Fortunately, owing to the extreme care that is manifested by the authorities, mishaps at a lighthouse are few and far between. The men are supplied with rules and regulations which are drawn up with an eye for every possible emergency. Yet accidents will happen, due in the majority of instances to familiarity bred of contempt. The majority of these calamities occur in connection with the explosive fog-signalling apparatus, although every device is adopted to safeguard the men. At one of the Scottish stations a keeper was manipulating the fog-signal, but, flying in the face of instructions, he caused the charge to explode prematurely. The man escaped injury, but the detonation shattered several panes of glass in the lantern. One of the keepers of the Rathlin light, on Altacarry Head, was not so fortunate. The White Star Canadian liner _Megantic_ was rounding the corner of Ireland to enter the last lap of the homeward journey one Saturday evening, when the captain’s attention was arrested by a signal of distress flying from the lighthouse. The interpretation of the signal revealed the fact that a doctor was wanted, so, easing up the ship, he lowered a boat, and the doctor was sent away to the island. Upon landing he found one of the men in dire straits. He had been cleaning the fog-gun, when a charge, which had been left in the weapon inadvertently upon the last occasion it was used, exploded. The man’s arm had been wrenched off, and he was burned terribly. It was a stroke of luck that the liner hove in sight at the moment she did. There was no chance of extending succour to the injured man on the spot, and he would have died before a doctor could have been summoned by boat from Ballycastle, nine miles away. The surgeon bound up the man’s injuries, lowered him into his boat, and, on regaining the liner, placed him in the hospital, where he was tended until the vessel’s arrival in Liverpool, where he was landed and placed in hospital. [Illustration: _By permission of “Syren and Shipping.”_ A LIGHTHOUSE BEDROOM. Owing to the limited space the furniture is reduced to the minimum, the bunks being built against the wall.]