World’s Greatest Lighthouse

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17569, 20 June 1925, Page 17 (Supplement)

World’s Greatest Lighthouse

500-Mile Beams to Guide Airmen from Paris to Africa. *

To guide aeroplanes flying by night from Paris to Algiers the most powerful lighthouse in the world is iioiv lighted on A font Afrique, near Dijon. Its great lamps are of one thousand million candle poxver, and the light can be seen for 500 miles on evsrp side—from Brussels to Aldan.

THE 1,000,000,000 candle power revolving lighthouse of Mont Afrique, on the Plateau of Dijon, Cote d’Or, was lighted for tlie first time on April 23. It is the most powerful lighthouse in the world. Meant primarily for aeroplanes flying between Paris and Algiers, via Lyonit will serve also for many other route.\Yhen the weather is clear its lights will be visible from Brussels, Perigeux, Dieppe, Arles, Lille, Frankfurt, Milan and Anger.;. The famous lighthouse of Creaeli, at I Ushant, with its 30.0-00,000 candle pow er, has until now been the. most power - I ful French lighthouse. 1 he Mon 1 Afrique ligb 1.-500,000 francs. Bird life for 100 miles around threatens to disappear. Mont Afrique is a plateau 625 metres, high, eight miles west of Dijon. L tto the- present it is known to- tourist.only for the beautiful view which u gives over tho plains of Burgundy In Hi© future* half France will knov. its name. for its rays will be visible ai places 800 kilometres (500 miles) away The lighthouse is in three storeys, of j which the top two are devoted to tin* eight optical appliances which so ml out the beams. i

Marino lighthouses, formerly tho most powerful in. tho world, are. now but a pale shadow ot tli© new lighthouse. . \t present only the l’aris-Strasbourg and Paris-Loiidou lines are marked with lights of a small range equal to 6000 candles. For great junctions much more powerful lights are needed. The lights of Mont Afrique are at the junction oi the Paris Switzerland, Paris-1 taly, and Paris-Mediterranean routes. The construction of tli© Mont- Afrique lighthouse began in. 1918 by order of tho Government, but was interrupted by the Armistice. For a year and n half it has been ready waiting for electric current, which is now brought from Dijon. The Mont Afrique lighthouse will be almosl 17 times more powerful than the next, most brilliant light in the world, tho 60 million candle-power hgh thouse* at Navesink New Jersey, U.S. A Britain's biggest light is at- St Catherine's Point. Isle of Wight, 15 million candle-power. What even, one million candle-power means may be guaged by the fact that tho estimated aggregate of the lights in the squre mile of the City of London only 1,260_,000 candle-power—an eiglii - hundredth pari «>l that- of the French giaib . Although regular night living has not

yet been started on British airway*, i ho London-Park* route is well equipped with aerial lighthouses. Between th© two capitals there is a chain of ten lighthouses, four ca this Ado of the Channel and six on tho other, so placed, and with such powerful beams, that an airman in clear weather will always have at least ona of them in sight. Those on the English part of tho route are at:—Croydon, Tatsfield-hill (Surrey), Cranbrook (Xent ), and Lympne. Ml have a. range of from 35 to 4(1 miles. Croydon’s lighthouse is known

a? a “ Con© ” light. It consists of * flashing apparatus of high power mounted at- the* top of a brilliantlylighted cone, which to an t’rman approaching from any direction appears as a triangular patch of whit© light. The other three are wonderful automatic lights operated by the sun- They light themselves, and can go on doing so for cix months without any attention. Th©v are ope rated by solar raj* which turn on the lights at sunret and switch them off again when, dawn comes Should the day be dark with fog or clouds pass across the face of the sun towards unset, these lights come or.fc with almost uncanny- regularity ta eunle ihe aerial traveller*