Evening star., 1899-10-14
GREAT SEA THOROUGHFARE
1t is Illuminated More Completely Than
Many City Streets.
Ocean LamppOsts That Guide Mariners
Through the Swim Deep at
the Thames Mouth.
From the London Mall.

From the London Mall
Mariners about our English coasts have
the sea marked out for them into roads
and streets as definite and obvious as Pic
| cadilly or the Strand. 1t is only by ex-
treme negligence or by an absolute unfore-
seen combination of adverse circumstances
that a ship can lose it's way nowadays
when 1t 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 to say that
every foot of 1t is surveyed and marked
down on the chart. 1t is lighted more COM
pIetely than many city thoroughfares, and
TO the sailor 1t Is more homelike and famil-
lar than the Commercial road or the White
chapel High street
Down this great high road of the sea
much of the trade of the world is carried.
Ships from the farthest parts of the world
patrol 1t day and night in an endless pro-
cesslon, bringing goods to London or TAX
ing English products to distant lands.
AS the traveller steams down the Thames
between the low mud reaches beyond
Gravesend. his first glimpse of the wonder
full system of lights which guides the ships
is obtained at Southhead.
A red light shines out over the water,
and 1t Is warning that the river Jour-
ney Is nearly finished. and that Swim street
is near at hand.
Tom Hood immortalzed the More in a
poem called the Little BUOY at the More -
but ne 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 to the great highway 1t
shows white light which reyolves every
half minute
Every light house and lightship has its
own particular and dstinguishable system
OF signaling its name For example, the
next light in Swim street Is seven miles
from the More tc ba
light.
In order that there may be no confusion
between the two ships, the Mouse ship
shows green light, which revolves every
twenty seconds, and which is visible for ex
| actly ten miles. 1t Is also provided with
foghorn, which is blown by compressed
air, and is said to have the most unpleas-
ant voice in the whole channel
These lightships provide the principal IL
lumlnauons of Swim street. In daytime
each one carries a cone of iron bars of
dlferent 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
lights in Swim street is known as the Map
lin light. 1t is at the edge of the dam
gerous fiat known as the Maplin and Foul
ness sands. These sands dry at low 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 Mapln light has been
built upon an enormous erection of piles.
II IS one OF the most conspicuous sights
in Swim street, for 1t appears to be rising
straight UP out of the middle of the sea
The light Is what IS known as red occult
ing" light. Every half minute it is hidden
by a revolution of the lantern behind
steel shutter.
There many OF these "occulting"
lights in Swim street, and it is often a well
come sight to see one of them flash out
of the dark, explaining with absolute GER
tainty the exact position of the ship in
the channel The smallest lights Of all
the many colored illumnations are those
at the head 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 to twenty feet
high-are hollow and filled with gas, which
burns continually from lamp at the top.
Often the traveller in Swim street may
see curious, slowly moving vessel with
great tank on the deck, moving from buoy
to buoy. This is the gas boat which sup
plies the lights with fresh gas at stated
intervals. 1t may be called the lamplighter
of the sea road.