Excerpt from Lighthouses and Lightships of the United States The lighthouse and the lightship appeal to the interest and better instinct of man because they are symbolic of never-ceasing watchfulness, of steadfast endurance in every exposure, of widespread helpfulness. The building and the keeping of the lights is a picturesque and humanitarian work of the nation. But this work is not all romance, as, unseen by the passing mariner, and back of the lighthouse and ship and buoy, there must be a great engineering and business machine with its endless contracts, plans, specifications, appointments, the routine of office and depot and ship and light-station. Scarcely a day passes, however, that there does not gleam in the mass of dry routine a fact of interest, an act of bravery, a risk cheerfully taken to aid another, a record of long and faithful service, an improvement of light or of fog signal, of vessel or of lighthouse, an historic record of the past, or a photograph of the present. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.