This is where the chemist and the engineer in collaboration have triumphed. By their joint efforts it is now possible to supply the most inhospitable shore with a belt of lights equal in every respect to those mounting sentinel over the more densely populated reaches of coast in the civilized parts of the globe. The unattended lighthouse is a modern development born of necessity, which has proved highly serviceable, effective, and reliable. The passenger, as he lolls against the taffrail of the steamer ploughing her way carefully through the lane 375 miles long separating the mainland of South America from Tierra del Fuego, and watches the faithful star twinkling upon the top of a frowning cliff and urging the mariner to keep clear, may cherish a feeling of pity for the man who has to keep that beam shining. But his commiseration is misplaced. No human hands touch that beacon, perhaps, for six months or more at a time. It is a triumph of automatic operation. The same applies to the wicked shores of New Zealand, the uninviting northern stretches of the Gulf of Bothnia, the iron-bound coasts of Norway and Sweden, and many another unattractive mainland and island. All the great maritime nations possess several of these silent, faithful lights, which, although upon their introduction they were regarded with a certain amount of suspicion, owing to the urgent necessity of a light never failing in its duty for the guidance of the seafarer, yet have been proved by the convincing lesson of experience to be as reliable in every respect as the light which is tended by human hands. So far as Great Britain is concerned, the unattended light has been brought to a high stage of efficiency and utility by the efforts of Messrs. David and Charles Stevenson, while in other parts of the world the apparatus and methods perfected by Mr. Gustaf Dalén of Stockholm are used extensively. The most interesting example of the Stevenson unattended lighthouse is provided in the English Channel, indicating the entrance to the strait which leads to the Guernsey capital of St. Peter Port. This was one of the first of its character to be erected, but the type is now being adopted widely owing to the success of this initial undertaking. The Channel Islands have achieved an unsavoury reputation in marine annals, as they form a graveyard of the Channel; they have claimed their victims, during recent years at any rate, mostly from the ranks of the heavy cross-Channel traffic. [Illustration: THE PLATTE FOUGÈRE LIGHTHOUSE. This beacon, designed by Messrs. D. and C. Stevenson, probably is the finest unattended lighthouse in existence. On the top of the tower is the automatically controlled acetylene light.]