|  Fire Island Lighthouse Electric Carbon Arc Lamp Fire Island Lighthouse, on a barrier island south of Long Island (A U.S. Coast Guard photo) Low-light-loss Fresnel lenses for lighthouses, much larger than the first one built by Augustin Jean Fresnel (1788-1827) and illustrated below, began focusing the brilliant electric carbon arc lamps blazing away in lighthouses along the British and French seacoasts in the 1860’s. [i] By the 1880’s, their popularity had extended to Italy, Australia,and even the New World. Chambers’s Journal made the following announcement of an installation in South America in 1884 as follows:  An electric lighthouse has recently been erected on the island of Raza, at the entrance of the Bay of Rio Janeiro [in Brazil]. The lighthouse stands upon a rock two hundred and thirty feet above the sea, and the building itself is eighty-five feet high. The light is thus three hundred and fifteen feet above the sea. The electric current is produced by a continuous current Gramme machine, working at a rate of seven hundred revolutions, and feeding a light of two thousand candle-power. The Gramme machine is worked by a stationary surface-condensing steam engine, this arrangement being occasioned by want of fresh water. To provide for accidents, an oil-lamp is always kept in readiness, and the whole of the engine fittings are very cleverly made double in case of a breakage. The light is revolving, and has two white disks and one red one, succeeding one another at certain intervals, and is said to be visible thirty-five miles.[ii] 
An electric arc light powered by a Nollet magneto (made up of permanent magnets) built in 1850 However, the United States Lighthouse Board was hesitant in employing both fresnel lenses and carbon arc lights in the eighteen hundreds. The first carbon arc light tested in a U.S. lighthouse was positioned, along with several others, atop the Statue of Liberty in 1886, and these proved to be a dismal failure because the lights were meager, poorly positioned, and could hardly be seen. The next experiment apparently took place after a giant fresnel lens, surrounding a tall electric carbon arc light, was assigned to New York’s Fire Island Light in the 1890's. Speaking of the annual Report to Congress from the United States Lighthouse Board in 1894 in an excellent article on the Fire Island Light in The Keeper’s Log,[iii] its editor Wayne C. Wheeler wrote: In 1894 the Annual report states, “This is the most important light for transatlantic steamers bound for New York. It is generally the first one thay make and from which they pay their course. It is a 1st order light, flashing white at intervals of one minute. Mr. Henry Lapaute of Paris, France, a manufacturer of lens apparatus for lighthouses, exhibited at the World’s Columbia Exhibition,[iv] held at Chicago in 1893, what is known as a bi-valve lightning light, with electricity as an illuminate. It is called a bi-valve because it consists of two powerful range lenses, 9 feet in diameter, back to back, and is named a lightning light on account of the brilliancy and short duration of the flash. The arc light used is of a very high candlepower, and the makers claim that the intensity of the flash will be proportionately greater [a flash every five seconds] . . . The Lighthouse Board concluded to purchase this apparatus and install it in Fire Island light tower in place of the present lens . . . This necessitated in addition a steam and electric light plant and a boiler and engine house to contain them. The steam and electric-light has been delivered by the makers at Staten Island General Depot . . . During the change the light will be shown from a fourth-order lens.” Retrofitting the tower continued into 1895 and a narrow gauge railroad was constructed between the beach and the coal shed. The 4th order lens was placed on a bracket on the south side of the tower to be used while the new lens was installed, probably a 375mm lens. Although the building for the power generating equipment was completed, for some reason the new lens and electric system wasn’t installed. As the Annual Report the following year states, “The steam and electric plant established at this station was returned to the General Light-House Depot on December 21, 1896.” Although Mr. Wheeler assumes the new lens and the electric system were not installed, this may have not been the case. It seems mighty strange, in light of all the planning, effort, and expense, that all of the difficult preliminary work was done and yet nobody at least bothered with the final installation and testing of the new lens and electric system. Besides, in an 1896 edition of Electric Arc Lighting, Edwin J. Houston, Ph. D. and A. E. Kennelly, Sc. D. included the following description and illustration with its "Fire Island Lighthouse Lens" label in their work that indicates those items were indeed in operation in the 1890's when they explained:
