Hi everybody, I'm Emily and I'm Vince and this
is the lighthouse lowdown Vince it's Vince's
turn now to have the Lucky Charms latte. It's
delicious. It's absolutely delicious I just laugh
every time I'm editing and it just comes up every
time so good. It's just exceptional And so, yeah,
I made Vince break his diet in order to consume
the drink of choice for the past month or so.
Yep. It's a regular latte and a burrito. Anyway,
I am doing something a little different for this
episode. I briefly mentioned it to you, Vince,
but our listeners don't know. I did a listener
lighthouse and it was very short, very little
amount of information because it's a. late term
lighthouse i should say short not in stature
but in duration yes in like very late to the
game and so it ended up being really short so
i was like okay well i'll just do a long history
buoy and ended up being like four times as long
of a history buoy as a lighthouse and so i was
like maybe i'll swap them and i'll do the lighthouse
for the history buoy yeah and the history of
buoy will be the main part of the episode so
that's what i'm going to do Very good. That's
what I've decided. Let's go. Okay. So, like I
said. Stretching out. All right. Now I'm ready.
This is a listener lighthouse. I want to thank
you. Send a thank you to Vince's mom for sending
this one in with a picture. No way. Let's go.
Vince's mom. She was traveling about and sent
us a picture of Hasita. Hasita head, I think.
Yeah. And then she sent another lighthouse. I
figured out what it was. Funny enough, my mom's
like, man, I'm featured on a lot of these episodes.
Really? Yeah, we're mentioning my mom a lot.
So shout out. She's one of our biggest fans.
I promise we actually have a lot more Listener
Lighthouses to cover, but this one, obviously,
it was November, so it's time to put it in the
list. So yeah, it ended up not having a lot of
information behind it, but I'm going to cover
it. So we are going south of San Jose, California.
And it's on the same stretch of coastline as
the Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Oh, nice.
Which doesn't mean anything to me. Redwoods?
I mean, I know of Redwoods. Is this where, like,
they are? Some of them, yes. So it's like a lot,
a cluster of Redwoods and people go and visit?
A preserved area of Redwoods. Okay, I would see,
I would go and see Redwoods. They're not that
different from White House. Oh, you would be
fascinated. They're, it's beautiful. Like, what
do you mean? Have you been there? California
a little bit, and then Washington has some as
well. Okay. Yeah. Well, cool. I figured that
if there was a state park or something, you would
know what I was talking about. And probably a
lot of our listeners as well. Anyway, this lighthouse
is called the Santa Cruz Breakwater Lighthouse.
And the official name being Walton Lighthouse.
Nice. But people refer to it as Santa Cruz Breakwater.
Kind of like Walton. That's a nice name. Yeah.
And you'll see why in just a moment. This harbor
that it marks, Santa Cruz Harbor, is a haven
for fishing craft and vessels. So while it has
heavy traffic in this aspect, it was never like
industrial or like heavy in trade or anything
like that. So it's a small craft harbor area.
And so the need for a lighthouse wasn't super
prevalent. So it wasn't until 1964 that a box
light was built and served until 1996. No history
on that. No pictures. What is a box like? Don't
know. Thank you for asking. 1964 is late to the
game as far as lighthouses go. Yeah, it's crazy.
It's interesting though. This is mostly private
use, like smaller vessels, like individuals moving
their boats around better than need in this area
rather than merchant ships or large trade operations.
I looked at box lighthouse and it's showing me,
Crafts. Box -style lighthouse. I couldn't find
it before, so I just decided I was going to put
the information in there for people that know,
and that's the best I can do on information.
Don't ask questions, Vincent. Yeah, I just knew
it, too. I always have to reread my notes and
be like, where is Vince going to ask the inconvenient
questions, and I need to have something prepared.
Actually, I did one of that this morning, and
I'm going to see if you ask the question. Well.
In a quick Google search, I have also not found
the answer. Okay, yeah. I don't know. It was
mentioned, so I'm going to leave it at that.
