Keeping The Light In Motion

The keeper of the liglit at Point de Vlontes: "Just imagine tliat toward the close of the f all, at the first snow my fainly was attacked by typjioid fever. Tlie iirst stroke of the disease was to put seven of us iu bed, and very soou all the others followed. I was the only one ible to work. lly nearest neigijbor (at Egg sland) was twenty miles off, and is bad news travels without much wind, tbla ight house was avoided even by Indiana is au infeeted place. One man, however, was touched by my misfortunes, and volunteered to help me. Things went better then for a wliilej but as we vere then at the lastdaysof navigatioD, fogs and snow combined against me, and obliged us to ïre the cannon every half-hour, or even every quarter-hour. The vibration was terrible in the tower, seventy-five feet nigh, aud our patiënte could not endure t. It was necessary to go up the five stories of the tower, transformed into an inlirmary [hospital], before every shot, to notify the poor tellows, and stuff cotton into the ears of the most nervous. Days and nights tlius passed, without bringing anything elsc than pain, auxiety, and sleeplessness. Laurent and I were ready to Io.hu our sense, doiug the service of the light and the hospital liUe machines, wheu the Lord took pity on us, and in His mercy sent us some rest and joy in a general convalescence." The light at Egg Islands shows a revolvinjí white light, visible fifteen miles, aml giving a ílash every mínate and a half. "All sailors know how important it ia tlmt a flash light should revolve with mathematical accuracy; otherwise one light might be takeii for another, and a wreek might be the fatal cousequence of such an error. One night toward the cloe of the autumn of 1872, a pivot broke In the clockwork regulating the3e revolutions. The season was too faradvnnrcd to get help trom the Mlnistry of Marine at Quebec; the ouly thing to bc done was to replace the machine by human enery. and the keeper and his family devoleU themselve8 to the task. During five weeks of tliat autumn and tive other weeks of the next spring, man, wife, girls and boys, turned the machine by hand. Cold and fatigue stilïencd the hands, sleep weighed on their èyelld, but uevertheleSB thcy must turn, turn without haete and "without, rest, all through those long watches, in whu-h the order was to become on automaton and keep turning the machine. Not one, from the child to the roaster, either complained or shirked his duty, and tlie liht at Egg Island continued each minutu aud a half to flash its Droteclins liillit over