One of the worst wrecks which have happened upon the shores of New South Wales was that of the steamer _Ly-ce-moon_. By some inexplicable means the ship got out of her course on a fine Sunday night, and came to grief off Green Cape. The lighthouse-keepers at once hurried to the rescue, the hapless passengers, as they were got ashore, being tended at the station until they were removed to their homes. The lighthouse-keepers worked tremendously hard, but they were not entirely successful. Although by herculean effort they brought a large number of people to safety, there is a small fenced enclosure in the Bush behind the station where lie the remains of some fifty persons who lost their lives in the wreck, and whose bodies were washed ashore. While New South Wales has a comparatively easy length of coastline to protect, the neighbouring colony of New Zealand, on the other hand, has a wild, forbidding, and extensive stretch of shore. Up to the present the Government has concentrated its energies upon the illumination of the busiest reaches of water, and has planted prominent outposts at the respective extreme tips of the twin islands. During the financial year ending March 31, 1912, sixteen wrecks occurred in these seas, of which six were total losses. The most ill-famed corner appears to be the large sweeping indentation at the southern end of North Island, lying between Cape Egmont and Wellington, particularly in the vicinity of Wanganui, since this stretch of coast claimed five victims. Cook’s Strait, which is dangerous to navigators, is well protected, however, the most prominent beacon being that on Stephens Island, its group-flashes, occurring every thirty seconds, being particularly powerful, and having a range of thirty-two miles. [Illustration: THE CAPE BYRON LIGHTHOUSE, NEW SOUTH WALES.] [Illustration: THE MACQUARIE LIGHTHOUSE, SOUTH HEAD OF SYDNEY HARBOUR, NEW SOUTH WALES. The original tower, erected in 1816, was the first lighthouse built in the State. In 1882 it made way for the present magnificent station.] The Marine Department maintains thirty-two coastal lights, of which twenty-two are on the mainland, and ten situate on islands off the coast. They are of a varied description, ranging from powerful lights of the first order to beacons dependent upon dissolved acetylene, stored in cylinders of sufficient capacity to keep the light gleaming for sixty days continuously. Some of the places in which the warning lights are placed are exceedingly lonely and inaccessible, so that the perfection of the unattended light has solved a complex problem, and has enabled many terrible stretches of forbidding coast to be well indicated. [Illustration: _By permission of the Lighthouse Literature Mission._ PAINTING THE TROUBRIDGE LIGHTHOUSE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA.