roper authorities,--and the papers which should have
accompanied it being lost or not delivered, no one at the custom-house
knew what the huge case contained. It was deposited in a bonded
warehouse during the legal interval, but, never having been claimed, was
then sold, still unexamined, to the highest bidder. He soon identified
his purchase, and proceeded to make his own profit out of it,--the
consequence being that government at last discovered that the Fresnel
light had been some two years in this country, and was then upon
exhibition, if the President and cabinet would like to take a peep. The
particulars of the bargain which ensued did not transpire, but it
resulted in the lantern being repacked and reshipped to Gay Head, its
original destination.

While hearing this little history, the party were breathlessly climbing
three steep iron staircases, the last of which ended at a trap-door,
giving admittance to the clock-room, where the keeper generally sits;
from here another ladder-like staircase leads up into the lantern.
Arrived at the top, the Baron screamed with delight at the gorgeous
spectacle before him.

The lamp (into the four concentric wicks of which a continual and
superabundant supply of oil is forced by a species of clock-work,
causing a flame of dazzling brilliancy) is surrounded by a revolving
cover, about eight feet high by four or five in diameter, and in shape
like the hand-glasses with which gardeners cover tender plants, or the
shades which one sees over fancy clocks and articles of _bijouterie_.
This cover is composed of over six hundred pieces of glass, arranged in
a complicated and scientific system of lenses and prisms, very difficult
to comprehend, but very beautiful in the result; for every ray of light
from that brilliant flame is shivered into a thousand glittering arrows,
reflected, refracted, tinted with all the rainbow hues, and finally
projected through the clear plate-glass windows of the lantern with all
the force and brilliancy of a hundred rays. If any one cares to
understand more clearly the why and the how, let him either go and see
for himself or read about it in Brande's Encyclopaedia. Mysie and the
Baron were content to bask ignorantly in the glittering, ever-changing,
ever-flowing flood of light, dreaming of Fairy Land, and careless of
philosophy. Only so much heed did they give to the outer world as always
to place themselves upon the landward side of the lantern, lest
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