IlAKT.orh'S AND LKJIITHOUSI-X I'AirHY. 



was lit up by oak billets brought from the Gascon foivsis, 

 and until a comparatively recent period the lighthouses 

 at Spurn Point and on the Isle of May were lit up by 

 coal-chauffers. 



[By R. P. Leitch. The Design of the Standard fixm Roberta's ' Social Historv.'] 



The importance of insuring greater safety to ships al 

 sea led to steps being taken with that object by the early 

 monarchs; and in the year 1515 Henry VIII. incorpo- 

 rated the Trinity House, for the purpose of protecti no- 

 commerce and navigation by licensing and regulating- 

 pilots, and erecting beacons, lighthouses, and buovs 

 around the coast. The only step taken, however, to 

 carry out these important objects, was merely the 

 granting of leases by the Crown, for a definite number 

 of years, to private persons willing to find the means 

 of building and maintaining lights, in consideration 

 of which, authority was given them to levy tolls on 

 passing shipping. Very little was actually done to in- 

 sure the greater safety of the coast by means of lights. 

 The first erected was on Dungeness Point, in the 



