ON LIGHTHO USE CHA RA CTERISTICS. 41 1 



light, may immediately feel sure that it is so, and 

 not a steamer's mast-head light, nor a trawler's or 

 fishing-boat's light, nor a light on shore other than 

 a. lighthouse light ; and that knowing it to be a 

 lighthouse, he may know exactly which of two or 

 more possible lighthouses it is. The need for 

 thorough-going remedial measures to remove this 

 defect has been more and more felt of late years, 

 and is now very generally admitted. Unless a 

 second light is to be added, or the generally 

 objectionable expedient of colour for distinction is 

 in any particular case to be admitted, the only 

 systematic means of giving characteristic quality to 

 a fixed light is by means of occupations or eclipses ; 

 and hence the origin of the " Occulting " or 

 " Eclipsing light." We may accordingly look 

 forward to all, or nearly all, the important fixed 

 lights of our coast being, without any very long 

 delay, converted into lights of this class. It is 

 satisfactory to find that during the last year the 

 Elder Brethren of the Trinity House converted one 

 most important light, that of the North Foreland, 

 and another very important one, the light on the 