But anyway, after 1996, that was like a solid
30 -something years of whatever this box light
was. After this, it was replaced with an allegedly
ugly metal cylinder lighthouse nicknamed the
Water Heater. So like not well loved by the people
of Santa Cruz. And so in 1998, the community
came together to discuss ridding themselves of
this super ugly lighthouse and replacing it with
one of classic design to more closely align with
the characteristics of the town. And I've never
been to Santa Cruz, but I've heard that it's
like very homey, I guess. I think it's a really
nice area. Like a lot of California, right? Yeah,
I don't know how to describe it. Like cottagecore
is kind of what I have in my mind. Oh, yeah.
Colorful buildings. Yeah, just beautiful area.
Okay. Yeah, that's... Currently, it's 65 degrees
there. Definitely needed a classic lighthouse
and not an ugly metal thing. So it's south of,
for those of you who are not California people,
south of San Francisco, north of Monterey. So
very much closer to San Fran than Los Angeles.
Yeah. As far as... There's kind of a change in
the layout. You get from... Obviously, it's still
beachy, but... from Southern to Northern California,
more sand to more woods. So generally. Cool.
Very pretty. Thank you for the insight. I've
only went to California once. I went to Los Angeles
for a bachelorette party. We got to go back.
Yeah, we'll go back. I mean, I wasn't there with
you at the bachelorette party. We've already
discussed that I'm an East Coast gal. Loss. You
still want to marry me? Yeah. Okay. Anyway, move
on here. So they wanted to replace it with a
classic design lighthouse. And from 1999 to 2002,
a simple pipe structure held light as they began
fundraising. So they got rid of the water heater
like immediately and replaced it with just like
bare minimum. Do you think the pipe structure
was worse looking than the water heater? I bet
it was just like a stick with the light on top.
I think that would be better than whatever you
would describe a water heater lighthouse as.
If I was getting into fundraising, I'd be like,
look how ugly this is. Oh, true. Maybe everybody
already knew that it was so bad. But majority
of the donation, $60 ,000 was donated by Charles
Walton, which is the name of our lighthouse.
Charles or Charles? Charles. Sorry. I was going
to say, Charles is an awesome name. So is Charles.
You think so? I mean, maybe. Never heard it though.
Charles Walton. Who gave this money in memory
of his late brother who was a merchant seaman.
Nice. So very touching. Good for you, Charles.
I know. Heck yeah. And by 2001, enough money
was raised and construction began with the 41
and a half foot tall white. conical lighthouse
lit on june 9th 2002 and named walton lighthouse
after the late derrick walton so that's actually
a pretty tall lighthouse 40 feet 41 and a half
feet yeah it's kind of crazy for like at the
end of a breakwater you know like they like the
one that i saw um rehoboth beach uh rehoboth
breakwater yeah yeah i guess that was actually
pretty tall too that was definitely at least
four stories so i don't know why i assume that
like this late in the game marking the end of
a breakwater you wouldn't need that tall of a
lighthouse but yeah why not pretty cool if you
raise the money do you know how much money they
needed because if he he said a majority was donated
by charles walton yeah sixty thousand dollars
yeah i mean that's a lot of money at least it
was the largest donation okay i don't mean to
minimize such a big gift right but also we know
lighthouses are Very expensive. Very expensive.
Even modern decorative lighthouses. Yeah, for
sure. Yeah, I don't know. I think it was just
the biggest donation, like very sizable compared
to like other people being able to give, you
know, like we would give $100 or something. It's
the best we can do. We're planning a wedding,
so cut us some slack. So the light has a cylindrical
core with a spiral staircase to the lantern room.
And it has shotcrete walls, which I believe...
