In consequence probably of my connection of more than fifty years with the Northern Lighthouse Board, and of the almost equally long service of my father, I have been requested, and with much diffidence have complied with the request, to write, by way of Introduction to these very interesting and instructive “Notes from the Bell Rock,” a few words regarding Lighthouses, and a short account of the Northern Lighthouse Service and its Lightkeepers. My love for that service, and the esteem I have for those responsible and patient watchmen of the night, whose duty it is to keep their lights burning to guard the mariner from some of the dangers to which he is exposed, and to guide him on his way over the vasty deep, may possibly enable me to say something to interest readers of the Notes in a service whose appropriate motto is “In Salutem Omnium.”
The origin, as well as the early history, of lighthouses is involved in much obscurity, although we learn from ancient writers that lights of some sort, or beacon fires, were used for guiding vessels or warning them of danger at least three hundred years before the Christian era. The Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos of Alexandria are those that we first read of, but very little authentic information is to be got regarding them. At a much later date we know that sea lights for such purposes were produced by the burning of wood and coal in chauffers on coasts where they could be well seen. One such beacon fire was shown from a tower on the Isle of May, at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, from the year 1635 till 1816, when the present lighthouse was built, and is supposed to have been the first sea light on the coast of Scotland. It is not unlikely, however, that long before that date some of the most dangerous parts of the Mediterranean were lighted in a like primitive manner.
The first lighthouse of any note of which we have authentic record is the Tour de Corduan, near the mouth of the river Garonne, in the south-west of France, which was founded in 1584, but not completed and lighted till 1610. On account of the style and grandeur of its architecture, it was long regarded as one of the wonders of the world, the Pharos of Alexandria having been regarded as another. Its lightroom was originally constructed for the combustion of wood in a kind of chauffer raised six feet above the floor of the lantern; but it has undergone many alterations and improvements since then, to bring it into keeping with the progressing and modern system of lighthouse illumination, which has made great strides during the last half-century.
