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LX, 
A NEW METHOD OF CONFERRING DISTINGUISHING 
CHARACTERISTIC APPEARANCE UPON ILLUMINATED 
BUOYS AND BEACONS FOR HARBOURS, ESTUARIES, 
AND RIVERS. By JOHN R. WIGHAM, M.R.I.A., Member 
of the Council of the Royal Dublin Society. : 
[Read Junz 16; Received for publication Junz 18 ; Published Juty 21, 1897.] 
Most of the Papers which I have brought before this Society on 
the subject of Lighthouse Illuminants have had reference to 
improvements in the illuminating power of the great lighthouses 
on our sea-coasts. Most of these improvements have been adopted 
by the Lighthouse authorities of this country, the apparatus 
which I have described to this Society having been fixed at their 
lighthouses; for example, at the famous Eddystone, the Tuskar, 
Tory Island, Mew Island, Galley Head, Hook Tower, Haisbro’, 
Mine Head, Wicklow Head, Bull Rock, Howth (Bailey), 
Rockabill, Slyne Head, and other great leading and landfall] 
lights. <0 - Taih 
This Paper has no reference to these great lights, but to what 
may be termed minor lights. It has been found, of recent years, 
that lights fixed on the beacons and buoys which mark the rocks 
and shoals of our navigable rivers and estuaries, to show the safe 
channels by which these dangers may be avoided, if not as impor- 
tant to the mariner as leading and landfall lighthouses, yet 
possess for’ him great value, by enabling him to deal with these 
dangers at close quarters, when he has passed the greater liglits 
and has reached their shoreward side, where they are of little 
further use to him. Hence it is, that increasing attention is being 
given to the improving and. perfecting of these smaller lights, 
