The letter which was sent to the United States was placed in the hands of the Coast Survey. The plan was highly approved, and Congress made a grant of 5,000 dollars, in order to try it experimentally. After a long series of experiments, in which its merits were severely tested, a report was made to Congress strongly recommending its adoption. I then received a very pressing invitation to visit the United States, for the purpose of assisting to put it in action. It was conveyed to me by an amiable and highly cultivated person, the late Mr. Reed, Professor of English Literature at Philadelphia, who, on his arrival in London, proposed that I should accompany him on his return in October, the best season for the voyage, and in the finest vessel of their mercantile navy. I had long had a great wish to visit the American continent, but I did {457} not think it worth crossing the Atlantic, unless I could have spent a twelvemonth in America. Finding this impossible under the then circumstances, about a month before the time arrived I resigned with great reluctance the pleasure of accompanying my friend to his own country.
〈THE AUTHOR’S ESCAPE.〉
It was most fortunate that I was thus prevented from embarking on board the Arctic, a steamer of the largest class.
Steaming at the rate of thirteen knots an hour over the banks of Newfoundland during a dense fog, the Arctic was run into by a steamer of about half its size, moving at the rate of seven knots. The concussion was in this instance fatal to the larger vessel.
This sad catastrophe was thus described by the brother of my lost friend:—
“On the 20th of September, 1854, Mr. Reed, with his sister, embarked at Liverpool for New York, in the United States steamship Arctic. Seven days afterwards, at noon, on the 27th, when almost in sight of his native land, a fatal collision occurred, and before sundown every human being left upon the ship had sunk under the waves of the ocean. The only survivor who personally acquainted with my brother, saw him about two o’clock, P.M., after the collision, and not very long before the ship sank, sitting with his sister in the small passage aft of the dining-saloon. They were tranquil and silent, though their faces wore the look of painful anxiety. They probably afterwards left this position, and repaired to the promenade deck. For a selfish struggle for life, with a helpless companion dependent upon him, with a physical frame unsuited for such a strife, and above all, with a sentiment of religious resignation which taught him in that hour of agony, even with the memory of his wife and children thronging in his mind, to bow his head in {458} submission to the will of God,—for such a struggle he was wholly unsuited; and his is the praise, that he perished with the women and children.”
〈OCCULTING LIGHT AT BRUSSELS.〉
In 1853 I spent some weeks at Brussels. During my residence in that city a Congress of naval officers from all the maritime nations assembled to discuss and agree upon certain rules and observations to be arranged for the common benefit of all. One evening I had the great pleasure of receiving the whole party at my house for the purpose of witnessing my occulting lights.
The portable occulting light which I had brought with me was placed in the verandah on the first floor, and we then went along the Boulevards to see its effect at different distances and with various numerical signals. On our return several papers relating to the subject were lying upon the table. The Russian representative, M. ———, took up one of the original printed descriptions and was much interested in it. On taking leave he asked, with some hesitation, whether I would lend it to him for a few hours. I told him at once that if I possessed another copy I would willingly give it to him; but that not being the case I could only offer to lend it. M. ——— therefore took it home with him, and when I sat down to breakfast the next morning I found it upon my table. In the course of the day I met my Russian friend in the Park. I expressed my hope that he had been interested by the little tract he had so speedily returned. He replied that it had interested him so much that he had sat up all night, had copied the whole of it, and that his transcript and a despatch upon the subject was now on its way by the post to his own Government.
Several years after I was informed that occulting solar lights {459} were used by the Russians during the siege of Sebastopol.