We've mentioned before, but it's concrete that
you spray on, which is something I had to look
up. I was like, shotcrete. And a weather -resistant
white coating and a copper roof, which is kind
of fun. Ooh, I love copper roofs. I know. The
light characteristic is a green light that flashes
every four seconds. Nice. That's unique. A little
picture up here of a little detail of the lighthouse
door and what the lighthouse looks like on the
end of the breakwater. Yeah, so our first image.
walton lighthouse i want to describe the door
because it's awesome how would you i don't even
like a bookcase door it's weirdly medieval the
door part but then the door frame is not medieval
it's very new england lighthouse door frame yeah
but the door itself is like wood slats with the
really heavy metal bar that goes across and bolts
and stuff and then it has an arched top so Very
cool. I love the text Walton Lighthouse. I will
probably borrow that for the cover image. Oh,
that's a good idea. But very cool. And then you
see some water breaking in an image here with
some birds flying. Yeah. What is that off on
the right? There's a really. Oh, it's engineered
riprap, it looks like. So precast concrete forms
that kind of build up the structure. Yeah, true.
We haven't seen that in a while with our lighthouses.
Especially in the U .S. Usually we have rock.
Yeah. I mean, and one side of the breakwater
appears to be rock and the other side appears
to be engineered. So maybe that's the side that
takes the most hits. Maybe they replaced some
of the falling away rock over time. That's so
cool. Yeah, it's interesting. But beautiful lighthouse.
I can't believe it's such a recent build. It
looks... Very historically accurate to some of
the more adored lighthouses we know. I'd like
to know if it was designed specifically for this
or if they borrowed another lighthouse's design.
Oh, and who's designing lighthouses in the year
2000? Oh my gosh, that's a great question. There's
got to be somebody. There's got to be. I mean,
I'm pretty sure they mentioned the engineer somewhere.
Engineer, architects as well. I'll have to look.
Hate giving architects their due. Oh, oh no.
As an engineer. Is there some feud I don't know
about? No. It's just hard to work with sometimes.
We're going to be hearing from architects. Yeah,
that's all right. We'd like to hear from people.
We make people angry so that we get more. No.
We get more interactions. No rage bait here.
But so notice in this picture that it has a band
of red just below the lantern room. Yeah. And
this is its day mark. And apparently, Seaman
argued that a green light should have a green
day mark. Like, they just go together. Why would
you have a red day mark with a green flashing
light? That's actually a fair point. I know.
So then they changed it to green in 2003. And
so this is the picture that your mom sent us.
Oh, cool. Yeah. Wow. So we're looking at an image
again. The green day mark has changed. There's
some folks standing out by the lighthouse. It
is fair weather. Beautiful out there. Lots of
clouds in the distance. Sunrise -ish. I will
say in this photo, maybe it's the photo, the
paint, the white paint looks a little aged. Yeah,
it's slightly aged. In just a couple years. They
didn't build it four years before this, right?
Two decades. What am I thinking of? Your mom
sent us this picture last year in 2004. Oh, I
thought this was 2003. They said 1999 and then
03. And I was like, damn. Yeah, 03 was when they
changed it to green. So now it's. Okay, two decades
later, I must apologize. Right on the ocean front.
It's like only a couple of years. I'm like a
couple decades. Here I am insulting the lighthouse
one slide after. I'm like, wow, this is great.
And presumably they still have the green flash
on a beacon up there. Yes, they do. I can't tell
in our photo. So the copper roof, always love
those, copper cupola. I don't think there's any
glass between the beacon. It doesn't look like
it. And I guess you don't need it anymore, really.
The beacons are, I'm sure they're designed to
be outside. Yeah, I bet so. So why would you
have glass if someone's going to shoot at it?
Yes, if someone's going to throw rocks. Turds.
For those of you who don't know, that's happened
in many of our stories on past lighthouses. Yeah,
yeah. It's the curse of lighthouses. They draw
attention from the good and the bad. The rotten
eggs and the delicious eggs. So my last note
is just that there's another Santa Cruz lighthouse
just 1 .5 miles west of this one. And so we'll
cover that at another time. But it's not to be
confused with that lighthouse, which is actually
quite beautiful. It's like pretty sure it's like
an integral lighthouse. The Santa Cruz, the other.
