LIGHTHOUSE

An establishment for the exhibition of a light or landmark to direct the mariner. The use of lights for such a purpose is of very high antiquity, but their early history is involved in much obscurity. In the ancient world, there were lighthouses at Ostea, Ravenna. Puteoli, Caprea, Rhodes, on the Thracian Bosphorus, . (Suetonii Opera, torn, i., p. 755); but by far the most celebrated lighthouse in antiquity was that erected by Ptolemy Boter on the small island of Pharos, opposite to Alexandria: " noctumis ignibus cursum navium regens." {Pliny, lib. v., c. 31.) Its extraordinary height, which some authors have estimated at 500 feet and upwards, procured for it a place among the wonders of the world; and, according to Joseph us, its " beaming summit" could be seen at a distance of 300 stadia, about 42 British miles. It is said to have cost 800 talents: and its celebrity was such that Pharos rapidly became, n:u\ still continues to be, in many countries a generic term equivalent to lighthouse. The most celebrated lighthouses of modern times are, the Tour de Carduan, at the entrance of the Gironde, in France; the Eddy stone lighthouse, opposite to Plymouth Sound; and that more recently constructed on the Bell Rock, opposite to the Frith of Tav. The first of these was begun in 1584, and finished in 1611. It is 186J feet (English) in height; and. besides being of the highest importance to the sailor on so dangerous and frequented a coast, it forms, at the same time, a splendid specimen of architectural beatity. The Eddy stone lighthouse, constructed by the celebrated engineer Smeaton, was completed in 1759, is regarded as a masterpiece of its kind, and, as has well been observed, bids fair to be little le lasting than the rocks upon which it stands. The Bell Rock lighthouse was built by Mr. Stevens on on the model of the Eddy stone. Numerous lighthouses raarking the most dangerous points, and the entrance to the prin cipal harbours, are now erected in most civilized maritime countries. In the Baltic and the Sound they are particularly abundant; the Dutch have 20 lights on their coast and in the Zuyder Zee, and on the northern and western coasts of France there are no fewer than 89 excellent lights. (The Admiralty has lately published lists of all these lights.) But the coasts of no country.ire so well provided with lighthouses as those of the United Kingdom. For England they are under the management of the Brethren of the Trinity House; for Ireland, under that of the Board for the Improvement of the Port of Dublin; and for Scotland, under that of the Commi ioners of Northern Lighthouses meeting nt Edinburgh. It would swell our pages to too great an extent were we to attempt to give a complete list of the \arlous lighthouses of this country; we must, therefore, beg to refer the reader to the Commercial Dictionary for full particulars upon this subject, and shall devote what remains of our limits to a view of the different principles adopted in the construction of their important machinery. The ancient mode of exhibiting lights as beacons to the mariner consisted in burning wood or coal in a chauffer on [s. 682]