The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-08-23

is, for the most part a gloomy waste of
waters with here and there light
house on reef or lightship moored a
few miles from the coast.
No idea could be more mistaken, and
it will probably surprise them to learn
that there is great highway for ships
a few miles from the mouth of the
Thames which is, If anything, even
more brilliantly lighted than Regent-st,
Mariners about our English coasts
have the sea marked out for them into
roads and streets as definite ana CD"
vious as Plccadilly or the Strand. 1t
is only by extreme negligence or by an
absolutely unforeseen combination OF
adverse circumstances that ship can
lose it's way nowadays when 1t IL with
III twenty or thirty miles of the English
coast
The greatest sea road in the whole
world is the Swim Deep, at the mouth II
the. Thames, 1t is not too much to say
that every foot of it is surveyed and
marked down in the chart. 1t is light
ed more completely than many city
thoroughfares and to the sailor it Is
more homelike and familiar than the
| Cldl INOdu VI tiiC w iAs~SAANPSA
| High-st.
Down this great road of the sea much
of the trade of the world Is carried
Ships from the furthest end of the world
patrol it day and night in an endless
pdocession, bringing goods to London
or taking English produce to distant
lands.
AS the traveller steams down the
Tham2s between the low mad reach,s
beyond Gravesend. his first glimpse Of
the wonderful system of lights which
guides the ships is obtained at South
head
A red light shines out over the water,
and it is a warning that the river jour
ney is nearly finished, and that Swim
Street is near at hand.
Tom Hood immortalized the More in
a poem called the Little Buoy at the
More" but he had nothing to say about
one of the most famous of our English
lightships. The more Light as the
sailors call it, is at the very entrance
of the great highway. 1t shows white
light, which revolves every hall minute.
Every lighthouse and every Iightship
has it's own particular and distinguish
ing system of signalling its name. For
example, the Mouse ship shows a green
light, which revolves every twenty Sec
onds, and which is visible for exactly ten
miles. 1t is also provided with a fog
horn, which is blown by compressed air, |
and is said to have the most unpleasant
voice in the whole Channel.
These lights provide the principal
illuminatioins of Swim Street. In day |
time each one carries cone Of iron bars
of different shapes in the place where |
the lamp Is boosted at night, ana more |
over, the name Of the ship is painted |
upon its side in colossal white letters
One of the most powerful and curious
lights in SWIM Street is known as the |
Maplin Light. 1T stands at the edge |
of the dangerous fiat known as the Map !
lin and Foulness sands These sands |
dry at low water. and extend for seven |
teen miles along the coast. 1t was |
found impossible to build solid masonry |
upon the shifting surface, and 81 the |
famous Maplin Light has Deen built |
upon an enormous erection of piles.
1t is one of the most conspicuous |
sights in Swim Street, for It appears to |
be rising straight out of the riddle cf |
the sea. The light is what is known as
a red occulting' light. Every half |
minute it is hidden by a evolution Of |
the lantern behind steel shutter.
There are many of these occulting
lights in Swim Street, and it is often a
welcome sight to see on Of them flash
out in the dark, explaining with abso-
Lutte certainty the exact position Of TIE
ship in the channel The smallest
lights Of all the many colored illunnin-
ations are those at the heads OF yhe
buoys which mark out the various safe
passages for ships. These burn night
and day, and the light is produced from
gas The great buoys, many
of them from fifteen to twenty feet
high, are hollow and filled with gas,
which burns continually in lamp at
the top.
Often the traveller in Swim Street may
see a curious slowly moving vessel with
a great tank on the deck moving from
buoy to buoy. This is the gas beat
which supplies the lights with fresh gas
at stated intervals. 1t NAV be called
the lamplighter Of the sea roa I.