NIGHT SIGNALS are made with lights, rock ets. torches, etc. By waving a lamp or torch or changing the direction of the beam of a search light from side to side the win-wag code may be used. In Very's night which are visi ble at a distance of ten miles or more, under fa vorable circumstances, red and green stars like those in roman candles are fired from pistols in different combinations, four in each, and each combination or group of four corresponding to a figure. Coston's signals, consisting of differ ent colored flaming lights, were formerly used. Rockets and blue-lights (q.v.) are used to at tract attention and for special purposes. The night signals most in use in the navies of the world are the Ardois, the invention of a French officer of that name, and brought into general use in ISS5-90. They consist of double electric lamps—one-half white and one-half red—ar ranged on a cable extending up and down one of the masts. in many foreign navies these lamps consist of five pairs, but in the United States Navy there are but four, and the signifieations of the wig-wag code are used. The lights are read downward from the masthead, red corresponding to 1 and white corresponding to 2 of the win-wag code: 3 of the wig-wag code is replaced a special combination for 'interval' or end of a word. These lights are worked by a keyboard,
and the signaling is quite rapid. In the British Navy and in some other foreign services the flashing of a white light is used with the Morse telegraphic alphabet, a long flash signifying a dash and a short flash a dot, etc.
The day and night signals are sound signals and wireless telegraph signals. The former are composed of long and short blasts of a whistle or double and single strokes of a bell. With wire less telegraph systems the usual telegraphic code is employed.
Some simple signals are used in "Rules of the Road at Sea." (See RULES OF THE ROAD.) Sig nals of distress are of various kinds, such as hoisting the colors, i.e. the national flag, upside down, firing gins, rockets, blue-lights, etc. Con sult. Instructions for Signaling, United States Nary (Washington, 189S). Sec SIGNALING AND TELEGRAPHING, MILITARY.