Men are mercifully given time to live. But they are too busy to get ready to live, and too busy to heed the warnings that, if heeded, would save and prolong their lives.
(3431)
On an island off the Connecticut coast there stands, says Harper’s Weekly, a huge revolving platform whereon are placed eight large megaphones, each measuring some seventeen feet and having a mouth seven feet in diameter.
These horns are intended to cry warning to vessels at every point of the compass, the power being furnished by a steam-whistle. Their cry has been heard a distance of twenty miles, and when the wind is favorable it will carry nearly twice as far.
The instruments utter their warnings every fifteen seconds, each megaphone giving out its cry in turn, so that the warning notes make their way out over the water in every direction. There is a combination of short and long blasts for each point of the compass, so that mariners may know exactly whence the sound proceeds.
At Diamond Shoals, off Cape Hatteras, that graveyard of the Atlantic, where, by reason of the shifty character of the soil, it has been found impracticable to erect a lighthouse, the Federal Government has installed a contrivance held down by “mushroom” anchors. This instrument consists of two big megaphones, with a diaphragm vibrated by electricity. The machine is operated by clockwork, and, once wound up, shouts for many months without the necessity of any attention on the part of attendants. In calm weather the shout of this instrument is audible for a distance of twenty-five miles.
To be useful these warning voices must be heeded. So is it with moral warnings, of which the world is full.
(3432)
WARNING, AUTOMATIC