Keeping the building in repair is one of the lighthouse-keepers’ duties. This is especially urgent in the case of an iron structure. This tower is 78 feet high, the light being visible for 15 miles.] The first tower to be brought into service in New Zealand was that on Pencarrow Head, to indicate the entrance to the inlet in which Wellington nestles. It shed its rays for the first time on New Year’s Day, 1859. It is an iron structure, from the top of which a fixed white light may be picked up by a vessel twenty-seven miles off the coast. The iron had to be prepared and shaped in England, as there was no foundry in the islands at that time capable of executing the work. The building was shipped to New Zealand in sections and erected. To-day, owing to the growth of the iron industry, the country can supply all its own needs in this field without difficulty, but in all cases the lanterns, mechanism, and lenses, have to be acquired in Europe. As may be imagined, with such a rugged coastline as New Zealand possesses, some of the stations are terribly lonely and difficult of access, owing to the treacherous nature of the waters over which they mount guard. With the exception of the Brothers light, which is situated on an exposed rock in Cook’s Strait, three keepers are maintained at each island lighthouse--one as relief--and at the more isolated mainland lights. Those of the latter stations which are within easy reach of civilization have only two keepers. The Brothers light, which is New Zealand’s most lonely station, has four keepers, three on the rock at one time, while the fourth is ashore. The spell of service on the rock is three months, followed by one month’s leave. The wives and families of the men reside at Wellington. The authorities, however, do not condemn the light-keeper to one station throughout his whole term of service. He undergoes frequent transference, so that all may have a turn at good and bad stations. The duration of the stay at each light averages about three years, so that there is very little possibility of these patient, long-suffering stalwarts being condemned to such a period of loneliness as to provoke taciturnity and melancholia.