The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-10-07
THE DANGERS OF THE DEEP.

Ever since men began to go to sea,
lights have been placed ON shore to guide
them to landing place; but in early
times these were nothing more than
fires on headlands. Three hundred years
before Christ, however, there was built,
on an island at Alexandria, q pyramid
over four hundred feet in height, on top
of which great fire was kept burning,
which, we are told, was visible to the
corn-ships going to Egypt when forty
one miles away in the Mediterranean.
This pyramid was called the Pharos, and
to-day the French name for lighthouse
is 1ohare, and the Spanish faro. The
rocky coasts on both sides of the British
Channel centuries ago showed beacon
fires on very dark nights. These were
generally tar-barrels, which would burn
brightly in high wind when fire
of sticks would be blown away. And
they were generally lighted for the ben
efitof the fishermen, by their wives, with
out any authority from the Government.
1t was an easy matter to initiate such
beacons, and bad men would often erect
false lights, steering by which q ship
would como crashing to sure destruction
at the foot of the crags which thrust their
cruel edges through the surf. When the
ship went to pieces, her goods coming
ashore would be seized and sold by the
wreckers, as these wicked people were
called. Many fearful tradition has
come down of the doings of wreckers,
not only in England and Spain, but in
America and in the East. One of the
tricks OF the West Indian pirates, when
they saw ship approaching their island
in the evening, was to hang lantern
upon a horses neck, and let him Craze,
well hobbled, along the beach, This
would appear like the rocking of a
lantern on vessel ut rest, and,
deceived by the hope of a safe an
chorage, the stranger would only
discover how he had been cheated when
his keel struck the sand-bars and the pi-
rates had begun their villainous attack.
Though sca1oldings and towers of
wood, iron and stone were built here
and there at especially dangerous points
by governments long before the begin
ming OF the last century, they were
lighted by fires of wood or coal up to
1850, when Smeaton introduced wax
candles at Eddystone. The Eddystone
shoals were a group ofreefs exceedingly
dangerous, because they were almost
invisible, and lay precisely in the track
of ships bound up or down the English
Channel. Two hundred years ago a
lighthouse Of wood and iron trestle-work
was built there by Sir Henry Winstanley
and stood so well that he boosted, like
King Canute, that the sea had not
strength enough to throw it down. Soon
after, he went out with q company of
men to make repairs, when one of the
worst gales in history arose, and the
morning afterward not trace of the
structure remained. Another wooden
frame took its place for several wears.
but was burned. Then the engineer
Smeaton proposed to build a tower of
stone, which should take the shape of a
massive tree-truuk, with swelling base,
like roots. founded upon level floor
cut in the rock of the reef. This stands
to-day, rivaling its magnificent neighbor
on the Biscay shore opposite, the light
house of Carduan, which was built to
support bonfire of oak, but has re-
manned to be lighted successfully by oil
lamps, by gas-burners and finally by cleo
tricity. Thus, everywhere, and in all lati-
tudes the beacons and wooden towers and
huge pyramids of long ago have given
place to slender spires of solid masonry.
holding powerful signals, perhaps hum
dreds of feet above the waves, and yisi-
BILE as far as the curve of the earth's sur
face will permit. Yet in place of the
sturdy bonfire of oak, or the huge iron
cage full of Goals, there is only single
lamp, whose rays are gathered by deep
refiectors into compact bundle of un-
wasted rays, and doubled and redoubled
by rows Of magnifying lenses until they
can dart to the furthest horizon in q
strong beam of steady light.
The United States expends 81. OO0. 000
annually in looking after her lighthouses.
lighfships and buoys. Indeed, these
beacons are so thickly planted that il has
been found necessary to distinguish be-
tween them in order to avoid mistakino
one for another. Thus some of them are
simply fixed white lights; some are white
and reyolve-the whole lantern ON the
summit Of the tower being turned on
wheels by machinery. and the flame dis
appears for = longer or shorter time;
while others are white clash lights,
giancing only for an instant, and then
lost for few seconds, or giving long
wink and then short one with space
OF darkness between. Some lighthouses
show . steady red light, others alternate
red and white. BY these colors and vary-
ing periods of appearance and disappear.
ance published by the Government in .
book called the :" Coast Pilot'') navipa-
tors know which light they are looking
ut when several are in sight, as is often
the case.
On some especially dangerous-be-
cause hidden-reefs or bars, like the
shoals off Nantucket. or the extreme
point of Sandy Hook, it Is out of the
question or bad policy to erect light
house. Here its place is taken by
anchoring q stout vessel, built to with