coal-light of the Isle of May. This disaster attracted the notice of the Admiralty to the Isle of May light, when it was proposed to place it under the control of the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses. After many negotiations an Act of Parliament was passed in the session of 1814, empowering the commissioners to purchase the light duties and the Island of May, for the sum of sixty thousand pounds. This was accordingly done, and on the completion of the purchase, the first act of the commissioners was to reduce the light-duty to all British vessels, so that English and Irish ships were no longer treated as foreigners, by paying double duty. Immediate measures were also taken for altering and improving the light; a new lighthouse was erected, and a light from oil, with reflectors, was exhibited on the 1st February, 1816, after the existence of a coal-light during one hundred and eighty-one years. The old lighthouse-tower was reduced in height, and converted into a guard-room for the use and convenience of pilots and fishermen. Soon after the establishment of the Board of Commissioners, repeated applications were made for the erection of new lighthouses, in order to avert the misfortunes which occurred every year, especially on the low shores of the northern isles of Orkney. In the year 1789 a lighthouse had been completed at North Ronaldsay, but the experience of twelve years had proved that this was not calculated to prevent the numerous wrecks on the islands of Sanday and Stronsay. In 1796, when the engineer was on his annual visit, he was struck at seeing the wreck of three homeward-bound ships upon the island of Sanday, though situate only about eight miles southward of the lighthouse of North Ronaldsay. In the three following years no fewer than eight ships were wrecked upon the same fatal island. It was therefore resolved, in 1801, that a stone-tower or beacon should be erected upon the Start Point, which forms the eastern extremity of the low shores of the Island of Sanday; the building to be constructed in such a manner that it might, if necessary, be converted into a lighthouse.