BUILDING THE IvIGHTHOUSE; ON ST. GSORGE; RElUl^, CALIFORNIA 



The rock is so exposed that the workmen were obliged to live in the schooner, moored beside 

 the rock, and were carried back and forth by a traveler on a cable (see page 23) 



1 t 



ST. ge;orge; rkup light, California, completed 

 A difficult and expensive structure 



that time three other Hghthouses have in 

 succession been erected on the Eddy- 

 stone (see pages 12-13). 



MINOTS ledge light 



The earhest lighthouse built in this 

 country in a dangerous position, exposed 

 to the open ocean, was that on Minots 

 Ledge, a reef off Boston harbor which 

 had long been a terror to mariners. This 

 was an open-work iron-frame structure, 

 supported on wrought-iron piles wedged 

 into holes 5 feet deep, drilled in the rock, 

 which was bare only at low water. It 

 was completed in 1848 (see page 14). 



There was a great gale in April, 185 1. 



"The light on the Minot was 

 last seen from Cohasset on 

 Wednesday night at 10 o'clock. 

 At I o'clock Thursday morn- 

 ing, the 17th, the light-house 

 bell was heard on shore, one 

 and one-half miles distant; and 

 this being the hour of high 

 water, or rather the turn of the 

 tide, when from the opposition 

 of the wind and the tide it is 

 supposed that the sea was at 

 its very highest mark ; and it 

 was at that hour, it is generally 

 believed, that the light-house 

 was destroyed ; at daylight 

 nothing of it was visible from 

 shore, and hence it is most 

 probable it was overthrown at 

 or about the hour named." Two keepers 

 were in the tower and were lost, and 

 this extract from the official report tells 

 the story of one of the great lighthouse 

 tragedies. 



The present massive stone lighthouse 

 was built on the same site on Minots 

 Ledge, commenced in 1855 ^^^ completed 

 in i860. It ranks among the difficult 

 lighthouse engineering works of the 

 world. During the first summer only 130 

 working hours were obtained on the rock, 

 and after three years' work only four 

 stones of the foundation were laid. The 

 reef rock was prepared to fit the stones 

 of the lower courses and the latter were 



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