When the screw-pile lighthouses came into vogue, this danger was advanced as one of the greatest objections to the adoption of this idea. It was pointed out that the ice would pack around the slender legs, and either snap them, or would bring about such severe distortion as to imperil the safety of the superstructure. When Major Hartman Bache undertook the erection of the Brandywine Shoal light in Delaware Bay, he determined to frustrate the effects of this peril. The light, being eight miles from the ocean, was right in the path of the ice-shoves of the Potomac, so the nine iron legs upon which the beacon is supported--eight in a circle and one central--are protected by what is known as an “ice-breaker.” This is a pier of thirty iron piles, which likewise are screwed into the sea-bed. Each pile is 23 feet long by 5 inches in diameter, and they are connected at their heads, and at a point just above low-water, by what are known as “spider-web braces.” The result is that, when a shock is inflicted upon one pile, it is communicated throughout the entire breaker. This system has proved entirely successful, and has protected the lighthouse within completely. The main building, although subjected to heavy attacks by the piled ice, has never been damaged thereby, although subsequently it became necessary to strengthen the ice-breaker, because the onslaughts of several winters had left their mark. Off the coast of Florida, and in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, this type of lighthouse is very strongly in evidence, as it was found to be the most suitable for the coral sea-bed. The most notable structure of this class is the Fowey Rocks light, which rises, a flame-crowned skeleton, from the extreme northern point of the Florida reefs. It is in an exposed position, where inclement weather is often experienced. At this point there is not more than 3 feet of water, and the spot is as bad as a mariner could wish to avoid, for no ship could hope to escape destruction once it became entangled in these submerged toils. The building of this light presented many perplexing difficulties, the greatest of which was offered by the weather. The structure is an octagonal pyramid, with the keepers’ quarters on a lower deck, communication with the lantern being afforded by a winding staircase encircling a vertical cylinder. The light is 110¼ feet above high-water, of the fixed type, with red sectors guarding dangerous shoals in the vicinity, while the white beams can be picked up some eleven miles away.