Lightships and Lighthouses

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

Under these circumstances Cape Race is to the western side of the Atlantic what the Fastnet and Bishop Rocks are to the eastern boundaries of this ocean. Even if the wild character of the coast were not sufficient justification for a light, the currents experienced off these shores, which are of high velocity and violently broken up by the indentations and protuberances, would demand the provision of a beacon. Over one hundred vessels of all descriptions have been smashed to pieces in the vicinity of Cape Race alone. The Allan liner Anglo-Saxon crashed into the cliffs and went down in 1864 with 290 souls. In this instance the death-roll would have been far heavier had it not been for the pluck and grit of the lighthouse-keepers, who, observing the wreck, hurried to the water’s edge, lowered themselves with ropes from the heights above, and, stumbling, groping, and feeling their way through the darkness, at imminent risk to their own limbs and lives, rescued 130 of the luckless passengers and crew from the wreck, who were huddled on a ledge under the cliffs, hungry, shivering with cold, and too exhausted to assist themselves. The light-keepers and men from the telegraph-station had to lift these helpless survivors one by one to the top of the precipice, a task demanding herculean effort, patience, and intrepidity, and to lead and help them to the lighthouse, where they were tended until a steamer, answering the telegraphic call for help, came round from St. John’s and took the hapless people off.

In 1901 the Assyrian ran ashore in calm weather, and was too firmly jammed on a reef to extricate herself. A week later another fine vessel and cargo worth £80,000, or $400,000, was battered to pulp by the waves, the lighthouse-keepers once more, at great risk to themselves, putting out and rescuing those on board in the nick of time. Ere the excitement of this wreck had died down, a French emigrant steamer, the Lusitania, ran full-tilt on to a reef, and but for the timely aid rendered by the lighthouse-keepers and the fisherfolk 550 people would have been drowned. More fearful catastrophes have been enacted within hail of the lights at Cape Race and Cape Ray, hard by to the west, and more millions sterling of cargo and ship have been shattered and lost here than upon any other corresponding stretch of coast in the world. The most noticeable point in connection with these disasters is the large number of big boats which have ended their careers abruptly off this spot, although the rocks have claimed a big share of small fry as well.

The first beacon was placed on the headland in 1856. It was a cylindrical tower, built up of cast-iron plates, erected near the edge of the cliff, which is 87 feet high. The tower itself being 38 feet in height, the focal plane of the beam was at an elevation of 125 feet above the sea. It was erected jointly by the British and Newfoundland Government authorities, although the maintenance thereof was entrusted to Great Britain. In return for the provision of this warning, a tax of one-sixteenth of a penny, or an eighth of a cent, per ton, was collected in England from vessels passing the light. The beacon was not particularly powerful, the ray being only of some 6,000 candle-power.

Some years ago the lighthouse was handed over to the Canadian Government to be included in its service, together with the balance of the fund which had accrued from the levy of the special tax. This sum represented £20,579, or $102,895. The Canadian Government abolished the light-due, and the surplus funds were absorbed into the general revenue of the country.

The new owners, realizing the importance of the light, subsequently decided to provide a new beacon of greater power to meet the demands of shipping, which had increased amazingly. In 1907 this structure was completed. It is a cylindrical tower, carried out in reinforced concrete, 100 feet in height, surmounted by a lantern of the first order with hyperradial apparatus. This is the largest type of optical apparatus in use at the present time, and the ray of light produced by an incandescent oil-burner and mantle is of 1,100,000 candle-power, shed from an elevation of 195 feet above the water. The warning flash of a quarter of a second every seven and a half seconds is visible from a distance of nineteen miles. In addition, the fog-signalling apparatus was brought up to date. The steam-whistle, which had sufficed up to the date of reconstruction, was replaced by a diaphone of the greatest power installed up to that time. This is set up about 250 feet south of the lighthouse, with which it is connected by a covered passage. The air required to emit the warning blast, lasting three and a half seconds once in every half-minute, is compressed by the aid of steam. By day the lighthouse is readily distinguishable from its red and white vertical stripes, red lantern, and white dwelling with red roof, in which the keepers have their quarters. To-day the station ranks as one of the finest in the world, complying in every respect with the requisitions for one of a first-class character.

Sable Island is perhaps an even more evil spot in the North Atlantic than the ill-famed Newfoundland coast. It is a bleak, inhospitable, crescent-shaped collection of sand-dunes, eighty-five miles due east of Nova Scotia and lying right in the steamship tracks. A more uninviting stretch of dry land could not be conceived. Little grows here beyond a special kind of brush, which appears to flourish in sea-swept billows of sand. But the obstacle is formidable, being twenty-two miles in length by a mile in width at its broadest part. This does not constitute the extent of its dangers—far from it. The island is slowly but surely being swallowed up by the restless, hissing sea, with the result that, when one stands on the almost indistinguishable line where sea meets land, an aspect of white ruffs of foam curl in all directions as far as the eye can see, where the surf is thundering over the shoals. I have related the toll that this island of the dead has exacted from shipping,[A] and now confine myself to describing the means that have been provided to warn the mariner off its bars. The Canadian Government maintains two lighthouses, at the western and eastern extremities respectively, and those entrusted with their safe-keeping have as lonely an existence as may be conceived. The welcome face of a stranger never brightens their lives, except when the relief-boat draws in as far as it dares in the calmest weather, or when some luckless wretches are snatched from a vessel which has fallen into the toils of the sand and is doomed. The sea-birds and seals are their sole companions on this lonely outpost.

[A] “The Steamship Conquest of the World,” chapter xxi., p. 299.

Photo by courtesy of Lieut.-Col. W. P. Anderson.

THE LIGHT AT THE SOUTHERN END OF BELLE ILE.