of a light-house keeper whose light is on the land. He has a comparatively comfortable berth; but all lights are not so pleasantly situated. Some are situated at considerable distances from the shore, on dangerous reefs. Most of the houses so situated are built on iron-screw piles, like those at Thimble Shoals, Virginia, Fowey Rocks, Alligator Reef, and Sombrero Key, Florida. These houses stand on iron legs, which are screwed down into the rocks on the bottom, and the keeper's only means of leaving his confined dwelling is by the boat, which swings at davits, as it would aboard a ship. It has been found that a light-house built in this manner will stand the shocks of heavy weather much better than one made of solid masonry. The storm wave of the Atlantic Ocean travels at the rate of about thirty miles an hour, and when one of these waves, towering from fifteen to thirty-five feet, strikes an obstacle, such as a light-house, it deals a blow whose force can be measured only in hundreds of tons. The iron-screw pile-house, however, is elevated far enough above the level of the sea to escape the blows of the waves, which meet with no greater resistance than that offered by the slender legs of the structure.

Let us imagine the experience of a keeper of one of these lights in a great storm. It is September. All day the sea has been deathly calm, but with a slow swell of ominous breadth and weight. The sky has been of a dead gray color, and has seemed to hang so low that one might almost reach it from the top of the lantern. Toward night the wind begins to come in fitful gusts that moan around the light-house like the voices of warning spirits. The keeper goes out on the balcony and looks anxiously around the horizon. He knows that they are in for a bad night, and he knows that even iron-screw light-houses have been carried away in great gales. But he goes calmly and carefully about his work. He sees that the boat and all other objects outside the house are well secured. He sees the lamp well supplied with oil and trimmed wicks. He gives the lenses and reflectors a few more affectionate rubs, and as the sun goes down fire-red into a crimson sea he lights the wicks and goes down to his supper.

The gusts of wind outside increase in number and in force. Strange shriekings and moanings break from the crannies of the light-house. It is blowing half a gale now, and the sea is beginning to rise. Fiercer and fiercer become the blasts. The light-house begins to vibrate like a fiddle. A strange humming, as of the giant strings of some enormous Æolian harp, is added to the shriller screams of the wind. It is the gale singing through the iron legs and braces of the structure. And now a squall more violent than any that have preceded it comes yelling across the sea. It tears the foaming crests off half a dozen waves, and sends them swirling down to leeward in shivering sheets of snowy spoondrift. With fearful force the blast strikes the light-house, at the same time hurling some of the spoondrift against its weather side with a crash. What was that? Did the whole building sway?

The keeper shuts his lips tightly and goes up to look at the lamp. It is burning brightly. He descends again, and puts on his oil-skins and sou'wester. Waiting for a lull in the gale, he bolts out upon the balcony, hastily closing the door behind him. For a moment he stands, clinging with all his might to the iron railing, while the mad wind seems to try to strip his clothing from him. How the building trembles under the furious assaults of the wind! What an awful roar the conflicting elements make around its iron walls! The keeper's eyes are half blinded by the driving rain and salt spray. But he can see by the light of the faithful lamp above him towering walls of black and shining water sweeping down out of the fathomless darkness beyond as if to engulf his little refuge. They rush forward and disappear within the circle of gloom below the light, and the next instant he hears them hissing and shrieking around the sturdy iron leg.

There! There is the monster wave of all, heaving its mighty crest twenty-five feet, so that the keeper sees it level with his eyes as he gazes, fascinated. It is coming, it is coming. Ah, it is too big to pass the reef without breaking. See! It has toppled over, and goes boiling under the gallery in a wild mass of ghostly foam. The keeper shivers a little, shakes his head, and goes back to his warm room, muttering a prayer for the safety of the sailors on the sea. You and I would mutter one for our own, perhaps, if we stood on a swaying balcony above a storm-torn ocean.

Before morning the keeper hears the report of a gun. He knows too well the meaning of that sound. It is a signal of distress. He rushes out on the balcony again, and sees the dim form of a dismasted ship driving upon the reef. What can he do? Not a thing. He calls up his assistants, and they helplessly watch the vessel strike. They hear the cries of her people. They see the waves burst over her in great clouds of seething spray. Suddenly one of the men utters a shout.

"See! There's a spar driving down on us with some one on it."

A RESCUE FROM THE LIGHT.

Now the keeper and his assistants can do something, and they move with the rapidity of men whose wits are accustomed to the emergencies of the deep. Projecting from one side of the house is an iron arm, at the end of which hang a block and tackle. This is used for hoisting supplies from the boat which brings them off. Quickly a line is fastened around the hook at the bottom of the tackle. This is to give the shipwrecked mariner something by which to hold. The broken and half-buried spar sweeps down toward the light-house. Two men are clinging to it with the strength of despair. The tackle is lowered, and as the spar drives against one of the stout iron legs of the light-house one of the two men catches the rope, and is quickly hauled up to the gallery. At once the tackle is lowered again, and the other man is hauled up. Half blind, half drowned, staggering with exhaustion, they are taken into the house where warm drinks and dry clothing revive them. Then they sit beside the stove and tell the dreadful story of the wreck, while the howling of the wind, the thunder of the seas, and the swaying of the house remind them all that the storm still rages without.

Finally the great gale ends, and gradually the sea goes down. The shipwrecked seamen are anxious to reach land, and the light-house keeper, upon whose stores two extra mouths make serious inroads, is willing to have them go. Late in the afternoon of the third day they see smoke on the horizon. By-and-by the smoke appears to rise from a little black speck. Gradually the speck grows larger, and at length it assumes the outlines of a small steam-vessel.

RECEIVING SUPPLIES IN CALM WEATHER.

"That's her," says the keeper. "Now you'll be able to get ashore."

"Is it the tender?" asks one of the wrecked sailors.

"Yes," says the keeper. "She was due here just about the time the gale set in."

It is the stanch little light-house tender, whose duty it is to visit the various lights in her district, and replenish their supplies. Many a rough time she has at sea, and many a narrow escape; but the pressing necessities of the keepers of the isolated lights embolden the captains of tenders to brave many dangers. The tender is alongside the light-house in due time, and the tackle which so lately saved human lives hoists up boxes of provisions, cans of