"Fire Island Lighthouse Lens" The figure above shows a form of lighthouse lens employed in the lighthouse on Fire Island, N. Y. This lens is nine feet in diameter and weighs half a ton. A focusing arc lamp is placed with its arc at the focus of the lens. The light after passing through the circular prisms emerges in a sensibly parallel beam. It is arranged to revolve once every five seconds, so that the light is of the flashing type. The arc used with the apparatus is about 1/6 inch long, and the carbons are about one inch in diameter. The pressure is about 48 volts and the current about 100 amperes.[v] The erudite authors of this contemporary description are explicit here, so it is difficult to fathom how both could have passed on a false report of any magnitude in their technical book, especially considering all of the editors and proof readers the renowned W. J. Johnston Company would have had on hand to insure against such a blunder. Besides, this was a reputable New York publisher that would have made it a point to verify the accuracy of any details in a description of a brilliant flashing light, as important as this one, operating nearby before publication. And the bright light certainly could not have gone unnoticed, unless special precautions had been taken, which would have been highly unlikely considering the experience with the beacon after it was apparently moved to the lighthouse at Navesink, New Jersey, a couple of years later. Its electric carbon arc light was installed in 1898, and its lens revolved in ten seconds, and gave a flash each five seconds, "the flash lasting but one tenth second." George R. Putnam went on to point out that "many complaints were made by residents of the neighborhood of great discomfort and annoyance caused by the brilliancy of the flash; this was obviated by darkening several of the lantern panels on the land side," In Lighthouses and Lightships of the United States, this U. S. Commissioner of Lighthouses added, "Two great beams [like the ancient Pharos Light?] of this light sweeping around the horizon, rapidly and ceaselessly through the night, quite outshine New York's first light in the fine old tower four miles to the northward of Sandy Hook." However, Mr. Wheeler, “thinks” that this dual-beam light, supplied by the clamshell or bi-valve lens (two back to back bulls-eyes) above was not installed at Fire Island. “I can’t believe this lens could rotate so fast as to produce a flash every 5 seconds,” he explained to me. “It is too large and heavy to spin that fast.” On the other hand, maybe the lens had some new drive mechanism, floating on "a bath of mercury," that would have ruled out such a conclusion, especially if we consider the manufacturer's claim and Mr. Wheeler's bracketed comment above. And after all, many lighthouse records have been destroyed or lost. The testimony of the experts above may be the only witness left to attest to the operation in the 1890's of the Fire Island arc light.
[i] Detailed descriptions of carbon arc lights illuminating these electric lighthouses and others are included in The Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting. The illustration above of the "first Fresnel Lens," entitled "La premier appareil d'optique de Fresnel" in French under the illustration published, which I labeled and tinted yellowish-orange for effect, is actually a copy of a black and white photograph from the chapter titled "HISTOIRE DES ECLAIRAGES" (HISTORY OF LIGHTS) in L. Fournier's work titled "L'ECLAIRAGE" (THE LIGHT), published in 1925 as one of several volumes of the BIBLIOTHEQUE DES MERVEILLES (LIBRARY OF MARVELS). M. Lucien Fournier was a lecturer and "an eminent writer doubling as a documented technician," writing about one of his own, so he was well qualified to write the book and, judging by the list of authoritative French works he consulted, also to decide what was the first lens Fresnel produced, in case there is any question. [ii] Chanbers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Saturday, October 25, 1884 [iii] The Keeper’s Log, Summer 2000, Vol. XVI No. 4, an official publication of the United States Lighthouse Society [iv] See an illustration of part of the 1893 Exhibition by clicking the article “CITY LIGHTS” on the left above. [v] Electric Arc Lighting (Elementary Electro-Technical Series) W. J. Johnston Company, 253 Broadway, New York 1896. Dr. Edwin J. Houston was the author of A Dictionary of Electric Words, Terms, Phrases; Electric Transmission of Intelligence; Electricity and Magnetism; Electricity One Hundred Years Ago and To-day; Recent Types of Dynamo-Electric Machines; Electricity Made Easy; etc., and he co-authored works with Kennelly such as Electrical Engineering Leaflets, Elementary Grade; Electrical Engineering Leaflets, Intermediate Grade, etc. so they would have been highly qualified to determine if the Fire Island Lighthouse had an arc light burning therein.
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