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A sea classic and a fine gift!
Capt. Irving Johnson's
The Peking Battles Cape Horn This is Irving Johnson 's class ic narrative of a passage round Cape Horn in 1929 in the steel bark Peking. A new foreword and appendix provide background on the author and the ship. In the new a fterword the author looks back, after 48 years of seafaring, to his experiences aboa rd the Peking. 100/o discount to National Soci ety members. To: SEA HISTORY PRESS, National Maritime Historical Society, 2 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (212) 858-1348
Please send me_ hardcover copies of "Peking " at $11.95;_ paper cover copies at $5.95 each. My chec k for $_ _ _ is enclosed. NAM E ADDR ESS ~~~~~~~~~~-
Z IP
"Here, mon, put these on, the light is too bright for the eyes, make you go blind if you look at it direct." Assi stant lighthouse keeper William McPhee handed me a pair of "granny glasses'' with dark blue lenses which I donned. He then passed a lit match through the rising, white column of vapori zed kerosene hissing from the burner head. With a "whuuump" it ignited into a roaring flame. I was perched in the lantern housing of Dixon Hill Light, San Salvador-one of the last kerosene-fueled lighthouses in the Western Hemisphere. The four remaining kerosene beacons are located on the Bahamian Islands of Abaco, San Salvador and lnagua. The light towers were all built by the British in the mid-nineteenth century and their lighting apparatus was constructed by Chance Brothers of Birmingham, England. Kerosene lighthouses are really giant Coleman lanterns in their form and function. Pressurized kerosene is fed to a burn head where it is vaporized by the heated element. The vapor is ignited under a colodionized mantle which produces a white glow that is magnified to four-hundred thousand candle power by a lens. The light works could be compared to the works of a "Brobdingnagian" watch. All the gears, rods, levers and frame are made of brass, nickle and heavily enameled cast iron. The support for the lens is cast in the motif of Grecian Doric and houses a bath of mercury in which the lens base floats . This is to keep friction to a minimum. Every two hours weights are cranked up to the tower's top where they descend and in their slow fall turn the lens through a system of drums and worm gears. The heart of the lighthouse is the eightfoot high lens made of glass ribs set in brass frames. This marvelous creation shimmers with rainbow reflections and magnifies the mantle's glow to 400,000 candlepower, visible 19 miles at sea. The kerosene lighthouses remaining in the Bahamas are in the Autumn of their existence. They have been burning brightly for 150 years and now are slated for replacement. When this occurs an era will have blinked its last-an era that was characterised by superbly built machinery and by men whose pride in their charges was reflected in the polished metal and sparkling glass lenses.
Keeper McPhee by his 8' lens. Ornate 150-year old castinf!.s.
PHILIP THORNEYCROFT TEU SCHER
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1981
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