Welcome to You Ask Andy

Helen Vanmee, age 11, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, for her questions

When was the first lighthouse built?

Way back in 1791, President George Washington ordered a lighthouse to be built along the craggy shores near Portland, Maine. It was not the first lighthouse in history, but it was one of the first in North America. The people of New England live close to the sea and their sailors depend on trusty markers to guide them through the rocky shoals. No doubt they would have invented lighthouses to guide them at night. But Old World sailors already had invented them ages ago.

Most of our good ideas were thought of in the dim past. People invented things to solve their problems, long before they thought of taking out patents or even writing down their discoveries. If the ideas were useful, later inventors added improvements to make theta more workable. This is the story of the earliest lighthouses, and most of it is lost in forgotten past. We can trace some of it back, because it taunt have happened logically, step by step. This is the way human history goes. .

Same of the earliest sailors went fishing and trading around the Mediterranean Sea. Theca the shores were strewn with rocky crags and the changing tides left shallow, sandy shoals. Putting to sea or returning home was dangerous, especially after dark when landmarks were invisible. So bonfires were lit on the craggy cliffs. We know from early writings that many ports were doing this in 660 B4C. Those bonfires that blazed at night along the Mediterranean shores were the ancestors of our magnificent modern lighthouses. Later they were replaced by lanterns and sticks of blazing tar, hoisted aloft on poles.

The next improvement was a permanent building to house a beacon. As far as we know, the first real lighthouse was built on the shores of Turkey, in 600.B.C. It is almost forgotten because later its glory was overshadowed by the most famour lighthouse of history.

When Alexander the Great built the city of Alexandria, he added a causeway to the little offshore island of Pharos. There, where the huge Nile delta is strewn with crags and shoals, the Egyptians built their Pharos of Alexandria, about 280 B.C. Its wide base tapered up in elegant tiers and its pointed peak held the beacon at least 400 feet high. This mast famous early lighthouse guided sailors for many centuries. It was rated as one of the Seven Won, ~s of the Ancient World. In 95~.D. it was damaged by an earthquake and by 1500 its ruins had crumbled to dust.

The Pharos of Alexandria set the style and later lighthouses were called pharos in its honor. Nowadays they are tall round towers, built to withstand the wildest waves and storms. Some still are tended by lonely lighthouse keepers. But a more modern one maintains itself automatically. Its flashing beacon and booming horns, its radio signals, even its shape and colors distinguish it from every other lighthouse in the world.

 

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