of lighting a channel, it is one of the most economical measures of the service. Whether or not this method shall be used elsewhere is an economical rather than a practical problem. THE NEW LIGHT-SHIPS AND LIGHT-HOUSE TENDERS. The Board is now building five new light-ships and four new lighthouse tenders. The light-ships Nos. 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54 are intended, respectively, for Columbia River Bar, off the coast of Oregon, Cornfield Point, in Connecticut, on Long Island Sound, Fenwick Island Shoal, off the coast of Maryland, Frying Pan Shoal, off the coast of North Carolina, and Martins Industry Shoal, off the coast of South Carolina. Each is to embody in herself all needed modern improvements, moving by her own steam, having the best fog signal and having illuminating apparatus specially adapted to the location she is to occupy. The light-house steam tenders Lilac, Columbine, and Amaranth are to go, respectively, to the first light-house district, with headquarters at Portland, Me., the thirteenth light-house district, with headquarters at Portland, Oregon, and the eleventh light-house district, with headquarters at Detroit, Mich. The plans for a new steam tender, the Maple, have just been made. She is intended for the fifth light-house district, with headquarters at Baltimore, Md., and she will soon be put under contract. Every effort has been made to embody in these vessels such improvements as will adapt each, in hull and machinery, for its own special work. Attention is invited to an account given in an appendix to this volume, of each of these vessels. The Board has built, during the past year, three small inexpensive light-vessels, for lake use only during the season of navigation. Each has sufficient steam power for getting to and from her station, and each has a steam fog signal and lights of sufficient range for her location. They are called light-ships Nos. 55, 56, and 57, and it is intended to station them, respectively, on Simmons Reef, White Shoal, and Grays Reef, in Lake Michigan. This experiment of attempting to use inexpensive light-ships instead of costly permanent light-houses is tried at the earnest request of the lake vessel-men. Such small vessels would, however, be entirely inadequate for the boisterous weather and heavy sea of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. TECHNICAL BOOKS FOR THE LIGHT-HOUSE ESTABLISHMENT. The following recommendation which was made in the Board's last annual report is renewed: From the organization of the Light-House Establishment until quite recently it has been the practice of the Board to buy such technical and professional books and periodicals as were needed, and to pay for them from the proper general appropriations. This course was taken with the permission of the Secretary of the Treasury, given in many cases previously in writing and with the approbation of the accounting officers of the Department, as shown by their approval of the accounts rendered therefor by the purchasing officer of the Board. These purchases are now disallowed by the accounting officers. It has been from the beginning the settled and authorized policy of the Board to maintain a technical library to aid its constructing officers in the performance of their duties. This library now contains more than 3,000 volumes, many costly, most of them rare, and some of them unique, at least in this country. This was found to be the case during the session of the International Marine Conference, when books were borrowed from this library for its use on the plea that they could not be found elsewhere. Books bought to enable the Board to build a certain light-house or light-ship might be charged against the appropriation for building that structure; but such books, while bought to meet the needs of the Board in each case, are kept to meet all similar cases arising afterwards. Hence they should be paid for from the general rather than from special appropriations. Books thus obtained are placed in the Board's library, which is a lending library, open to all the engineers and inspectors of the sixteen light-house districts. By this method a book bought for one district officer is open to the use of all. This prevents duplication of books and saves much expense. The Board, in order to keep abreast of the march of science in the highly scientific work for which it is responsible, has great need and makes large use of its library. An appropriation of $100 was made for this purpose last year, and it is recommended that the same amount be appropriated for this purpose for use during the coming year. GAS BUOYS. The buoy used is of the Pintsch pattern and patent. It is forged by a secret process without seam and holds compressed gas without perceptible loss, which burns with a steady flame and which is rarely extinguished from any cause, making a useful light. The gas buoy is sometimes used to replace, temporarily, a light-ship while the latter is under repair. It is sometimes used where a light-ship can not be moored. A dangerous wreck in an important channel leading into New York had to be marked, and as the channel was too narrow to admit of a light-ship being placed near the wreck, a Pintsch gas buoy was used there satisfactorily, to the great advantage of shipping, for a considerable length of time and until the wreck had disappeared. The Board last year placed a lighted gas buoy in the fairway of vessels going north and south, near to the wrecks of the steamer Vizcaya and the schooner Hargraves, off Barnegat Light, on the New Jersey seacoast, where it served to keep vessels from running on to these wrecks. The appropriation of $30,000 for gas buoys, made by the act approved on March 3, 1891, limited the Board to the payment of not exceeding $2,000 each, for gas buoys. This provision precluded the purchase of many of the larger class. The size of the buoy, which the Board has used so successfully for the past six or seven years, weighs about 6,000 pounds and costs about $2,000 on the other side of the Atlantic, where only it is made. The duty upon it is about 45 per cent ad valorem. That amount, with the freight, will make each buoy cost about $3,000 delivered at the general light-house depot. Ten more of these buoys are needed. The Board estimates that they will cost $30,000, and it is