The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-08-21
MIDDLE SWIM STREET.
The Best Lighted ThOroughfare in
the World.

From the London Mail.
Most people who have not much expert
ence of the sea at night imagine that It
is, for the most part, q gloomy waste Of
waters, with here and there a lighthouse
on reef or a lightship moored a few
miles from the coast.
No idea could be more mistaken, and IL
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 brilliant
ly lighted than Regent street
Mariners about our English coasts have
the sea marked out for them into roads
and streets as definite and obvious as
Piccadilly or the Strand. 1t is only by ex-
treme negligence or by an absolutely I'M
foreseen combination of adverse circum-
stances that ship can lose its way now
adays when it is within twenty or thirty
miles of the English coast
The greatest sea road in the whole world
is the Swim Deep, at the mouth OF the
Thames. 1t is not too much 10 say that
every foot Of it is surveyed and marked
down in the chart. Ii is lighted more
completely than many city thoroughfares.
and to the sailor il is more homelike and
familiar than the' Commercial road or
the Whtechapel High street
Down this great high road of the sea
much of the trade of the world is car
ried Ships from the furthest parts of
the world patrol II day and night In an
endless procession, bringing goods to Lon
don or taking English produce to distant
lands.
AS the traveller steams down the Thames
between the low mud reaches beyond
Gravesend. his FIRST glimpse of the Won
derful system of lights which guides the
ships is obtained at Southead.
A red light shines out over the water
and II is warning that the river journey
is nearly finished, and that Swim street
is near at hand.
Tom Hood immortalized the More in
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 sail
ors call it, is at the very entrance to the
great highway. II shows a white light,
which revolves every half minute.
Every lighthouse and llghtship has its
own particular and distinguishing system
of signalling its name. For example the
next light in Swim street Is seven miles
from the More, and is called the Mouse"
light.
In order that there may be no confusion
between the two ships, the Mouse ship
shows a green light, which revoives every
twenty seconds, and which is visible for
exactly ten miles. 1t is also provided with
foghorn, which is blown by compressed
cir, and is said to have the most IN
pleasant voice in the whole channel.
These lightships provide the principal
Examinations of Swim street. In daytime
each one carries a cone of iron bars of
different shapes in the place where the
lamp is hoisted at night, and moreover,
the name of the ship is painted upon its
side in colossal white letters
one of the most powerful and curious
/ fubf * In Eruip de- Ho
lin light. 1t stands at the edge of the
dangerous fiat known as the Mapn and
Foulness sands, These sands dry at 10 "
water, and extend for seventeen miles
along the coast 1t was found impossible
to build solid masonry upon the shifting
surface, and so the famous Maplin light
has been built upon an enormous erection
of piles.
1t is one of the most conspicuous sights
in Swim street for il appears to be rising
| straight up out OF the middle of the sea.
| The light is what is known as a red "'oc-
| cutting" light. Every half minute 1t is
| hidden by a revolution of the lantern be-
| hind a steel shutter
| There are many of these occulting lights
in Swim street, and it is often a welcome
| sight to see one of them flash out of the
| dark explaining with absolute certainty
the exact position of the ship in the chan
me-. The smallest lights of all the many
| cOiOreQ Nominations are those at the
| heads of the buoys which mark out the
various safe passages for ships These
| burn night and day. and the light is pro-
| duced from ordinary gas. The great
buoys many of them from fifteen 70
twenty feet high, are hollow and filled
with gas, which burns continually in a
| 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 boat which
| supplies the lights with fresh gas at stat
ed Intervals. 1t may be called the lamp
| lighter of the sea road