Morning journal and courier., 1891-08-19
BUOYS.
Spar Buoys, Can Buoys, Bell Buoys and Whistling BuOys.

BUOYS.
 Spar Buoys, Can Buoys, Bell Buoys
 and Whistling Buoys.
 They who go down to the sea in ships will know their importance and manifold use in making the channels out of or into the rivers and harbors, the safe ways and the dangerous places. Having had some observation of this part of the gov efnment service, as we'll as the light house service, perhaps as paper on this subject will interest some readers, wherein my Iris trip enabled me to see for myself how they are maintained, placed and looked after by the men who know just where them, about our own New Haven harber, Coming from Sandy Hook up New York bay one sees the can buoys and spar buoys, aalso along the sound as needed. Also East ward far along. The eastern department extending from Portsmouth to St. Groin river far up Passamaquoddy Bay looks after 416-t416 buoys, and 52 light houses" Those buoys in rivers liable to be carried away by the icein spring fresh cts and floods have to be taken up late in autumn and replaced early in spring. The Iris does that work, and this is where the strong boom and derrick machinery at tached to her forward mast come in play. The great spars, from forty to fifty feet long, rearly two feet ethick at the butt, generally painted red, sometimes black, lashed outside her bulwarks, have very strong staple and ring in their lower and larger end, which comes near the forward | deck. Now, Captain Johnson is going to | anchor one in 8 new place off Bracy's cove, Mt Desert. He knows exactly ! where it is to go to keep steamers and other vessels off water covered drift ot l rocks dangerous to them at low tide. The l hydographic survey has been made by I those whose business it is and by his chart of that coast and definite instructions re. ceived he will make no mistake. The ser vice ship steams right to the place. There is a great block of granite on the forward deck.
 and strong, squared and rough dressed at the quarry, foot thick if not more, sev- eral feet on side. It weighs two or three tons. There is strong iron linked cable of some fathoms' length lying so it will run out well when it's time comes. One end has been fastened to the lower end of the buoy; the other to the great ring whose rivet goes through the stone at it's center and is very secure. The derrick swings low enough to grapple the stone with it's hooks and move it to the outer edge of the deck or gangway. It is released rest ing on wooden rollers, where it The lashings of the spar are GU. "All ready?" Off she goes The stone does splash some as it makes that dive. The cable goes off the deck in hurry, and the lower end of the spar follows at the same rate. It now stands nearly erect more than half it's length under water. And it's top will sway one way or the other way, as the tide is ebbing or flowing, but every pilot will do well to know which side of the buoy to steer his ship hereafter, for it's there to tell him! Twelve feet of water less at low tide than at high tide makes quite a difference about a boat boat knocking hole in her bottom or not. Even six feet of water, more or less, makes difference in getting over lodges or sand bars in Long Island sound. In fact, a single foot of water depth may float a large vessel, if there are enough feet of water above that. It is all very simple to know and to say, but it is not very simple to know just where there may be lack of water. Hence, we read about surveys dredging as well as buoys and jetties to make currents carry away the sand and ta- ken altogether, the whole system is of utmost importance to ship owners and freighters. Also to steamboat navigation and to passengers.
 The can buoys, of strong boiler iron riv- eted to be air tight and float, are, think, also anchored in similar way, are painted red and are large and seen much farther than spar buoys-I dare say are seen miles away in good weather and help the pilots not little in running their courses right ly.
 The bell buoys are less frequent. The only one l ever heard was on the route from Rockland to Mt. Desert. It had been raining little during the forenoon and we were approaching Mt. Desert in mist. On our starboard bow, not very far away, the waters were boiling and foaming in green and white over some unseen ledge, and the bell was tolling, tolling, and yet we could not see it among that wild wave element.
 Mrs. Sigourney wrote some good verses about the loss of the Atlantic, whose own bell think kept tolling on the wreck
 ''Toll: Toll! Thou bell by pillows swung,
 And night and day thy tale repeat
 With ever mournful tongue.'
 It is solemn kind of a sound, anyhow, made intensely interesting by seeing where the danger lies, and what vivid danger it is! More solemn it is to have steamer or other vessel go on such unseen rocks in 8 dense fog and have someone write as of the Royal George
 'Toll! Toll for the brave who are no more,
 All sunk beneath the wave;
 Fast by their native shore
 Brave Kempenveti is gone; his victories are o'er: He and his eight hundred men will ride the surge
 I suppose the bells are hung in strong wooden frames or timber rafts of right size which rock to and fro and swing their bell by wave motion, and anchored much like the others with strong iron cables whose links are like those which serve to anchor ships. One sees such cables on large steamboats near the capstan and an chors.
 But these cables, however strong, which have to bear the continual chafng of the often heavy seas from month to month and year to year, do so fret their links and rings it must sometimes happen that the immense iron links wear too thin to support the strain, give way, and the buoy of whatever kind goes adrift. On 8 voyage of discovery for some shore hither- to unknown to itself, the government PoJb 4OWdIuS TUT IuclI 6dlthSo AIu SdV6S money by their recovery at least for can buoys, and much more it should for whistling buoys, which are rather expen- sive things,I should suppose. On another and shorter trip after visiting the light houses am to see one launched where none was before, but certainly needed, off Schoodic Point, east side of Frenchman's bay. It is lashed outside the Iris and is quite an affair. An immense airtight can, cylindrical, dome shaped on top, of strong plates of boiler iron tightly riveted, say about fifteen or eighteen feet in diameter, more or less.
 From its under side large and very long iron tube of similar material and make extends something like thirty feet and is near three feet in diameter. From the top of the dome another much smaller and shorter pipe projects, and in it is some arrangement whereby when the air goes in and out it whistles like a deep toned diapason organ pipe.
 Suppose it has been placed and anchored where the great ocean swel1s on the coast will keep it toping to and fro and up and down, according to its cable. Then it happens that held firm by it's cable against immense pressure, the water invades the