Evening star., 1885-07-25
LIFE IN A LrGHr.HOusE.
Thrilling Adventures and Novel Ex.
perienceS.
he Philadelphis Times

AuNeutureS anu mover EXs
periences.
Correspondents Of the Philadelphis Times
ROCKFORD, Mass, July Il.
ayes, we see and hear some curious things"
said the lighthouse keeper "and as for mouot-
ony it's enough TO drive one mad, and has done
so in some cases. Married men fare better, as
when women and children are around IL isn't
quite SO lonesome: but it's bad enough. My
station for number of years was a rock
about two hundred feet long and one hundred
feet wide, and in n gale of wind the house
stood right in the water, with the seas rolling
all around.
"Yes, il was shaky. One night / call to mind
especially. II had been blowing gale for two
days; the sea was making a clean breach over
the ledge, and every time Ii hit the house IL
would jump sixty hundred feet into the air
and come down on the roof like rocks. on the
weighed over two tons, and the first thing we
knew one of them fellows came at the door,
burst IT In and in a second We were Ill a-swim-
there. SO we took TO the light and sat on the
stairs, and nigh froZe to death, all night Me
ana my man took turns i'm going up every halt
nour, and dye know, the lighthouse swung SO
That You could hardly keep your feet thought
more than once that we'd go over, but she
thing else. There is shaking and vibrating
all the time, and then when the big gusts come
you can feel the whole thing tremble and
quiSer, SO that you d almost lose your feet.
AN EXPERIENCE.
zone night" continued the speaker, "I re-
member some fishermen got blowed OFF shore
and came In there, and what night ii was
Aooat nianight.so one sings out, the lamp 5
Soler ana a Ms SO . II was. UP We rushed half
might cost good many lives. and a vessel
SonSa SoM,a come hsa, within hd twenty foot of our
we got up, we found the place full of
smokeRnd see something had fouled the chim-
ney, ana what dye suppose IL was? You'd
70 fal- l.t,f
tons right off your coat; but some one had 10 go
outside and climb up the rod on to the very top
was a close call and we tossed for it, NV mate
drew and started. We tied "A rope around him
and up he went and did the joh. He came back
alive, but with the whitest face ever see on a
live man. He said he wouldn't do t again for
love or money.
But what dye suppose he found in the
chimney, stuck fast: Nothing more nor less
than one of these ere Mother Carey's chickens.
tammed in as tight as ii could get and dead. of
course: We get regularly pelred with birds i'm
the light and that Is the the glass is made
SO thick, as almost every night one or two birds
mt against IL. Sometimes in the spring and fall
hundreds of 'em will strike i'm the course of a
night. You see at this time the birds are mi
grating and flying off shore along the coast. and
on foggx nights they only see the blaze of the
light. They make a break for il and dowr ,ney
go, and in the morning the rail, iron am. glass
Will be all blood and feathers.
A STORM OF BIRDS
"You can hardly imagine such sight" said
the lighthouse keeper. 81 remember one night
late in September there was what We call a dry
fog, the kind that CLEANS and looks bright some
times without a light. went out on the walk
around the light, thinking L heard a curious
noise, and the minute got out tell you was
taken back. There were thousands of birds
should say, darting about i'm the luminous fog
with the light dancing on their backs and wings.
SO 1t reminded me of insects about a lamp. The
roar of their wings and their cries was such that
you couldn't hear yourself speak or even think
and hung on 10 the rail almost crazy from the
L IN a IN IN iDh ~ iel- II tall
you, for the first thing l knew got a knock on
the head. bird taking me right side of the
neck: then,as turned, another struck me in the
back, and don't doubt but that l. d have been
fairly bombarded Off hadn I got i'm. The birds
Kept it up all night and i'm the morning we
counted over 600 dead at the foot of the
lighthouse. They were of all kinds-sparrows
hawks, robins and mostly duck and snipe. birds
that travelled along the shore going south. You
See they had seen the light, and getting con-
fused ran right into ii. One night We were sit
ting at dinner when the first thing we knew the
window went with a crash, and some big thing
came whiZzing and sprawling across the table
hitting my man fairly in the chest and knock
ing him clean out of his chair. 1t was a duck
that had seen the light and came a-pounding
through the window, dropping dead on the
table.
Wrecks sometimes come in, but it aim often
III the light Is kept up. In one light was got
shut up i'm a gale of wind and had To stand right
by the light to keep it a-going; but out ii finally
Alter a while We thought We heard a yell, and
going down we managed to get out, and there
was brig hard and fast, with her bowsprit
sticking good ten foot over the rocks, and on
1t the crew come ashore, just like a bridge not
one of EN- getting lost 1t wasn't our fault, as
they couldn't have seen the light anyway the
sea was breaking about the house So and there
was such a black fog running. Before the Boon
Island Light was built crew come ashore
there and starved to death right in sight of
land
IN DENMARK.
The congregation of birds about light houses
is nowhere SO strangely illustrated as at Heigo-
land, Off the coast of Denmark. This bleak and
barren rock lies i'm one of the great lanes of bird
migration, and in the spring and autumn the
island appears to be fairly alive with birds. At
night they present marvellous spectacle sweep
ing about the light i'm great clouds, whirIing
curving, rising up as they approach the glass, or
again. in seeming bewiiderment, dashing fairly
at ii and falling by hundreds dead and dying to
the ground. Thousands of birds are Killed i'm
this way during these seasons. Fiocks of all
kinds are continually alighting to rest rising
again to continue the journey, their places
being taken by others, SO that the spot is a sort
OF bird halfway house between the north and
the south.
The fact that even the young, delicate birds
fly over great bodies of water is borne out hy
many observations. The writer has seen hun
dreds of the smallest land birds alight on the ex
treme outer keys of the Florida group that had
undoubtedly flown over the Gulf of Mexico or
perhaps from Cape Florida, two hundred miles
away, and the nearest land to the south was
Cuba, sixty miles. How thesr delicate creatures
can endure such long-continued flights is a
mystery indeed.