m the
dangers of the sea, perhaps I should rather say from the dangers of the
coast, for it must be well-known to most people that the sailor regards
"blue water" as his safe and native home, and that it is only when he
enters the green and shallow waters of the coast that a measure of
anxiety overclouds his free-and-easy spirit.

It is when he draws near to port that the chief dangers of his career
surround him, and it is then that the lighthouse is watched for
anxiously, and hailed with satisfaction.

These observations scarce need confirmatory proof. Of all the vessels,
great and small, that annually seek and leave our ports, a large
proportion meet their doom, and, despite all our lighthouses, beacons,
and buoys, lay their timbers and cargoes in fragments, on our shores.
This is a significant fact, for if those lost ships be--as they are--a
mere fraction of our commerce, how great must be the fleet, how vast the
wealth, that our lighthouses guide safely into port every year? If all
our coast-lights were to be extinguished for only a single night, the
loss of property and life would be terrible beyond conception. But such
an event can never happen, for our coast-lights arise each evening at
sunset with the regularity of the sun himself. Like the stars, they
burst out when darkness begins to brood upon land and sea like them,
too, their action and aspect are varied. Some, at great heights, in
exposed places, blaze bright and steady like stars of the first
magnitude. Others, in the form of revolving lights, twinkle like the
lesser stars--now veiling, now flashing forth their beams.

One set of lights shine ruby-red like Mars; another set are white, like
Venus; while those on our pier-heads and at our harbour mouths are
green; and, in one or two instances, if not more, they shine, (by means
of reflecting prisms), with borrowed light like the moon; but all--
whether revolving or fixed, large or small, red or white or green--beam
forth, like good angels, offering welcome and guidance to the mariner
approaching from beyond seas; with God-like impartiality shedding their
radiance on friend and foe, and encircling--as with a chaplet of living
diamonds, rubies, and emeralds--our highly favoured little islands of
the sea.

Lighthouses may be divided into _two_ classes, namely, those which stand
on cliffs, and elsewhere, somewhat above the influence of the waves, and
those built on outlying rocks which are barely visi