The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1883-09-23
A FEW SALTWATER YARNS.
NOTES or A CRUISE ON CHESAPEAKE BAY.
The Lisht-Houses and How They are Built-
Fishing aud the Habits or Various Kinds OF
Fish-The York-River Industries aud the
Gloucester Camps -Offsettiug Fish Stories.
Correspondence OF the Richmond Dispatch.l
WILLIAMSBURG, September 81, 1882.

WILLIAMSBURG, September 81, 1888.
Newspaper writings with fshy tenden-
! cies are always 10 be received with due
suspicious, for when weighed in the scales
they are generally found to he deficient in
everything but enthusiastic imagination.
IL has been ever thus since man was In
formed that there were leviathans in the
deep and that he should have dominion
over them, and as long as IL cannot be
proved that there are not as good fish in
1.-The sea as are said to have come out OF il
there will always be genius enough TO keep
up the line Of succession. Psychologists
have decided that the sportsman who an
nualy deplete the depths where drowned
honor reposes suffer from customary en-.
largement Of the bump OF multo success
fulness; but the most trustworthy, how
ever, use bait manufactured out OF their
consciences, and consequently the size
OF the fish caught, on The author
fly of their still small voices, may be
confidently relied on by editors. The neat
est catch on record, and one attended with
the most marked success for all concerned,
was when Mare Antony took Cleopatra out
on the Nile to show her something extra i'm
the way OF angling. PIutarch says that he
had employed divers TO supply his line with
Il fresh prize every time he east out, and
was having just the tallest kind OF luck
when the queen OF queens bribed diver
TO hook on cooked article. The great
Roman, however. couldn't see his fate in
that trifing incident, but kept on fishing
for an empire until he finally got whaled
by Caesar.
on CRUISE.
Now the writer has been on a cruise, but
he has not caught a shark or even seen
anything on the sea-serpent order i'm the
distance; yet, notwithstanding such humi-
liation, it has been thought that some ac-
count OF the lighthouses, pound-fisherics,
and bodybuilding on Chesapeake bay will
prove interesting to landsmen whose maui
teal experience consists mostly in the re-
collection OF big hotel on the beach and
four dollars day. The course Of York
river is that OF an arm bent ut an obtuse
angle, with Yorktown on the elbow. Sail
ing eastward, as the bay opens up, the
lighthouse on Toospoint, which ut first
seems bit OF cloud on the horizon, grad
uaIly becomes more distinct until it as
sumes the outline Of gigantic spider
standing on the water. and finally devel-
opes into neat cottage built upon iron
piles standing in about seven feet OF water
Ii marks the shoal on the south side Of the
rivers mouth, and Is especially useful to
Incoming vessels. On clustering winter
nights il saves much severe work with an
ice-coyered lead-line, and many hardy
seaman careering on the frosty gale modi-
ties his customary emphatic word to IA
growl OF satisfaction as he shapes his
course by its friendly blaze.
scREw-PILE LIGHTHOUSE.
The screw-ple style OF lighthouse is now
used to designate all OF the sunken shoals
in our bays and rivers, having superseded
the more costly system OF lightshlps eX-
cept on the outlying banks along the sea-
coast, where the heavy seas render any
other than a floating light impracticabe
In building, the material is shipped to the
spot in sections ready for putting together.
A central pile that extends up TO the dome
is first secured down into the sand and
surrounded by others Of shorter length on
which the house rests. These generally
form a heXagon or octagon, and are braced
TO each other and the central pile i'm equi-
lateral trianglcs. The house is bolted on
some twenty-five feet above the sea level,
and is much larger than view from the
water leads one to suppose. being well built
and conveniently arranged with all the APP
planccs adapted 10 the situation. A
man-o'-war" neatness peryades every
Thing, and imparts IN AR Of welcome dis
cipine TO what would otherwise be a most
dreary abode.
A PRIsON-LIKE EXISTENCE.
Indeed more prson-like existence than
that Of IN off.shore lightkeepcr cannot be
conceived, in distant and exposed >itua-
lions, where the dangers Of navigation re-
quire the constant attendance OF both cap
tain and assistant. Those lonely watchers
of the sea. confined on n place that lacks
the motion OF ship, yet has not the sta
bility OF the land, live through the solitary
thine, and day after day continue on in
monotonous routine of duty, seldom. il
ever, relieved except by the hail of some
passing ;essel and the quarterly inspec-
ton. In the Chesapeake, where the points
and bars are numerous, the lights are Only
intended to command limited areas, and
consequently are not of the first order.
lToospoint Is a fixed white light OF the
| fifth order. forty-fye feet above the
sea. and cost, with its apparatus,
about $1,000. Compared with the
Spit-leht. its location is sheltered. but
manner, with only seyen deeply-imbedded
and securely-braced pillars for the water
TO exert its strength upon, vet the waves
raised by fresh easterly wind produce
tremble. slight indeed, but perceptibl'
enough To suggest what must be its Nibra'
ton when subjected TO the action OF an
equinoctial gale. Mountaineers are Ia
! miliar with the resistless power OF water
rs exhibited in their torrents, but they
: have no conception OF the youmed force
: of hundreds OF liquid square miles driven IN
massy pillows by tempest blowing al TIT
. rate OF seventy-iiye miles an hour. In
stances OF lighthouses having been de-
stroyed are numerous, the sweeping away
OF the Eddystone light being a notable
one: but more vivid idea OF The iurlollS
shock of the ocean rolling before hurri-
cane is conveyed in the case OF The Minet
ledge lighthouse, whose solid stone column
was once so shaken by the accumulated
weight OF a green sea" hurled upon il.
+, base that the bell. hung ninety feet above
toIled loud enough to be heard amid tht
roar Of the elements.
THE FISHING INDUSTRY OF YORK RIVER.
The fishing industry OF York river will
7 tho introduction OF pound-nets received I
vigorous impetus, and has now assumed
: considerable importance. Those unlailine
: tolls seam the surface OF the water about
the rivers mouth on both sides, but prin
cinally ON the York Spit" a long tongu,
! of submerged sand projecting nine mile,
: out into the bay, and there are no less than
. eighty nets in easy counting distance o.
. ToosDoint lighthouse. The net consists
q 81 n iong hedging running out into deeI
/ water. flanked 10y two V-shapei wings tina
! tsrm;na,e in a narrow entrance to III.
|, pound proper, which Is large scoop net
/ some forty feet in diameter. All fish entel
D and leave rivers along the bars upon which
r they obtain their food, and 1t Is their habi
l -. an nhstructiOn IN mall,