Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1880-04-29
Lighthouses.

bring shipwrecked sailors safely t.
' land. This week he proposes to tall
e about another life saving institution
much older than the coast service, ane
to which, in fact the coast service il
secondary in Importance 1t is only
within few years that the coast ser
!: vice has been established, but light
, houses-for this is the Professors top
ic-date back 50 far that the Professor
himself can scarcely remember the FIRST
one.
The first lighthouses were no doubt
nothing more than bon-fres lighted on
, the tops Of cliffs overlooking the sea to
warn ships away from the dangerous
ncighborhood; and these for the time
and place answered the purpose quite
as well as many of the later inventions
do. But cliffs are not the only peris
to which ships are exposed. There are
shoals and reefs on which vessels are
liable to run aground or to be dashed IN
pieces, and on which bon-fires cannot
be lit. or, if they could, would not
show at any great distance. On these
it became necessary to build elevated
towers, which should take the place of
cliff and send out the warning light.
SO you viii find that the first light
house of which there is any account in
history was construction of this kind.
! And it was such a novelty at that time,
and so large and beautiful, that it be :
came one of the seven wonders of tie
world.
This remarkable structure was built
by Ptolemy philadelrhus, King OF
Egypt, about 27O years before Christ.
1t occupied the small island of Pharos,
at the entrance of the harbor of Alex
andria. At the base it was 400 feet
square, 50 that the ground which i. COW
cred must have been about one-half as
large as Washington Square in Nlw
York city. No doubt, besides the light
house tower, which rose to. the great
height of $50 feet, it included fortii-
cations for the defense Of the harbor,
and looked rs formidable as it was mag
ri6cent. The material used was white
marble the tower itself was in the
shape 0: pyramid, and from its mar
| row apex blazed every night the fiery
signal; and the amount of money ex-
pended on the work was &S5 900. The
story is told that The architect. So>tra--
tus, being commanded tc cut in the mar
bic an inscription stating that Ptolemv
was the builder, was cunning enough
to cut 1t, not in the marble, bat in ee-
ment, underneath which he had cut his
own name in the stone, SO that by and
by, when both he and Pto'emy were
1a,J ,pJ Al a ont bod .rorn o,,,oy man
should see that it WAS he and not Ptol
envy who was entitled to the credit Of
the work. And SO it turned out: and
to this day the Pharos is known as the
work of Sostratus, whereas but for this
precaution his name might have been
lost. How long the cement lasted the
Professor does not know, but the tower
itself endured for 1900 years, or until
| The beginning Of the fourteenth centu-
ry after Christ, when, for some reason
or other, 1T was destroyed, $500
Another of the wonders of the world
the Colossus of Rhodes-served the
use of lighthouse. This was gigan.
tic figure of Apollo, made of bronze,
| 100 feet high, standing over the narrow
entrance to the port of Rhodes. The
tradition runs that the figure held in Its
right hand torch which was reached
by passage way through the arm, and
at the end of which fires were lit every
night A very good notion Of what
this may have been can be gotten from
the immense hand and arm IN Madison
| square, New Y ork, which some day or
other is to form part of the colossal
statue of Liberty in New York harbor,
and which is to serve in the same way
the purpose of lighthouse.
After the building of the Pharos of
Alexandria, lighthouses became frc-
quent. Wherever the Romans sailed
through the Mediterranean or out into
the Atlantic, in England and Sp:,in, on
the shores of the Bosphorus and the
Sea Of Marmora they built their bca-
cons so solidly that in some places they
are standing to day. In all these years,
however, and in fact down to the end
of the last century, the only means oi
illumination was the old primitive iron
cage and burning Goals. The light
houses Of the time of King G orge III
shed abroad their red, lurid. smoky
fires just as the Pharos of Alexandra
did in the days of Pto!emy, or the bea
cons of the early Romans. Some o
the lighthouses Of Sweden and Nor
J way, indeed, used coal as late as 1916
1t was not until the. year 1880 that oi
lamps began. to be substituted for Goals
their light being reflected from discs o
silvered copper; and though this system
@ was an immese advance upon the olo
:, one it was not by any means perfect
J. It was costly; the silver on the reflec
tors had often to be renewed and
great deal of light was lost in the Pre-
cess Of reflection. So, about 1910,
u Frenchman named Fresnel hit u2on
IS better plan, which@was to substitai
J. lenses for refectors; and it is this plar
+ with improvements and Ingenious moo
1t fi:ations, which now prevails in mos
is of the great lighthouses of the worIe
Il In order to enable sailors to iientif
70 one light house from another, some {
:, the lights are made to revolve, produc
- !, ing sort of firefy effect, while othe1