Aids to navigation maintained by the Light-House Establishment on June 30, 1892. Electric lights. Second-order lights.. Third-order lights. Fourth-order lights.. Fifth-order lights. Sixth-order Lens lanterns Range lenses. Reflectors..... Tubular lanterns. Light-vessels in posi Electric buoys Total lighted aids Fog signals operated 201「 382「62 APPROPRIATIONS MADE AT THE FIRST SESSION OF THE FIFTY-SECOND CONGRESS FOR LIGHT-HOUSE PURPOSES. Bar Point light-ship, Lake Erie, Michigan..... Buffalo Breakwater fog signal, Lake Erie, New York Cape Mendocino light-station, California, roadway Depot for thirteenth light-house district, Oregon, $15,000 $25,000 4,300 Authorized. 500 Authorized. Grassy Island range-lights, Detroit River, Michigan Eleven-Foot Shoal, Michigan, one or more light-ships, $60,000 8, 600. Authorized. 1,000 1,500 Limekiln Crossing light-ships, Detroit River, Michigan. Key West light-station, Florida, increasing height of tower. 2,500 3,000 1,000 1,500 70,000 Patrol steamer for St. Marys River, Michigan.. St. Marys River upper range lights, Michigan Staten Island Light-House Depot, New York, sea wall.. 10,000 4,000 10,000 1,000 5,000 1,200 25,000 6,000 For legal services in examining title to land and water front at Ports- For legal services in correcting error in title to site for light-house at Payment to George S. Prindle, special assistant United States attorney, For salaries of keepers of light-houses.. For supplies of light-houses, except for services over Pacific railroads For expenses of light-vessels For expenses of buoyage For lighting of rivers For supplies of light-houses.... For expenses of buoyage, except for services over Pacific railroads... Total.... $244.25 79.30 75.00 111.27 2, 411. 18 202.98 4, 473.66 2, 124. 11 530.28 1,977.69 12, 229.72 A detailed statement of the work done in each of the sixteen lighthouse districts is made in the body of the report, under specified headings, from which it will be evident that the Board has brought the numerous and varied aids to navigation under its charge up to the proper standard, and that it has done all that was possible, with the funds provided, to meet the requirements of commerce and navigation. THE PROHIBITION OF PRIVATE LIGHTS. The following recommendation, which has been made in many previous annual reports, is renewed: The Board renews its recommendations that proper steps be taken to prohibit the establishment or maintenance of private lights and buoys in the navigable waters of the United States except with the consent of the Board, and it again asks that provisions be made to enable it to establish inexpensive and temporary lights in case of exigency and pending the action of Congress. In this connection the Board begs leave to repeat the recommendation made in its annual report for 1883: "Some action should be taken relative to the establishment of lights and buoys by steamboat companies and other private parties, simply for their own convenience. The Board can not establish a light without special authority of law in each case. It never exhibits a light without previously issuing a formal notice to mariners, and it never extinguishes one without giving similar notice sufficiently in advance to inform all concerned. Private lights are established and extinguished without such notice, much to the annoyance of mariners, who are confused and misled by irregular beacons. Besides this, the lights, not being properly kept, go out from time to time. "One of the best of these private lights is that exhibited from Blackwells Island by the municipality of New York City. It has gone out a number of times recently, and so much to the inconvenience, if not danger, of mariners that complaint has been made and the Board has been subjected to unmerited criticism for failing to do what was alleged to be its duty, when in fact it has not the slightest control over that light. Under these circumstances the Board suggests that the exhibition of lights and the placing of buoys by corporations or private parties be prohibited by law. Lest any interest should suffer thereby it is further suggested that the Board, on being satisfied that it is immediately necessary to do so, be authorized to establish inexpensive temporary lights, if necessary, on leased land, and to pay for their erection and maintenance, together with the cost of employing laborers to act as keepers, as is now done on the western rivers, from the general appropriations for the support of the Light-House Establishment, provided that funds can be spared from them for that purpose, and further provided that the Board shall make report of its actions in each case, with the reason therefor, so that Congress may decide as to the continuance of each light." OIL HOUSES. The Board again recommends that appropriation be made for the erection of small, inexpensive structures near to, but separate from, light-houses, in which to keep a year's supply of mineral oil, the illuminant now used by the Light-House Establishment. Last year the Board estimated that $15,000 could be expended with great advantage during the year, among the larger, more isolated, and more important light-stations. An appropriation of $10,000 was made for that purpose, which will be expended during the current year. It is estimated that $15,000 will be needed and can be profitably expended in building oil houses during the coming fiscal year, and the appropriation of that amount is therefore recommended. The recommendation made in the annual report for each of the last six years was accompanied by the following explanation: The substitution of mineral oil for lard oil in the light-house service, which has been in progress for several years, is now finished. As the quantity of the oil now used is larger, and as its bulk is greater than was that of the oil formerly used, and as the mineral oil is much more likely to occasion fire, and indeed to take fire, than was the lard oil, the Board has come to the conclusion, in the interest of safety, to advise that the proper steps be taken to have a house erected at each of the larger stations from a plan specially devised after careful study for the purpose. THE LOWEST BID. The following recommendation, which was made in the Board's annual report for each year since 1887, is renewed: The Board calls attention