Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson has introduced a new type of reinforced concrete lighthouse with flying buttresses. The latter are not required for strength, but are utilized to give greater stiffness to the tower, as a column 100 feet or more in height, no matter how strongly it may be built, must vibrate and swing in high winds. Yet it is desirable to keep the lantern as steady as possible, and this is achieved much more completely upon the above principle. The engineer-in-chief of the lighthouse authority of the Canadian Government considers this method of construction to be the last word in lighthouse building, and has completed some notable works upon these lines. Perhaps the most important is the Estevan Point light, on the west coast of Vancouver, at a place known as Hole-in-the-Wall. The tower, of octagonal, tapering form, is 127 feet in height, and throws a white group-flashing light, comprising three flashes each of 9·3 seconds with two eclipses, each of 1·37 seconds, and a final eclipse of 6·36 seconds between each group, seventeen miles out to sea. The surroundings of this station are most romantic. Landing anywhere in its vicinity is extremely difficult and dangerous, and the engineer had to select a point about two miles distant for this purpose. From this place a road and tramway have been laid through a grand primeval forest, such as is to be found only upon Vancouver Island, wherein roams a drove of magnificent wild cattle. While the Canadian coast cannot point to any lighthouse work comparing with the Eddystone, Skerryvore, or Heaux de Bréhat, yet its most powerful beacons are of a commanding character, representing as they do the latest and best in connection with coast lighting. There is an enormous stretch of difficult shore to patrol, along which has to be guided an immense volume of valuable shipping. In addition to the attended lights, the Government has been extremely enterprising in the adoption of unattended beacons (described in another chapter), miles of lonely, inhospitable shore being guarded in this way. Although the development in this direction is of comparatively recent date, the protection of maritime trade is being carried out in accordance with a comprehensive policy, so that within a few years the coasts of the Dominion will be rendered as safe to the shipping of the world as human ingenuity can contrive. CHAPTER XIII THE MINOT’S LEDGE LIGHT Lovers of Longfellow will recall the poet’s song to the lighthouse, but how many of his admirers know to what beacon these stirring lines refer? When they were penned the author had in his mind’s eye an example of the engineer’s handiwork which ranks as one of the finest sea-rock lights in existence, worthy of comparison with the most famous of similar structures scattered throughout the waters washing the Old World.