190 1-2 TRANSACTIONS. 63 



others in Spain and Africa. Our last prodigal was returned 

 to us from Turks Island, in the West Indies, after being 

 absent for about three years. This buoy must necessarily 

 have made a long journey to have reached its destination. 

 The only way in which it could possibly have reached the 

 West Indies is by following the Gulf stream nearly to the 

 coast of Ireland, down through the Bay of Biscay, past the 

 i^zores, the Cape Verde islands, and the African coast, and 

 back to the coast of America through the equatorial ocean. 



There are many other aids to navigation, such as hydro- 

 graphic surveys, surveys of tides and currents, and the con- 

 nection of lighthouses by telegraph with centres of commerce, 

 which have been of great benefit to mariners, and of which 

 an account might be interesting, but they can scarcely be 

 classed as danger warnings, and are thus foreign to my sub- 

 ject. All the large naval powers are at the present moment 

 experimenting with the Marconi system of aerial telegraphy, 

 which the inventor claims will warn a vessel of the existence of 

 danger more efficiently than any of the methods that are at pre- 

 sent in use, but it remains to be seen whether the invention can 

 be utilized in this way. 



You may have noticed in the public press, during 

 the year, many vigorous attacks on the lighthouse sys- 

 tem of Canada. To read them one would think that all our 

 lights and fog alarms were obsolete. If you make allow- 

 ance for the immense extent of sea coast that we have to 

 cover, for the youth of the country, and for the fact that all 

 our aids to navigation are absolutely free to shipping, you will 

 admit that Canada has accomplished a wonderful work, and 

 one that should receive praise instead of censure, when I tell 

 you that, since Confederation, the number of our lighthouses 

 has been increased from 227 to nearly 900, and of steam fog 

 alarms from 2 to 64. This large number of aids to navigation, 

 besides thousands of buoys and other minor aids that have not 

 been mentioned, are maintained at an annual expenditure of 

 about half a million dollars. 



