THE EVOLUTION OF THE LIGHTSHIP. 99 



emergency. It has been moored near a lighthouse in course of construction and 

 could be used again there if the lighthouse were destroyed. 



The lightship has been, and, no doubt, will again be driven from its station. 

 Instructions, issued at Washington in 1829, direct masters "* * * not to ship 

 or cut the cable, or suffer it to be done, in any event, and if the vessel should be 

 likely to founder, to abandon her with his crew * * *." The lightship never 

 voluntarily leaves its station. 



Many years ago Robert Hamblin proposed to substitute the lightship for all 

 English lights. His proposition fell through, but not by inherent fault, because 

 there are but few lights to-day which could not be promptly and satisfactorily re- 

 placed by lightships. Its adaptability is general. There is no rock or shoal in river, 

 lake or sea which cannot be efficiently marked by it. 



THE EARLY LIGHTSHIPS. 



The lightship is essentially a product of modern times. It had, as in the 

 case of all modern products, a prototype in the ancient world. This was the 

 Roman coastguard galley which existed in the last few centuries before Christ. 

 The galley carried at its masthead an open framework basket in which a fire was 

 sometimes burned at night as a signal light. The galley thus lighted and manned 

 by an armed crew patrolled the Roman coasts and served as a guide and protec- 

 tion to approaching vessels. But for such a patrol the pirates who invested the 

 coasts would have carried their depredations into the very harbors themselves. 

 The sighting of the light galley was therefore doubly welcome to the mariner ar- 

 riving from a voyage. It showed that his destination was near and that his ship 

 and cargo were safe from the elements and capture. 



After this brief record, then, the lightship, if so it may be called, sinks into 

 obscurity for many centuries. The lighthouse, however, which was both its pre- 

 decessor and contemporary along the shores of the Mediterranean, was continued 

 through the Dark Ages as the sole aid to navigation. 



In these lighthouses illumination was effected by open fires of wood or coal 

 without reflectors or protection other than iron frames which were sometimes 

 placed around the fires to prevent dispersion of the fuel. The smoky gleam of 

 these beacon fires was feeble at best and there was no attempt to reflect it in the 

 proper directions. Often on stormiest nights, when the need of a light was the 

 greatest, none was burning; and there was nothing characteristic in the fires them- 

 selves to aid in distinguishing one light from another. 



In fact, it does not appear that any material improvement was made dur- 

 ing the interval from the erection of the Alexandrian Pharos in 300 B. C, to 

 the building of the Cordonan and the first Eddystone commenced in 1584 and 1669, 

 respectively. 



Passing over this interval, then, we note that apparently the first plan for a 

 sea mark other than these lighthouses was for a floating light off the English coast. 



