File:The New England magazine (1912) (14595411379).jpg

Identifier: newenglandmagaziv48bost (find matches)
Title: The New England magazine
Year: 1887 (1880s)
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Publisher: Boston : (New England Magazine Co.)
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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t first but a fire on a headland,becoming with use and improvement alantern in a tower and now grown withmodern progress to the complicated,expensive, and highly efficient modernlighthouse, capable under favorableconditions of warning mariners for adistance of twenty miles or more. The best use of the lighthouse is arather modern thing, yet the earliestwritings of man make reference to someform of it, showing that the idea ofgiving warning and guidance to shipsat sea by means of a light on shoreantedates history. Most of the ideasin the world are very old. It is onlythe active application of them that ismodern. The ancient Greeks ascribethe invention of the lighthouse toHerakles, and made him the patronsaint of mariners. To him on settingforth they vowed tithes which on suc-cessful return were spent in entertain-ment. The Sybians and Cushites oflower Egypt had lighthouses whichwere temples also, lighting the lowerreaches of the Nile, and from theirword for high, tor, and fire, is, 335
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A LIFEBOAT ADRIFT LOCATED BY THE SUBMARINE SIGNAL REDUCING THE TOLL OF THE SEA 337 the Latins derived their turrie,meaning a tower. The Cyclops ofthe Roman legend, with his one greatflaring eye, was a lighthouse, and Apolloblinding him with arrows was merelythe sun rising and dulling his lightwith a greater. Thus ancient is the lighthouse.Long before the Christian era thegreatest lighthouse tower the worldhas ever seen — if the story of itsheight be true — was erected at Alex-andria in the reign of Ptolemy II, 283-247 B.C. This was one of the won-ders of the world, and was said tobe six hundred feet high. It cost£946,000. But the best light is dim or power-less in fog or storm, and so we havethe fog-horn and fog-bell supplement-ing it. Like the light, under the rightconditions the fog-horn and the fog-bell are very effective, but like the bestlight these, too, may be exceedinglyunreliable. Often the fog-horn is un-heard when most needed, though thedistance may be slight and the s

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