The average annual cost of maintenance of an English shore lighthouse, with two keepers, is £275. For shore lighthouses with three keepers and a siren fog signal the average cost is £444. The maintenance of a rock lighthouse with four keepers and an explosive fog signal is about £760, and an electric light station costs about £1100 annually to maintain.
A light-vessel of the ordinary type in use in the United Kingdom entails an annual expenditure on maintenance of approximately £1320, excluding the cost of periodical overhaul.
Authorities.—Smeaton, Eddystone Lighthouse (London, 1793); A. Fresnel, Mémoire sur un nouveau system d’éclairage des phares (Paris, 1822); R. Stevenson, Bell Rock Lighthouse (Edinburgh, 1824); Alan Stevenson, Skerryvore Lighthouse (1847); Renaud, Mémoire sur l’éclairage et le balisage des côtes de France (Paris, 1864); Allard, Mémoire sur l’intensité et la portée des phares (Paris, 1876); T. Stevenson, Lighthouse Construction and Illumination (London, 1881); Allard, Mémoire sur les phares électriques (Paris, 1881); Renaud, Les Phares (Paris, 1881); Edwards, Our Sea Marks (London, 1884); D. P. Heap, Ancient and Modern Lighthouses (Boston, 1889); Allard, Les Phares (Paris, 1889); Rey, Les Progrès d’éclairage des côtes (Paris, 1898); Williams, Life of Sir J. N. Douglass (London, 1900); J. F. Chance, The Lighthouse Work of Sir Jas. Chance (London, 1902); de Rochemont and Deprez, Cours des travaux maritimes, vol. ii. (Paris, 1902); Ribière, Phares et Signaux maritimes (Paris, 1908); Stevenson, “Isle of May Lighthouse,” Proc. Inst. Mech. Engineers (1887); J. N. Douglass, “Beacon Lights and Fog Signals,” Proc. Roy. Inst. (1889); Ribière, “Propriétés optiques des appareils des phares,” Annales des ponts et chaussées (1894); Preller, “Coast Lighthouse Illumination in France,” Engineering (1896); “Lighthouse Engineering at the Paris Exhibition,” Engineer (1901-1902); N. G. Gedye, “Coast Fog Signals,” Engineer (1902); Trans. Int. Nav. Congress (Paris, 1900, Milan, 1905); Proc. Int. Eng. Congress (Glasgow, 1901, St Louis, 1904); Proc. Int. Maritime Congress (London, 1893); J. T. Chance, “On Optical Apparatus used in Lighthouses,” Proc. Inst. C.E. vol. xxvi.; J. N. Douglass, “The Wolf Rock Lighthouse,” ibid. vol. xxx.; W. Douglass, “Great Basses Lighthouse,” ibid. vol. xxxviii.; J. T. Chance, “Dioptric Apparatus in Lighthouses,” ibid. vol. lii.; J. N. Douglass, “Electric Light applied to Lighthouse Illumination,” ibid. vol. lvii.; W. T. Douglass, “The New Eddystone Lighthouse,” ibid. vol. lxxv.; Hopkinson, “Electric Lighthouses at Macquarie and Tino,” ibid. vol. lxxxvii.; Stevenson, “Ailsa Craig Lighthouse and Fog Signals,” ibid. vol. lxxxix.; W. T. Douglass, “The Bishop Rock Lighthouses,” ibid. vol. cviii.; Brebner, “Lighthouse Lenses,” ibid. vol. cxi.; Stevenson, “Lighthouse Refractors,” ibid. vol. cxvii.; Case, “Beachy Head Lighthouse,” ibid. vol. clix.; Notice sur les appareils d’éclairage (French Lighthouse Service exhibits at Chicago and Paris) (Paris, 1893 and 1900); Report on U.S. Lighthouse Board Exhibit at Chicago (Washington, 1894); Reports of the Lighthouse Board of the United States (Washington, 1852, et seq.); British parliamentary reports, Lighthouse Illuminants (1883, et seq.), Light Dues (1896), Trinity House Fog Signal Committee (1901), Royal Commission on Lighthouse Administration (1908); Mémoires de la Société des Ingénieurs Civils de France, Annales des ponts et chaussées (Paris); Proc. Inst. C. E.; The Engineer; Engineering (passim).
(W. T. D.; N. G. G.)
[1] A full account is given in Hermann Thiersch, Pharos Antike, Islam und Occident (1909). See also [Minaret].
[2] In 1901 one of the lights decided upon in 1886 and installed in 1888—Créac’h d’Ouessant—was replaced by a still more powerful twin apparatus exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exhibition. Subsequently similar apparatus to that at Créac’h were installed at Gris-Nez, La Canche, Planier, Barfleur, Belle-Île and La Coubre, and the old Dunkerque optic has been replaced by that removed from Belle-Île.
[3] Both the Talais and Snouw light-vessels have since been converted into unattended light-vessels.
[4] For the purposes of the mariner a light is classed as flashing or occulting solely according to the duration of light and darkness and without any reference to the apparatus employed. Thus, an occulting apparatus, in which the period of darkness is greater than that of light, is classed in the Admiralty “List of Lights” as a “flashing” light.
[5] The Flamborough Head rocket was superseded by a siren fog signal in 1908.