act of some unknown man committed with
none to observe and recount the deed. Gallantry under the stimulus of
onlookers ready to cheer on the adventurer and to make history out of his
exploit, is not the supremest type. Surely first among the brave, though
unknown men, we must rank that navigator, who, ignorant of the compass and
even of the art of steering by the stars, pressed his shallop out beyond
sight of land, into the trackless sea after the fall of night. Such a one
braved, beside the ordinary dangers of the deep, the uncouth and mythical
terrors with which world-wide ignorance and superstition had invested it.
The sea was thought to be the domain of fierce and ravenous monsters, and
of gods quite as dangerous to men. Prodigious whirlpools, rapids, and
cataracts, quite without any physical reason for existence, were thought
to roar and roll just beyond the horizon. It is only within a few decades
that the geographies have abandoned the pleasing fiction of the
maelstrom, and a few centuries ago the sudden downpour of the waters at
the "end of the world" was a thoroughly accepted tenet of physical
geography. Yet men, adventurous and inquisitive, kept ever pushing forward
into the unknown, until now there remain no strange seas and few uncharted
and unlighted. The mariner of these days has literally plain sailing in
comparison with his forbears of one hundred and fifty years ago.

Easily first among the sailor's safeguards is the lighthouse system. That
of the United States is under the direct control of the Light House Board,
which in turn is subject to the authority of the Secretary of the
Treasury. It is the practice of every nation to light its own coast;
though foreign vessels enjoy equal advantages thereby with the ships of
the home country. But the United States goes farther. Not only does it
furnish the beacons to guide foreign ships to its ports; but, unlike Great
Britain and some other nations, it levies no charge upon the
beneficiaries. In order that American vessels might not be hampered by the
light dues imposed by foreign nations, the United States years ago bought
freedom from several states for a lump sum; but Great Britain still exacts
dues, a penny a ton, from every vessel passing a British light and
entering a British port.

The history of the lighthouses of the world is a long one, beginning with
the story of the famous Pharos, at Alexandria, 400 feet high, whose light,
according to Ptolemy, coul