this was called a revolving light, notwithstanding the small fixed light seen in the intervals of the strong light, and which fixed light is not seen beyond a certain distance, making the flashing light then a revolver with its interval of true darkness. So that after all it is a kind of twin light, partaking of the two characters, as twins sometimes do, as male and female. The sooner the legitimate derivation of the term "flash" is defined the better, for to our mind it is often misplaced in our lighthouse nomenclature.

The Commissioners, it appears, recommend the adoption of more red lights and the colouring of the towers, so as to render them conspicuous when seen on the back ground; and in reference to the next point, "quality compared with foreign lights," the Commissioners state that

"On comparing the quality of British lights with those of foreign countries in the four particulars mentioned above, it may be remarked: -

"1st. With reference to the source of light, the observations of the Commissioners have placed it beyond doubt that the French have the advantage over the English and Irish in the height and brilliancy of their flames, owing mainly to their use of the mechanical lamp.

"2nd. As to the optical apparatus, the dioptric system, invented and first employed in France, has been gradually adopted in our own country, and in Scotland some improvements have been made in it. There is, however, this important difference; in France the new apparatus was adopted throughout the whole lighthouse service; and in the United States, and in Spain, it has been lately exclusively adopted in the great reformation of their lighthouse system just effected by the governments of those countries; but in the United Kingdom the old reflectors have only been replaced from time to time by the refracting apparatus; and the Board of Trade now lay down the principle, that the expense shonld only be incurred when the reflectors are worn out. It still remains an open question in some minds whether the change should at once be completed along the whole shores of Britain, and in other minds whether the purely catoptric principle is not better than the purely dioptric under certain circumstances; but few will doubt that a combination of the two would often be the most efficient, and such combinations exist in all countries, especially in Scotland. Your Commissioners, indeed, are prepared to recommend a more rapid substitution of these catadioptric arrangements for the simple metallic reflectors now in use at so many situations, and we deem this especi ally requisite when the light is a fixed one. If the electric light come into general use, it may necessitate some important modifications of the existing apparatus.

"3rd. As the dioptric apparatus used in England has been obtained from France till very recently, or constructed on French models, it can be no matter of astonishment that your Commissioners found in that country the same errors of adjustment between the optical pieces and the lamp, which they had first remarked at home;

but these errors were greatly aggravated in England and Ireland, where the flame was low. The excellence of the light at Grisnez was found to be due partly to the height of the flame of the mechanical lamp, but partly also to the fact that the old-fashioned mirrors had been well adjusted to the sea-horizon after erection,-a point that cannot be so easily secured in apparatus of more modern construction, (such as is used at Calais,) where the totally reflecting prisms are secured in their places before the apparatus leaves the manufactory, and without reference to the altitude of the proposed situation. There was, however, but very slight fault to be found with the adjustment of the illuminating apparatus at Ailly. (See the Astronomer's Report, vol. i.)

"4th. In regard to the distinction of one light from another by varying its character, the French, according to the Admiralty lists, do not avail themselves so much as the English of the various means, and the Americans seem to be inferior; but in Spain and Brazil the proportion of revolving to fixed lights is much greater, and red flashes are more frequently employed than in the United Kingdom.

"The United States Authorities pay more attention to the distinction of lighthouses by day, by means of colour, than the Authorities in this country.

"The French use silk webs in the wicks; and filter the oil that has flowed through the burners before returning it to the lamp for another night's consumption."

The expensive electric light is not likely to supersede oil, nor is it required; for the light derived from this is so good that it is clearly seen as far as the curvature of our globe admits, and what more could we want when this is secured with economy? But our space warns us to reserve the subject for our next.

WHALING ADVENTURES IN THE PACIFIC,-By L. H. Vermilyea.

