LIGHTHOUSE. A building on some con spicuous point of the seashore, an island or rock. from which light is exhibited at Mold as a guide to mariners. The importance of such structures has been since very re mote times, and the ancients devoted eonsiderable attention to lighthouse construction, but it only within the last hundred years that these ails to the mariner have been developed upon syste matic and scientific lines. At present all maritime nations have governmental bureaus or depart ments whose sole duty it is to establish and main tain lighthouses. In France this body is known as the Commission deg Ph(tres. and its membership comprises four two naval officers. one member of the Institute, one inspeetor-general, and one hydrographic engineer. In England the Corporation of Trinity House has charge of the English lights; the Scottish lights are under the management of the Commissioners of North ern Lights,and the Irish lights are under the care of the Corporation for Preserving and Improv ing the Port of Dublin, which is commonly called the Ballist Board. The fund Willi which these boards carry on their work is provided by the one-half penny per ton due chnrged every vessel at each time it passes the lighthouse. In the States the construction and maintenance of lighthouses is in charge of the Lighthouse Board (q.v.).
AxelEyr LIGHTHOUSES. The oldest lighthouses known were the towers built by the Lybians and by the Cushites of Lower Egypt. The light con sisted of horning fuel in a brazier hung from a pole from the tower toward the sea. The Romans built many line light towers in Italy. hut comparatively little is known about their construction and dimensions. Perhaps the most famous tower of antiquity was that erected on the island of Pharos near Alexandria about B.C. 285. The Romans built light-towers at Dover and Boulogne on the English Channel. Little is known of the Dover tower. but the Boulogne tower was a masonry structure octagonal in plan, 192 feet in circumference and 200 feet high. It was built in twelve stories. each three feet less in diameter than the one beneath it. The rock
on which this lighthouse was situated was un dermined by the waves and fell. with the light house. between 1610 and 1645. after the light, had guided mariners for probably 1430 years. Towers of later medieval times which are de serving of mention are the Torre del ('ado. near Genoa, first built in 11:39. removed in 1512 and rebuilt in 1643; the Pharos of .11etoria, built by the Pisnns in 1154 and several times destroyed and rebuilt; and the Tower of Cordouan, situ ated at the mouth of the Gironde and finished in 1610. These are only a few examples of ancient lighthouses. but they indicate quite well the general character of these enrly works; viz., towers of masonry on the tops of which were built fires to serve as lights.
3font:ux LIcirrnousEs. 31odern lighthouses may reasonably be said to date from the con struction of the Eddystone by John Smeaton in 17:16-1759. Eddystone rocks are a particularly dangerous reef lying in the Eng lish Channel about 14 miles from Plymouth, England. Sm•nton's Eddystone lighthouse was a circular masonry tower broad at the base and narrowing by a curve to a slender waist at the base of the lantern-housing. The masonry of the lower was n very intricate piece of dimension stone masonry• the stones being dovetailed to gether in such a way as to make each course a stone. The height of the masonry structure to the focal plane of the lan tern was 72 feet. In 1877 work was began on a new Eddystone lighthouse to replace Smenton's. whim was not, high enough to keep the waves from dashing over the lantern. and which, more over. had become endangered by the undermining of the natural rock. In the new structure the tower was made cylindrical to a height of two and one-half feet above the highest tides and di minishing in size above this level. It was made 132 feet high from high-water level to the focal plane of the lantern. the masonry being of di mension stones eut so as to interlock and further held together by bronze bolts. The new light house was completed in 1882.