There is an interesting point pertaining to short flashes of light. To the dark-adapted eye a brief flash is registered as of considerably higher intensity than if the light remained constant. In other words, the lookout on a vessel is adapted to darkness and a flash from a beam of light is much brighter than if the same beam were shining steadily. This is a physiological phenomenon which operates in favor of the flashing light.
[Illustration: A. A COMPLETED LIGHTHOUSE LENS]
[Illustration: B. TORRO POINT LIGHTHOUSE, PANAMA CANAL]
[Illustration: AMERICAN SEARCH-LIGHT POSITION ON WESTERN FRONT IN 1919]
[Illustration: AMERICAN STANDARD FIELD SEARCH-LIGHT AND POWER UNIT]
Doubtless, the reader has noted that reliability, simplicity, and low cost of operation are the primary considerations for light-sources used as aids to navigation. This accounts for the continued use of oil and gas. From an optical standpoint the electric arc-lamps and concentrated-filament lamps are usually superior to the earlier sources of light, but the complexity of a plant for generating electricity is usually a disadvantage in isolated places. The larger light-ships are now using electricity generated by apparatus installed in the vessels. There seems to be a tendency toward the use of more buoys and fewer lighthouses, but the beam-intensities of the latter are increasing.
In the hundred years since the Boston Light was built the same great changes wrought by the development of artificial light in other activities of civilization have appeared in the beacons of the mariner. The development of these aids to navigation has been wonderful, but it must go on and on. The surface of the earth comprises 51,886,000 square statute miles of land and 145,054,000 square miles of water. Three fourths of the earth's surface is water and the oceans will always be highways of world commerce. All the dangers cannot be overcome, but human ingenuity is capable of great achievements. Wreckage will appear along the shore-lines despite the lights, but the harvest of the shoals has been much reduced since the time described by Robert Louis Stevenson, when the coast people in the Orkneys looked upon wrecks as a source of gain. He states: