The ledge was, with the help of divers, made approximately level with small broken stone and riprap. Upon this was placed a circular-stepped mass of concrete, 9 feet thick, built in 4 concentric layers. The lower layer is 69 feet in diameter and 3 feet thick. To form the layers of concrete, cylindrical bands of half inch iron, of the height and diameter required for the respective layers, were used. The upper surface of the concrete, 8 inches above mean low water, carries a conical pier, 30 feet high, 57 feet in diameter at the base, and crowned by a projecting coping 55 feet in diameter. The pier is made of heavy masonry backed with concrete, in which cisterns and cellars are located. The pier is surmounted by a granite dwelling one story and a half high. From the center of its front the granite light tower ascends. A landing-pier, 53 feet long and 25 feet wide, built of heavy masonry, gives access to the lighthouse. The whole structure is surrounded and protected by riprap. The tower, which is square at the base and octagonal at the top, carries a fourth-order alternating flash white and red electric light of 90,000 candlepower, being 67 feet above sea level and 45 feet above land, and visible 14 miles at sea. (1) (2) _NORTH CAROLINA_ CAPE FEAR LIGHTHOUSE, “BALD HEAD LIGHT” On December 14, 1790, the State of North Carolina ceded to the United States 10 acres of land on Cape Fear Island, in response to the invitation held out by the act of August 7, 1789, for the States to make cessions to the Federal Government of “lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and public piers, and lots of land for lighthouses, etc.” On April 2, 1792, Congress appropriated $4,000 and provided “that the Secretary of the Treasury, under the direction of the President of the United States, be authorized, as soon as may be, to cause to be finished in such manner as shall appear advisable, the lighthouse heretofore begun under the authority of the State of North Carolina, on Bald Head, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River in said State.” Three further appropriations totalling $7,359.14 were made between 1793 and 1797 and the light was completed and first shone in 1796. Between 1813 and 1817, $16,000 was appropriated “for rebuilding Bald Head Lighthouse.” [Illustration] On July 1, 1834, Capt. Henry D. Hunter of the revenue cutter Taney inspected Bald Head Light which he described as having 15 lamps, 109 feet above the level of the sea, showing a fixed light. Two years later he again inspected the light. “The keeper is an old revolutionary soldier,” he reported “and is unable from sickness to give the lighthouse his constant personal attention. The light, however, shows well from a distance.”