that chafe 

 his foot? There is black darkness upon the ledge, although the 

 stars fleck the very horizon and the shore lights twinkle in radiant 

 perspective from Cohasset to Strawberry Hill, and the unquench- 

 able fire of Boston Light sears a pathway of shriveled silver as its 

 powerful beam wheels slowly around in its faithful circle. But, 

 ah ! — from the blackness above the dread Minot there leaps, 

 bursts, a mighty outpouring of light ! It quivers, throbs, and is 

 gone. A space of darkness — and again the unbearable flash, — 

 once, twice, four times, — and again darkness, and a tremendous 

 relay of power. Then — one, two, three — and the number of the 



