156 LIGHTHOUSE ILLUMINATION. 



is wonderful to think how eagerly efforts at 

 improvement are made by the various public 

 bodies the Trinity House in this country, and 

 commissions in France and other nations ; and 

 whilst the improvements progress we come to 

 the knowledge of such curious difficulties and 

 such odd modes of getting over those difficulties 

 as are not easy to be conceived. I must ask 

 you this evening to follow me from the simplest 

 possible method of giving a sign by means of a 

 light to persons at a distance, to the modes at 

 which we have arrived in the present day; and 

 to consider the difficulties which arise when 

 carrying out these improvements to a practical 

 result, and the extraordinary care which those 

 who have to judge on these points must take 

 in order to guard against the too hasty adoption 

 of some fancied improvement, thus, as has 

 happened in some few cases, doing harm instead 

 of good. 



If I try to make you understand these things 

 partly by old models, and partly by those which 

 we have here, it is only that I may the better 

 be enabled to illustrate that which I look for- 

 ward to as the higher mode of lighting, by 

 means of the electric lamp and the lime light. 



There is nothing more simple than a candle 