to the hampered condition in which it is left by that provision of law which requires the Board to accept the lowest bid to do work for which it has advertised for proposals, no matter how unfit the bidder or how impossible it may be for him to do good work, provided he can give a good bond. It has repeatedly happened that under this clause the Board has been forced to contract with persons who had no proper plant to do the work; with persons who, to get the work, had bid far below its proper cost, and with persons who had done poor work for the Board under previous contracts, and in each instance the result was, as was to be expected, poor, unsatisfactory, unreliable work, which it was necessary to begin to repair soon after it was finished. As an instance of this the Board refers to the case of the steamer Zizania, which should have been completed more than a year ago. Eight months after she should have been finished the contractors made an assignment, and the Government was forced to finish the vessel itself. It was then found that much of the work done was of so poor a character that it became necessary to do it over. This added largely to the cost of the vessel and increased the time required for building it. The Board needed the tender at the time the appropriation was made for her construction. It would have had her services more than a year ago if the contract had been let to the best rather than the lowest bidder. The recourse against the sureties of contractors for bad work, as a rule, fails to be effective. In rare cases where a penalty has been exacted it has been made the basis of claims against Congress which have been sometimes prosecuted to a successful issue. But, bad as this is, there is nothing to prevent failing or fraudulent contractors from becoming the lowest bidders for fresh work. In fact there is nothing under the present state of the law, and the construction given it, to prevent the failing contractors for the tender Zizania, bad and late as their work was, from getting the contract for building the new supply ship, for which appropriation has just been made, if they bid low enough and can again provide satisfactory bondsmen. The Board suggests that it may be protected against such evils by appropriate legislation. The following is the text of section 4667, Revised Statutes: "No contract for the erection of any light-house shall be made except after public advertisement for proposals in such form and manner as to secure general notice thereof, and the same shall only be made with the lowest bidder therefor, upon security deemed sufficient in the judgment of the Secretary of the Treasury." It is proposed that this section be modified by adding the following proviso: "Provided, That when, in the opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury, it shall be detrimental to the interests of the Government to contract with the lowest bidder, he shall contract with the next lowest bidder not subject to similar objections, but the Secretary of the Treasury shall put on record his reasons therefor in each such case in the letter rejecting such lowest bid or bids." NEW WORKS AUTHORIZED. Congress authorized, by different acts, the establishment of two dif ferent light-stations at a cost, in the aggregate, of about $55,000, but no appropriations were made for their construction. The following. named aids to navigation were authorized by these acts: Rockland Lake light-station with fog signal, Oyster Bed Shoal, Hudson $35,000 St. Catherine Island light-station, Georgia, authorized by act of March 2, 1889. 20,000 LIGHTING BRIDGES. The following recommendation, which was made in the Board's annual report for each year since 1887, is renewed: All persons operating bridges over navigable rivers were required by the act of August 7, 1882, to maintain such lights on them as may be required by the LightHouse Board for the security of navigation. The Board in due time, and after careful examination and preparation, issued a set of regulations for lighting such bridges, fully illustrated by diagrams. Persons operating such bridges have, however, obeyed these regulations only so far as they have chosen. The Board, having been unable to induce full compliance with its rules, made a test case of the most important instance of failure to comply with its regulations, and reported the matter through the proper channels to the Department of Justice for legal action. The United States attorney to whom the matter was assigned reported in effect that he could accomplish nothing by prosecution, as "the statute prescribes no penalty for its violation and gives no remedy or means for its enforcement." The United States attorney further states: "That it is a common-law rule that when a statute forbids or requires an act to be done, an indictment will lie against an offender if the matter involved is one of public concern, but it is a familiar principle of Federal practice that crimes and their penalties must be the subject of specific Federal legislation, and recourse to common-law principles are therefore futile. It seems to me therefore * that, in order to remedy the evils to safe navigation in the East River by reason of improper lights upon the Brooklyn Bridge, Congress must pass an act prescribing a punishment for disobedience to the orders of the Light-House Board." It is therefore submitted that the proper steps should be taken to obtain the suggested legislation. NECESSARY NEW STRUCTURES. The following recommendation, made in the Board's annual report for each year since 1887, is renewed: 66 For several years past the Board has included in its annual estimates of appropriations, under the head of repairs and incidental expenses of light-houses, a clause stating that the objects of the appropriations are to be considered as including of necessary new structures" (see Book of Estimates, 1888-'89, p. 203). The object this is to sanction a practice which has prevailed since the foundation of the LightHouse Establishment until quite recently, viz, the erection at established stations, as the needs of the service may require, of additional structures of small cost from the current annual appropriations The clause in question has, however, been cut out by the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives from year |