SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice sach Books of the week as 7 aro: not been reserved for review in other forms.]
them will have their imagination stirred by this collection of material concerning the coast-lights and their solitary keepers. Mr. Wryde has done his business excellently, and has given just the right proportion of fact and anecdote. Ho travels round the coastline of this island (with good maps and pictures to help him) and tells us something of the history of all the principal lights that he passes. At the end of his journey he gives us further information as to the structure of lighthouses and the recent scientific developments of signalling to ships at sea, and winds up with an account of the lighthouse authorities in Great Britain. It might seem from this account that Mr. Wryde is too technical for the ordinary reader. This, however, is not the case, and indeed the subject itself never allows the complete disappearance of human interest for more than a page or two. Here is an example of the stories that are to be found in Mr. Wryde's book ; it concerns the lighthouse at Kerdenis, Belle-Isle-en-Mgr " The light-keeper, while engaged in cleaning his lantern, was taken suddenly ill, and his wife, on hastening to him, saw that he was in a dying condition. Leaving her two little children by the bedside of her dying husband, she climbed the tower and lighted the lantern, descending just in time to see him die. One of the children at this moment called out, 'The light is not turning, mother Immediately realizing the danger that it would be mistaken for a fixed light, the widow remounted the tower and found that the mechanism which moved the heavy lamp had broken down; she then left her two children, the elder being only twelve years of age, and remained all night in the tower, turning the light round with her hands hour after hour until the rising sun set her at liberty."
The villains of Mr. Wryde's piece are provided in the wreckers, concerning whom he also tells some exciting stories.
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