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hollow cage composed of polished glass, ten feet high and six feet in diameter. I
know of no work of art more beautiful or creditable to the boldness, ardor,
intelligence, and zeal of the artist."

Although the great lantern of the St. Augustine Lighthouse is a larger and
improved type of the apparatus mentioned so enthusiastically by Stevenson, it merits
equal praise for its beauty and excellence. Rotating around the central lamp, the lens
system omits a fixed light of 20,000 candlepower or 450,000 candlepower flash that
is seen 25 miles at sea. The lamp itself is stationary and the actual intensity of its
flame does not change. The variability of the light is secured by the revolution of
the glass lantern provided with a series of powerful lenses or bull's-eyes, each one
sending out a great beam of light. The constant and steady ray from each lens
revolves with the lantern, and this beam is distinctly seen stretching out into the
darkness, as it wheels in mighty revolutions about the tower.

The purpose of the variability of the light is to render it distinguishable
from other lights on the coast. Each lighthouse emits a differently time flash, the
St. Augustine Light holding to a 30 second flash revolving once every one and a
half minutes. By day the tower is known by its black and white spiral stripes
which distinguish it from the solid red of Mayport Lighthouse, or the horizontal
black and white stripes of Cape Canaveral.

The $16,000 lens system is a thing of beauty as well. Sparkling prisms
connecting enormous bull's-eyes, cleave the light into a thousand colors, with such
a radiance that it is difficult to comprehend that the