The subject has infinitely more involved in it than the interests of a few contractors. There are already, upwards of 200 Colonial lights, some very fine, others little better than booth lamps. With the exception of some, (my own,) they are without classification and uniformity of parts. Little is done for the right administration of funds; patronage is prostituted; do-nothings and deep dealers supported and enriched at the expense of navigation. And now when seventy-one new lighthouses are applied for from the Colonies, I trust to your pages for some help, and for publication of the fact that the Home Government has seen the evil, and that hereafter more prompt, if not always more satisfactory answers, will be given to their applications.

It unfortunately happens that Colonial authorities abroad, rest upon the advice of officers or surveyors, long from home, and who have no practical knowledge of lighthouse work and its optical niceties. When money for the work is ready, an order is at once given to some favorite correspondent, contractor, or ironmaster, or perhaps tinman; as if every man could make a lighthouse; as if there were no current facts to be regarded, no optical niceties, no current economy to be studied, and no independent supervision to be exercised for the advantage of the Colony, and the common interests of navigation.

It is owing to such illadvised procedure, that so many cast off and rejected lighting apparatus from home, have been made to do "well enough for the Colonies",-so many profitable jobs perpetrated, and miserable lighting apparatus hastily sent away,-so many costly towers constructed on the spot. The interest of the merchant or the contractor, whether at home or abroad, is not necessarily, and can very seldom be, the interest of the Colony or of navigation. The "well enough" principle satisfies the former, but the "perfect as possible" alone can be for the advantage of the latter. Having the honour to be entrusted with lighthouse works by the Treasury, Colonial Office, Admiralty, and Ordnance, I endeavour to have all as "perfect as possible," considering the situation and the means disposable.

Sometimes application is made to the Trinity Corporation, and the interests of the applicants are handed over to the tradesmen of that Board; or to the Northern Light Board. From the Trinity-House they may be driven from pillar to post, through the Admiralty, Colonial Office, East India House, Ordnance, and other public offices. From the Northern Light Board they may be driven into the course of its own notorious extravagance. Perchance the India House may give an order which has to be handed over to a department of Her Majesty's Govern

ment.

I have at length classified the work in such a manner that every part of the metal and glass work, and all furnishings of a Colonial lighthouse, as also most of the stores, shall be conformed to, and governed by, a standard at home, so that erection, repair, renewal, and supplies may be on the most accurate, expeditious, and economical system. In all cases as a Civil and Marine Engineer, acting under Government for the public good, I shall maintain the system of classification. By doing so, I shall

save the "much fruitless correspondence," "prevent much lamentable delay in the construction of lighthouses," and obviate such as the "mistakes in those that have been constructed."

The three powerful Lighthouse Boards of this kingdom have shown clearly that they are content with their venerable expensive and oppressively dilatory, procedure, and that they are insufficient, if not incapable of any enlarged, enlightened, economical, yet liberal lighthouse administration. Their extravagant notions and habits demand and ought to have a check. I could fill your pages with facts in illustration. The Skerryvore with its costly refinements, and hyperbolic elegancies, connected with it, has been built by an expenditure of more than £90,000.* The Bishop Rock experience of the Trinity Corporation had cost about £16,000 with its cast iron stilts, which broke off short, and tumbled the whole into the sea in February, 1850. (What did that corporation pay for similar expenses shortly before?) So they now are building a tower in stone on the Bishop Rock. When that lighthouse is finished it will have cost as much as Skerryvore. By that time I may have shown that the proposed lighthouse for Hanois Rock, Guernsey, has been completed for one-thirteenth part of the money; and possibly by that time I may have completed the lighthouse with the lead foundation in the Skerki Channel, fifty miles distant from any land for £17,000. This is written after considerable lighthouse practice in difficult situations.

As to the lighthouse for Keith reef in the Skerki Channel it was fully described in the Nautical Magazine (June 1850); but I give you again a sketch of it, that the thick outer walls of lead, 24 feet high, may be borne in mind, as necessary when founding a metal lighthouse exposed to the chemical action and storms of the sea. Morant Point, Point de Galle, Bermuda, Cape Pine, Barbados, and Grand Turk lighthouses, are all made of iron, because none of them are exposed to the immediate action of the sea. The Hanois Rock at Guernsey is 23 feet above the sea, and iron will suffice there. I have sometimes recommended much cheaper towers of timber rendered uninflammable by Payne's process; and am now constructing a hexagonal beacon of timber for Cape Race, a house of refuge for shipwrecked mariners; and which can hereafter be converted into a tower carrying a light.