I left New Bedford the 26th day of June, 1851, on the whaleship Cortes, Captain Peter Cromwell, fitted out for thirty months, for the Arctic and North-west right whaling. She was an old ship, some said seventy or eighty years built, and had been repaired so often that scarcely a stick of her original timbers remained. We had a pleasant passage across the Gulf, and when within a short distance of the Western Islands raised a large sperm whale. The boats were lowered, the captain's boat pulling immediately after him (the best way for getting on sperm whales, though the right whales and bowheads are best approached on the quarter, or head, the eyes of the two species being differently situated), and the boatsteerer fastened to him. The boat was so far over the whale's small, which was under water, that,

when he rounded to go down, it was gently capsized, and the carpenter, a young man from Maine, by the name of Gallup, (a green hand) jumped, or fell, into the line-tub, and was taken out of the boat, and down a few fathoms, when the captain cut the line, and let him loose. But his leg was badly splintered below the knee, so that when we got to Fayal (Western Islands,) three days after, it was taken off above the knee, at the hospital, and he was afterwards sent home, the captain, I am told, giving him five dollars, and the owners 100 dollars. The whale was easily captured.

There are no doctors on a whaleship, the captain having a doctor book and medicine chest ; and when the man was brought aboard, the captain was so tender-hearted that he could not bear to look upon him, or help to carry him below. We had three days calm, warm weather, and they bandaged up the leg the best they could; but when we reached Fayal, the toes and feet had turned black. The man's first request when brought aboard was for liquor, which was given him to stop the pain. This circumstance will serve to show not only the dangers of whaling, but the great inconvenience in not having doctors in a class of ships exposed to more danger, sickness, hardships, and accidents than any other. The captain seldom knows anything about administering any kind of medicine except salts, an emetic, or castor-oil; and another great want on ships which go in the Arctic and North-west, is a stove in the forecastle to warm the benumbed limbs, and dry the wet clothing of the sailors, in a climate of cold and ice, snow, rain, and fog, where sometimes, for six weeks, clothing cannot be dried. Not one ship in fifty has a stove in the forecastle. How many accidents and diseases, coughs, colds, consumptions, rheumatisms, and premature deaths, have been occasioned by this neglect? Whilst Sailors' Homes, Bethels, and moral, religious, and intellectual means for improvement are multiplying in our own and foreign countries, and a general interest is beginning to be felt for the poor sailor by all classes on shore, should there not be a more practical application of this doctrine in looking to the physical comfort and well-being of a class of men so necessary in carrying on the commerce of the world, so short lived, and whose lives are spent in hardships and toil to build the princely palaces, and enrich the wealthy owners, whilst their bones lie bleaching at the bottom of every sea.

Candor compels me to say that, in regard to good substantial food on New Bedford whaleships, there is generally plenty if the captain has a mind to give it, and that in the seven different vessels I have been in, I seldom went hungry, and never saw a case of flogging; but that such cases do occur, where the captain is a selfish, tyrannical man, there is no reason to doubt. The above is the only accident that ever occurred in ships I have been on, where over eighty whales have been taken, though a good many have lost their lives on other ships, from carelessness, want of good whalemen, poor boats' crews, and other causes.

We stopped at the Western Islands a few days, took in potatoes and onions, and sent ashore in the lighter the 100 barrels of oil to be sent home. The Western Islands are famous for grapes and wine, which

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last can be bought for four cents per bottle, and the prospect from the ship of the green hill-sides, and profusion of small houses, is delightful. Peak Pike is an abrupt lofty island, in the form of a sugar-loaf, op posite Fayal, connected by small schooners and boats. We next went to the Cape de Verde Islands, and then across the line in the direction of Pernambuco, thence southward to the river La Platte. In crossing the line the water, in the night time, presented a brilliant appearance, sparkling like so many millions of diamonds. Off La Platte we raised a large school of sperm whales, lowered the boats, and struck one; two boats were stove and capsized; one by a loose whale, and the crews and boats brought aboard by the other two boats, and no whales taken. We then started for Cape Horn, arriving there in October or November, which we were seventeen days in rounding, experiencing a heavy gale, which, for severity, the captain, who had followed the sea over thirty years, had never seen equalled. We lost one boat, two or three sails, the cook's galley was blown over, and the medicine chest stove. This same captain, six years after, was destined to lose his own life off Cape Horn, by a fall on deck from the main rigging. He had ordered officers and men aloft to do something, and, as they were afraid, he went himself. He lived a day or so, and his body, preserved in spirits, was brought to Honolulu, and thence sent across the Isthmus to his home at Holmes' Hole, Martha's Vineyard, where he left a wife and two children. He was a resolute, energetic man, generally filling his ship the first season, and was highly esteemed at the Sandwich Islands.

