156 
CAPE COD. 
commonly once in the course of the night. He com¬ 
plained of the quality of the oil which was furnished. 
This house consumes about eight hundred gallons in a 
year, which cost not far from one dollar a gallon; but 
perhaps a few lives would be saved if better oil were 
provided. Another light-house keeper said that the 
same proportion of winter-strained oil was sent to the 
southernmost light-house in the Union as to the most 
northern. Formerly, when this light-house had windows 
with small and thin panes, a severe storm would some¬ 
times break the glass, and then they were obliged to put 
up a wooden shutter in haste to save their lights and 
reflectors, — and sometimes in tempests, when the mari¬ 
ner stood most in need of their guidance, they had thus 
nearly converted the light-house into a dark lantern, 
which emitted only a few feeble rays, and those com¬ 
monly on the land or lee side. He spoke of the anxiety 
and sense of responsibility which he felt in cold and 
stormy nights in the winter; when he knew that many 
a poor fellow was depending on him, and his lamps 
burned dimly, the oil being chilled. Sometimes he was 
obliged to warm the oil in a kettle in his house at mid¬ 
night, and fill his lamps over again, — for he could not 
have a fire in the light-house, it produced such a sweat 
on the windows. His successor told me that he could 
not keep too hot a fire in such a case. All this because 
the oil was poor. A government lighting the mari¬ 
ners on its •wintry coast with summer-strained oil, to 
save expense ! That were surely a summer-strained 
mercy. 
This keeper’s successor, who kindly entertained me 
the next year, stated that one extremely cold night, 
when this and all the neighboring lights w'ere burning 
