The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-08-29
uIDDLE SWIM STREET.
TFrom the London MALL

Most people who have not much ex-
perience of the sea at night, imagine
that is, for the most part, a gloomy
waste of waters, with here and there
a lighthouse on a reef or a Hghtship
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
street.
Mariners about our English coasts
have the sea marked out for them into
roads and streets as definite and OBJ
ViOuS as Piccadilly or the Strand 1t
is only by extreme negligence or by
an absolutely Unforeseen combination
of adverse circumstances that ship
can lose its 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. It is not too much to
say that every foot of it is surveyed
and marked down in the chart. 1t is
lighted more completely than many city
thoroughfares, and to the sailor it is
more homelil1e and familiar than the
Commercial Road or the Whitechapel
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 it day and night in an
endless procession, bringing goods to
taxing
distant lands.
AS the traveller steams down the
Thames between the low mud reaches
beyond Gravesend, his first glimpse of
the wonderful system of lights which
guides the ships is obtained at South
cad.
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
lfghtships. The More Light" as the
sailors call it, is at the very entrance
to the great highway 1t shows white
light, which revolves every half min
utes.
Every lighthouse and lightship has its
own particular and distinguishing SyS-
tenn of signalling it's name. For ex-
ample, 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 confu-
sion between the two ships, the Mouse
ship shows a green light, which re
wolves every twenty seconds, and
which is visible for exactly ten miles.
1t is also provided with a foghorn,
which is blown by compressed air, and
is said to have the most unpleasant
voice in the whole Channel.
These lightships provide the principal
Examinations of Swim street. In day
time each one carried cone of iron
bars of different shapes in. the places
where the light is hOisted at night, and
moreover, the name of the ship is
painted upon it's 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 endge of
the dangerous fiat known as the Maplin
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 mason
~ 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 it appears to
be rising straight up out of the middle
of the sea The light is what is known
as a red "occulting'' light. Every half
minute it is hidden by revolution of
the lantern behind 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 channel. The smallest
lights of all the many colored illumin-
buoys which mark out the various safe
passages for ships. These burn night
and day, and the light is produced from
ordinary gas. The great buoys, many
of them from fifteen to twenty feet
high are hollow and filed with gas.
which burns continually in lamp at
often the traveller in Swim street may
see a curious slowly moving vessel with
q great tank on the deck, moving from
buoy to buoy. This is the gas boat
which supplies the lights with fresh
called the lamplighter of the sea road.