While the lamp is burning, time cannot drag, owing to the multitude of details which compel the keeper’s constant attention. The official log has to be kept posted with a host of facts, such as temperature, barometric readings, weather conditions as they vary from hour to hour, behaviour of the lamps, etc.; while, when the lighthouse is a marine signal-station as well, passing ships have to be signalled and reported. The spell of labour varies from four to five hours or more. Obviously, the task is more exacting and arduous in the winter than in summer. During the former season the lamps have to be lighted as early as 3.15 p.m., and are not extinguished until eight o’clock the next morning. In the summer, on the other hand, the lamps may be required for less than six hours or so. In northern latitudes where the daylight is continuous owing to the midnight sun, the light scarcely seems necessary. Yet it is kept burning during the scheduled hours of darkness. Thus, night in and night out the whole year round, a comparatively small band of faithful toilers keeps alert vigil over the dangers of the deep, for the benefit of those who “go down to the sea in ships, and do their business in great waters.” The safety of thousands of human lives and of millions sterling of merchandise is vested in their keeping. The resources of the shipbuilder, the staunchness of the ship, the skill and knowledge of the captain--all would count for nothing were it not for the persistent, steady glare of the fixed, the twinkling of the occulting, or the rhythmic, monotonous turning spokes of the revolving light, thrown over the waste of waters from the lighthouse and the lightship. INDEX Aberbrothock, Abbot of, 96 Acetylene: as illuminant, Daléngas, 49, 274; systems for floating lighthouses, 238, 278, 285-95; cost of lighting by, 282; dissolved, French system of using, 291; use in Sweden, 291-94 Acetylene gun, the, 68-71 Admiralty, the: adoption of the siren, 60-61; use of the Wigham light, 296 Adriatic shoreline, 203 “Aga” principle of lighting, 274, 277, 291, 293; adopted by the United States, 294-95 Ailly, Pointe d’, 303 Ailsa Crag, system of fog-signalling, 63-65, 66 Alaska: trade of, 173; controlled by the Lighthouse Board, 206; unattended lighthouses, 277; coastline 284 Alderney coastline, 12-13 Alexander, Lieutenant B. S., the Minot’s ledge-light, 8, 179 Alexandria, Pharos of, 2-3 Allerton Point lighthouse, 6 Altacarry Head, 313 Ambrose Channel, 251 American Thimble Shoal lighthouse, 308 Amour Point light, 169 Anderson, Lieutenant-Colonel William P., 172, 174, 217 _Anglo-Saxon_, Allan liner, wreck, 163-64 Anticosti, 171 Antifer, Cap d’, lighthouse, 39 Antipodes, the, 239 Arbroath, 97 Arena Point, 204 Argand burner, the, 47, 55, 79, 219 Argyll, Duke of, 115; lays foundation-stone of Skerryvore, 105 Ar-men light, Finisterre, 20-24