ELECTRIC LIGHTHOUSES

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 October 1928, Page 7

ELECTRIC LIGHTHOUSES

OLD-TIME CALLING ENDING

The lighthouse-keepfei- himself has probably never considered his calling romantic, yet it has been the subject of ballad and story times without number, writes A. B. Cooper, in “Overseas..” Presently his calling, like that of the old-time wreckers and smugglers and pirates —his less reputable rivals in sea romance—will have become legendary, for the elecricity wihich has consigned so many things to the scrap heap is now casting him there too.

Seeing that lie is not likely to be unemployed, but only removed permanently from his lonely station, the loss to romance, which the mechanisation of the world so often means, seems cause for congratulation rather than sorrow. Penned in that narrow tower tending the light, keeping vigil sometimes for lonely weeks, in such isolated situations as the Skerryvore, the Wolf Rock, the Dhu Hetarach, the Be 1 ! Rock, the Eddystone, exposed to terrific storms and not inconsiderable dangers, the lighthouse-keepei’’s life is not enviable. Now it seems likely to be ended, as far as our own. coastwise lights are concerned, within the space of a, few years at the most, for already the change is actually being made at the Penden, the Lizard, Hartlaud, and the Skerries.

Trinity House, which controls all the lighthouses, lightships, beacons, and buoys around the British coast, has been busy, during the months of last winter, experimenting with a view to discovering the best type of electrical shore control, and now two entire la' new types of automatic lighthouses have been constructed, one at the .South Foreland and the other at Burnham, the Somerset, a light Avhich marks the treacherous Gore .Sands in the Bristol Channel. At neither of these lighthouses is a keeper uoav required, and not only is the light controlled by an ingenious electric system, but each of these lighthouses is fitted Avith a. duplicate lamp, which automatically operates if the other, for any reason whatsoever breaks down. Like many other electrical, devices, the action, of this duplicate lamp is almost uncanny, for, should its services be required, it not only lights up, but sends an automatic warning fo the shore. If the second lamp should Fail -a possible but not very probable contingency, perba ps --an acetylene burner is lighted automatically. Needless to say, a lighthouse which failed would be much worse than no light-

ouse at all. It is Thus well to be assured by

I’rinily House that these two experimental lighthouses have operated perfectly. They have been visited every lay, and the mechanism inspected, but in actual practice it will not be needful to visit those mechanically-con-

trolled lighthouses more often than once a week, and even this is only necessary to maintain the navy-like spotlessness of the mechanism and reHectors. There will be times undoubtedly when the- remoter lights may not he accessible during much longer spaces of time, but there is no reason, to anticipate any failure mi tlial, ac count.. The light will go mi burning, entirely controlled from the shore. But in. addition to the automatic, kecpcrlcss light bouses, trinity House has another novelty up its sleeve —Hie Avireless-lighthouse. which is not a lighthouse at all I About twenty of these wireless beam

lighthouses are now under construction, but, in place of the light there is sent out, without intermission a wireless beam 01. 100 miles’ range, so that vessels picking it up can always de line their position. Whatever the stale of the weather may he, and even in Hie densest fog. It will bo seep I hat this is in some respects an improvement on the light, itself, lor even the strongest. light may be obscured by fog, and even the great light al. SI. Katherine's Point in the Isle of Wight has nothing like an effective range of 100 miles. .In the case of the wireless “lighthouses.” which perhaps may come to

lie called beamhouses, the mechanism is automatic, needing no keeper, and, is also in duplicate as a safeguard against breakdown.