*I was lately applied to by a powerful body occupying a wealthy district on the Solway Firth, for a design and estimates for a Lighthouse on Heston Island. The parties had sent in an application in 1847 to the Board of Northern Lights and anticipated the old alleged difficulty, want of means for so expensive a work! and although lives and property are as valuable at Heston as at Skerryvore, the application was refused. It was renewed, and although that application contained the signatures of all the wealthiest landowners in the district, and all the strength of the shipping and trading interest, on both sides of the Solway, and was made at the suggestion of the most experienced naval authorities, it does not appear at all in the Parliamentary Return (7th February, 1851,) as being on the minutes of the Board. Did it ever reach the Board at all? If it did what faith can be put in their minutes? If however, it was there, what faith can be placed on the Parliamentary Return? Assuredly in our Lighthouse reforms we must also "look at home."

Classification and uniformity of parts being of so much importance, I have lately adopted for Iron Towers, the "scheme" exhibited on the plate. The lantern is regulated by the height and diameter of the optical apparatus. The diam

eter and proportions of the tower depend upon the nature, measurement, weight and manner of fixing the lantern, and the required artificial altitude of the lighthouse. These being determined upon by competent nautical authorities in any colony, I need only be informed of the same and of what courses of plates in the "scheme" are required. Each of the towers shewn on the plate, and the upper or iron portion of that shown in this woodcut, may be considered as consisting of some of the same scheme marked from A to Tinclusive. My reasons for preferring large column to carry the lantern and light, whether on Terra Firma or on a Rock "awash," instead of many legs, or piles, or pillars, have already been

one

*

published, by you, and in the proceedings of the institution of civil engineers, 1850. I remain of the same opinion. Two great authorities differ with me, however, Mr. Walker the Ex-President of our institution of civil engineers, and Mr. J. W. P. Lewis, the United States Lighthouse Engineer. I do not deny that there may be some positions where such slender articulations are demanded by the nature of the foundation, but they are very rare.

The optical arrangement for direction of the light by silvered paraboloidal reflectors, or by the French system of polyzonal refractors, (which latter I first introduced and exhibited in England and Scotland seventeen years ago,) should be decided upon after weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each. I incline most to the use of deep and large silvered paraboloidal reflectors, because they are in most cases less costly for construction and maintenance, are less liable to injury, and most easy (by the system of classification) of repair when injured.

No estimates can be given here for all positions, but it may be well to state the following list of different kinds and power of lighting appa

N.B.-A gallon of cocoa-nut oil costs in Ceylon 7d., in Turks Island 1s., and in all Tropical climate is better than any other. A gallon of prepared vegetable oil may be reckoned at 4s. 6d., and a gallon of sperm oil at 7s. 6d. or Ss.

In your number for March last, Mr. Walker of corrugated iron celebrity gets credit for the entire iron work of Mr. Lewis' lighthouse, whereas Mr. Walker only made the dwelling, and staircase and housing in of the latter. All the engineering work and all the designs and specifications are due to Mr. Lewis the lighthouse Reformer of the United States, who has had all the grand part of his work, on which depends the stability and which gives the real importance to the structure, made at Boston and Philadelphia, and he is now erecting the whole permanently in Florida.

The attendants necessary are two men for a lighthouse on shore, and three nen for a rock lighthouse, or for a position difficult of access.

The lighthouses shown on the plate have been, or are being completed and permanently lighted for about the following sums, Bermuda £8,000, Point de Galle £3,300, Jamaica £11,000, Grand Turk £3,500, Barbados £5,400, Cape Pine £6,800. At Jamaica, land and road making cost half of the money spent. At Cape Pine muchmoney not mentioned here was spent on surveys, &c., before I was applied to. Such expenditure may be saved in future. The above sums are not one half the amounts spent by the three great Lighthouse Boards at home for any similar works.

From the above list, parties abroad may form for themselves some approximate estimate of the cost of an entire lighthouse, and of what will be necessary for its annual maintenauce; and parties at home may see how much of the hard earnings of navigation are unnecessarily thrown away, in furtherance of favoritism, and in monumental extravagance. ALEXANDER Gordon.

22, Fludyer Street, Whitehall, 1st of May.

A SUMMER'S CRUIZE ON THE COAST OF LABRADOR, in relation with an Irish Trans-Atlantic Packet Station.-By Admiral Hercules Robinson.

It is a rule in our Naval Service, that the officers shall keep a log-book detailing the weather, the navigation of the ship, the employment of the crew, and the various events and transactions of each day; and containing also as a sort of household book, the receipt and expenditure of stores