After rounding the Cape, we kept off to the westward to a new right-whaling ground, and saw plenty of whales, but it was continually blowing and rough; and after two or three days' unsuccessful whaling, we put off for Juan Fernandez, a beautiful island, not far from Valparaiso, which with its green, lofty, and abrupt hill-sides, exposed to the sea, seemed to us, storm-tossed, sea-sick mariners, on our first voyage, as a land of paradise. Our ship was short, and her bows round like an egg, after the old models, and she rolled badly in a storm, so that it was a pretty hard initiation for landsmen, on a first voyage, to the death-like sea-sickness which usually attends a two hours' watch at the mast head in rough weather. The masts will sway forty and fifty feet each way, and the mast-head will even now produce vomiting with me.

We lay off and on at Juan Fernandez but a few hours. There was a Chilian bark there from Valparaiso, with prisoners sent by the ruling faction, on account of some political disturbances which so frequently agitate the people of that country. From here we went to the Island of Chiloe, and thence to the desert of Atacama, (called by whalemen Humpback bay,) being the coast of Bolivia between Chili and Peru. There is no fresh water within thirty or forty miles, and the small company of soldiers stationed near the entrance to the bay, are supplied from that distance. There is a hill here where guano is got, and the bay is filled with birds and small fish, whilst there are plenty of muscles ashore. The weather is warm, the water of the bay smooth, and

immense flocks of birds repose on its surface, or are constantly diving for the fish, whilst humpbacked whales, with their calves, come in from the sea in the morning, and go out in the afternoon. The boat steerer darted at and missed one, and the captain, telling him that he would never miss but one more whale for him, hove up anchor, and started for the Sandwich Islands.

On the passage we took one sperm whale of fifty barrels, and about thirty barrels black fish oil, and, then crossing the line, took a stiff trade to Hilo, Owyhee. The celebrated volcano Mauna Lea was then in full blast, and the sight from the shipping in the harbor, twenty miles distant, was, in the night time, grand and imposing. The whole heavens, above and around, were covered with red and black clouds, and the river of lava could be distinctly seen running down the mountains some fifteen or twenty miles, through forests, filling up deep valleys, and making its way to the sea. The missionary there, Rev. Mr. Coan, wrote a graphic description of this volcano, which was printed in the Friend. When we got to Hilo, tired and sea-sick as I was, seven and a half months out, it seemed the most beautiful place I ever was in. We pulled the boats for water up a small river, its low, level sides covered with flower bushes, and the pretty wahines, with black eyes, and hair hanging down their necks, swimming and sporting in the water, catching hold of the water-casks, and jumping off again, whilst the cocoa nut trees thickly growing around, with huts interspersed among them, made it appear to me, wearied and dispirited as I was, as the most enchanting and delightful spot on earth. land and mountains flitted to and fro in my disordered mind for weeks, and so utterly prostrate was I in body and mind, that it seemed impossible to proceed north immediately, unless as an invalid, or be of any service until after rest and recruiting ashore.

The

I consequently stopped here five or six weeks, and was so far restored, that I shipped on the Erie of Fairhaven, Captain Blackmore, and proceeded north. The passage to the Ochotsk, on the Siberian coast, is some 3,500 miles from Honolulu, and it is generally rough and stormy in the spring and fall. We experienced a severe snow storm off the Kurile Islands before entering the Ochotsk, in which I froze my fingers in the night time, whilst furling sail. We got into the Ochotsk the 6th of May, and took our first whale the 19th, and by the 1st of September had taken 2,500 barrels. The weather was generally very cold and bad, with much snow and fog in the forepart of the season, and cold rain in the latter. We took nineteen large whales and 800 barrels in a single week, and were at times so drove, both day and night, that we got but four or five hours sleep out of twenty-four, lowering down for whales, cutting in, trying out, stowing down, and chasing whales with the ship. We had two glasses of liquor apiece for each whale. I drank but for the first two whales, and it not agreeing with me, discontinued it. We had seventeen Portuguese foremast hands, besides two Portuguese officers, and three boatsteerers, and they made good whalemen. The ships of both the Arctic and Ochotsk, over 200 in number, averaged the season 1,500 barrels each, though