recommended that an appropriation of this amount be made for that purpose. THE PROPER POWER OF RUNNING LIGHTS. While the International Marine Congress was in session in this city in 1889 the question was raised as to the proper power of the running lights used by vessels of the merchant marine. No agreement could be reached, as the Congress was without accurate knowledge as to intensity of the lights proposed. It had been decided that the side lights of a vessel under way, which should be red on one side and green on the other, ought to be sufficiently powerful to be seen 2 miles, while the white top lights should be seen 5 miles. The Light-House Board was formally requested to ascertain the intensity of the proposed lights by actual experiment. The Board therefore appointed a committee, consisting of two of its inspectors, two of its engineers, with one of its own members as chairman, to do this work. This committee has acted on the matter and its report is presented as an appendix to this volume. Stating the matter in brief, it appears, that to be practically seen in fairly clear weather for 5 miles, a white light must have an intensity of 30-candle power, and that red and green lights to be seen 2 miles must each have a power of forty candles. ILLUSTRATION OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE LIST. Mariners have complained that they were unable to determine, from the description in the light-house list, the identity of the light stations by day, when the lights were not burning. The Board has therefore added to the descriptive narration in the light-house list, graphic representation. Cuts of prominent lights in the first and second light-house districts have been added to the last published light-house list. Those stations have been selected which could most readily be mistaken, especially at a distance, for others, and photographs of them were made from the point of view from which mariners would first see them, and from the photographs, the cuts were made. The pictures had to be obtained at small cost, and hence they can have little artistic merit, but they answer the designed purpose so well that the Board is encouraged to add to the next light-house list pictures of prominent lights in other districts. It is claimed that these cuts make the light-houses figured almost as useful to mariners by day as they are by night. INSPECTING LIGHTS. Each member is sup The Light-House Board consists of nine persons. posed to be an expert in some branch of pharology, and for that reason he is detailed to this duty. His value to the service increases as he comes in personal contact with the local light officers while in perform. ance of their duty, and this can be accomplished only by actual jour neys to the various districts. The theory is that light-house inspectors and engineers inspect the light-houses, light-ships, light-house and buoy depots and their appurtenances, and that the members of the Light-House Board inspect the work of the inspectors and engineers. In proportion as this theory is carried into effect uniformity and precision of action is insured. Proper inspection by members of the Board is, however, limited by the fact that their mileage, or traveling expenses, can be paid only from the $3,000 appropriation made yearly for inspecting lights. Small as this appropriation is, it is burdened by the provision that from it must be paid the rewards offered for information as to collisions and for the apprehension of those who have damaged light-house property. It is therefore recommended that this amount be increased to $5,000 for the coming year, or that the Board be authorized to pay its members' mileage or traveling expenses from the several general and special appropriations to which the travel may pertain. PERSONNEL. The following changes have taken place in the personnel of the Light-House Board since the date of the last annual report: Upon the death of the Hon. William Windom, Secretary of the Treasury, which occurred January 29, 1891, his successor, the Hon. Charles Foster, on February 25, 1891, became er officio president of the Light-House Board. On May 29, 1891, Rear-Admiral David B. Harmony, U. S. Navy, was detached from light-house duty, and on the same date Commodore James A. Greer, U. S. Navy, was ordered to that duty. On June 16, 1891, Maj. James F. Gregory, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, was temporarily relieved as engineer secretary and granted leave of absence with permission to go beyond sea. Capt. Frederick A. Mahan, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, and engineer of the fourth light-house district, on the same date, and in addition to his other duties, was detailed for duty, temporarily, as engineer secretary, during the absence on leave of Maj. Gregory, and on June 22, 1891, he assumed that duty. ESTIMATES FOR GENFRAL APPROPRIATIONS. ESTIMATES FOR SPECIAL APPROPRIATIONS. Absecon Buoy Depot, New Jersey... Bay State Shoal and Oak Point Shoal, Lake Ontario, New York, temporary floating lights... Beaufort Harbor range lights, North Carolina Big Oyster Beds light and fog-signal station, New Jersey. Bodega Head light and fog-signal station, California.... Buffalo Breakwater fog signal Lake Erie, New York $2,000 4,000 20,000 4,000 60,000 4,000 5,000 800 10, 000 25,000 45,000 30,000 3,400 4,300 Cape Hatteras light station, North Carolina (dwelling and oil house) Cheboygan River (front) range light, Straits of Mackinac, Michigan (additional land)............ 1,750 Chequamegon Point light and fog signal, Lake Superior, Wisconsin........ 10,000 30,000 Deadman Island light and fog signal, San Pedro Harbor, California.... 5,000 Authority. Devils Island, Apostle Group, Lake Superior, Wisconsin (permanent tower)... 22.000 Dog River Bar light station, Alabama. 20,000 Doboy Sound range lights, Georgia........ 1,500 Dollers Point and Hog Island Wharf range lights, James River, Virginia Forty-Mile Point light and fog-signal station, Lake Huron, Michigan. Grassy Point range lights, Maumee Bay, Lake Erie, Ohio 8,000 Grays Harbor light and fog-signal station, Washington. Hog Island light station, Virginia (to change light from fourth to first order) 125,000 90,000 Inside Passage beacon lights, Georgia and Florida 4,000 Key West light station, Florida, increasing height of tower. 4,500 |