“Why, is it different from common light-houses?” carelessly inquired Caleb.

“Don’t you know?  Haven’t you come on purpose to see it?” asked the keeper, in astonishment,—­and then proceeded to explain, that this is the famous Fresnel light, the identical structure exhibited at the great Exposition at Paris, bought there by an agent of the United States, and shipped by him to America.

Owing, however, to some inexplicable blunder, its arrival was not made known to the proper authorities,—­and the papers which should have accompanied it being lost or not delivered, no one at the custom-house knew what the huge case contained.  It was deposited in a bonded warehouse during the legal interval, but, never having been claimed, was then sold, still unexamined, to the highest bidder.  He soon identified his purchase, and proceeded to make his own profit out of it,—­the consequence being that government at last discovered that the Fresnel light had been some two years in this country, and was then upon exhibition, if the President and cabinet would like to take a peep.  The particulars of the bargain which ensued did not transpire, but it resulted in the lantern being repacked and reshipped to Gay Head, its original destination.

While hearing this little history, the party were breathlessly climbing three steep iron staircases, the last of which ended at a trap-door, giving admittance to the clock-room, where the keeper generally sits; from here another ladder-like staircase leads up into the lantern.  Arrived at the top, the Baron screamed with delight at the gorgeous spectacle before him.

The lamp (into the four concentric wicks of which a continual and superabundant supply of oil is forced by a species of clock-work, causing a flame of dazzling brilliancy) is surrounded by a revolving cover, about eight feet high by four or five in diameter, and in shape like the hand-glasses with which gardeners cover tender plants, or the shades which one sees over fancy clocks and articles of bijouterie.  This cover is composed of over six hundred pieces of glass, arranged in a complicated and scientific system of lenses and prisms, very difficult to comprehend, but very beautiful in the result; for every ray of light from that brilliant flame is shivered into a thousand glittering arrows, reflected, refracted, tinted with all the rainbow hues, and finally projected through the clear plate-glass windows of the lantern with all the force and brilliancy of a hundred rays.  If any one cares to understand more clearly the why and the how, let him either go and see for himself or read about it in Brande’s Encyclopaedia.  Mysie and the Baron were content to bask ignorantly in the glittering, ever-changing, ever-flowing flood of light, dreaming of Fairy Land, and careless of philosophy.  Only so much heed did they give to the outer world as always to place themselves upon the landward side of the lantern, lest unwittingly their forms should hide one ray of the blessed light from those for whose good it was put there.