The Press., 1912-10-23
THE CANDLE BUOY
A Friend of the Mississippi Pilots
 In the Old Days.
QUEER LITTLE LIGHTsHIPs.

They Were FIoated and Anchored ln
 the Channel of the River on Dark
 Nights and Showed the Navigator on
 Down Trips Where Reefs Were Not
 In the old steamboat days on the
 Mississippi. before the government had
 undertaken the duty of marking and
 lighting the crossings" where the channel swings over from one bank to the other, the river pilots had to devise their own means of finding their way through these difficult and dangerous | places.
 In the daytime it was not hard to do, and on moonlight nights the landmarks, which every pilot knew by heart, could be seen plainly enough to make the crossing possible. But there were many nights so dark or foggy that the shore marks were not visible; then the reefs had to be 'candled."
 Candling was resorted to only on the down trip. Going up the river the pilot might feel" of the reef with his boat, the first time he could back off and try again little to one side or the other, wherever the soundings showed the deepest water to be.
 In going down the river, however, that was impossible. The pilot had to find the channel the first time, for if the boat struck the current would drive her hard on the reef or else swing her brOadside on the bar and in ten, min utes imbed her in the very midst of it with tons of drifting sand.
 To. guard against such a disaster when nearing Pigs Eye, Beef Slough or Trempeleau bars-or any one of a dozen bars of equal difhculty-on. dark or hay night the pilot: stopped the boat at the head of the reef. With two men to row, q mate or watchman to steer. a "cub'' pilot to manipulate the "candle buoys'' and an older pilot to take soundings, the yawl was low cred and permitted to drop down the channel. below the steamboat
 After the pilot had determined the best course by taking soundings the ''cub," under his direction, anchored two, three or. even four of the candle buoys, one after the other, in the cen ter of the channel, and then the men let the yawI drop down below the rect, where it lay q little o1,tside the chan neI. Then. one of the men swung a -lantern-a signal at which the pilot on watch came ahead, steering for the tiny lighthouses and. running over them, one hy one, until the reef was passed.
 The candle buoy was made of a piece of two inch light pine plank, beveled for four inches at tue ''bOw" in order to prevent it's diving as the current pressed against it. A tin "sconce" with three legs, three or four inches long, was tackled down to the plank. Half of a common candle was placed in each sconce, and after being lighted an oiled paper chimney, with a base to that of the candle 1 stick, was placed over the light to pro- | tect 1t from the wind. The outer ends | of the tin 'Iegs' of the sconce were | turned back over the base of the paper to hold 1t in place, and the buoy was ready for launching.
 A hole was bored about six inches
 
 the hole a small cord some ten or twelve feet in length was rove and and to this cord lump of coal weighing perhaps ten pounds was tied. This served as an anchor to hold the buoy iniits place in the cen ter of the channel
 Such was the procedure fifty years ago or more. Since the government | bonts began patrolling the river and permanent lights at all bad crossings 1t Is seldom necessary for the pilots to go out in a sounding boat. although it is not an unheard of even now.
 But the candle buoy is thing of the past. Probably there are scores of present day pilots who never even heard of the makeshift little lightships that their puzzled predecessors were wont to launch amid the darkness and loubt of former years.-Youth's Com Danion