A fixed white light, thrown from the tower of St. Philip’s Church, and visible for 18 miles, forms the rear light of the main channel range in Charleston Harbour, South Carolina.] One lighthouse on the Atlantic coast of the United States possesses a pathetic and romantic interest. It indicates the treacherous shores around Cape Henry, and mounts sentinel on the headland at the southerly side of the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. The stranger on the passing ship, as he scans the dreary bench of sand rising from the water’s edge at this point, has his attention arrested by two gaunt towers. The foremost is almost lapped by the water; the other is some distance to the rear, and upon a higher level. “Two lights, and for what?” is a natural exclamation. But only one tower--that nearer the waves--throws its glare by night. Its companion behind has passed its cycle of utility long since, but it has not been demolished because of its unique history. It was built in 1789 with bricks and stones brought from England. In shape it is a tapering octagonal cone, and when first erected the waves almost washed its base. But the sea, which eats away the rock and soft soil at some parts, casts this débris ashore here, so that Cape Henry is slowly but surely thrusting its dismal tongue of sand farther and farther into the Atlantic. The old tower fulfilled faithful service until the seventies, when, being considered too far from the water, it was superseded by the shaft rising from the sand-dunes below. After a century’s service the old light was extinguished, to permit the fixed white light of the first order in the new tower to take its place. The new building, completed in 1881, is likewise octagonal in section, gradually tapering from the base to the lantern gallery. It is built upon what is described as the “double-shell principle,” there being two iron cylinders, one within the other. It is 152 feet in height, and the powerful white beam has a range of twenty miles, while a red beam is cast from one side to mark a dangerous shoal. As a powerful flashing white light of a similar character is shed from a tower on Cape Charles opposite, the mariner has a well-illumined entrance into Chesapeake Bay. Ice was one of the great difficulties against which the American lighthouse builders had to contend, and they laboured valiantly to mitigate this evil. It caused more damage to their works than wind and wave of the most terrifying violence. The upper reaches of the great rivers are encased with thick ice throughout the winter. When the spring comes round, this brittle armour is broken up, and, caught by the current, is swept toward the ocean, the floes jostling and crashing among one another. When the slightest obstruction is offered to their free movement, the pieces mount one another, forming large hummocks, and the pressure thus imposed is terrific. The “ice-shove,” when it assumes large proportions, is quite capable of wreaking widespread damage.