SAFEGUARDS OF THE SEA 85 



weather alone. Nowadays, moreover, most 

 lightships are provided with propellers and 

 power and if their anchors drag or their cables 

 part they can work back to port or to their 

 station without much difficulty. 



The discovery of the wireless telegraph also 

 did much to mitigate the hard lives of the 

 keepers of lightships and lighthouses, for, 

 equipped with wireless, the men on these iso- 

 lated safeguards of the sea may communicate 

 with the rest of the world and talk with ships 

 at sea and in case of accident or trouble they 

 can call for assistance. 



In many instances the safety of vessels de- 

 mands lights where it would not be worth 

 while or practical to build a lighthouse or 

 anchor a lightship. Sometimes these spots are 

 inaccessible to lighthouse-tenders or are sur- 

 rounded with so many shoals, reefs, or rocks, 

 or so long locked fast in ice that it would be 

 impossible to maintain a regular lighthouse 

 service. At other points the shoals or 

 reefs are only dangerous to comparatively 

 small vessels and it would not pay to establish 

 a real lighthouse. Under such conditions the 