And this one is still referred to as Walton.
Yes, Walton Lighthouse. But most places that
I see it, it's Santa Cruz Breakwater Lighthouse.
So that's kind of where the distinction comes
into play is the breakwater. Cool. Yeah, that
is Walton Lighthouse. Therefore, I will be moving
on to our history buoy, which is actually the
guts of our episode today. The meat. And I actually
find it very interesting, little bit of science,
little bit of engineering, some fun. Oh, my gosh.
And that is Mercury floats. Let's go. We've talked
about Mercury floats, but we don't know much
about them. We did not cover them officially,
but they have popped up, obviously, because lighthouses
have Mercury floats. So I'm excited to get into
the details of how they came to be and the fall
of Mercury floats. Let's do it. Are you intrigued?
I am. Okay. Mercury float systems were first
proposed by Augustin Fresnel in 1825. And so
that was only, I think, two years after they
put the first Fresnel lens into a lighthouse
in France. And so he wrote, quote, I propose
to float our rotating devices of the first order
in a bath of mercury instead of placing them
on rollers. This project won't present many difficulties.
Nevertheless, as I have never put it into execution,
I won't require you to adopt it for your first
lighthouse. So I don't know who he was talking
to specifically, like first lighthouse. That
was some recorded. Yeah. In some probably other
country that was about to put in. the first Fresnel
lens or something he was saying in my mind this
is a great idea but I've never tried it so like
I won't say that you have to do that but it's
a good idea it wasn't until 1890 that it was
designed and put into effect by the chief engineer
of the French lighthouse service and so that
was like almost 70 years later and the reason
for that is that ships weren't very fast and
so the fact that the rotation of the flashing
lens was slow didn't matter because the average
was like one flash every minute or something,
which wouldn't matter if your ship was moving
really slow. But then they started to have more
steam powered ships, which went way faster than
like wind, you know, sails and everything. And
so suddenly the flash pattern was too slow. They
couldn't wait for one flash every minute to know.
To slow down the ship to use the lighthouse.
They put into effect the Mercury float. So I'm
going to have a. So, okay. questions but you
keep going okay no you can ask me well i had
assumed that so we're going to talk about in
detail but just maybe i'm jumping ahead a mercury
float is a system in which mercury as a liquid
it's metal but as a liquid is used as a barrier
and a lubricant between two surfaces it's lubricant
yeah it's a super dense yeah so so this system
is effectively frictionless and so then you can
start the rotation of something that's a couple
tons with like the push of a finger and that's
how they get a lens that weighs thousands of
pounds can rotate with basically no energy because
it's on a frictionless surface but you mentioned
speed so speed of the rotation was that the primary
motivation you found wow so interesting i know
i had thought it would be You know, most lighthouses
operate off of clockwork, so they have a weight
that falls. And you still need it, because you
need to power the rotation of the lens and control
how fast it's moving. I'm stepping on your material,
clearly. Yeah, obviously. I'm very excited, and
coffee's getting to me. Well, good. So basically,
the clockwork mechanism that they had at the
time couldn't be optimized further than what
they had. to increase the speed of rotation,
the power required to be supplied was impossible.
So that they had reached the end of the limits
for what they had available. And so then this
mercury float just kind of like blew past what
they were capable of doing with just the clockwork
mechanism. Cool. And so added an extra aspect
of like engineering that made it possible to
rotate at a faster, as faster speed when your,
your lens is 18 feet tall and 6 ,000 pounds.
It has to be something revolutionary in order
to get it to move. Revolutionary. Revolutionary.
We saw a first -order lens at the Maritime Museum.
Oh, my gosh, yeah. What? It was in Cape Cod.
Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard. Was it
Gay Head Light? Vineyard Haven. Yeah, Gay Head
first -order lens. Of course. We got a stamp
for that. It is a huge piece of machinery. It
takes up. two floors and some extra space in
this museum which is built around especially
even the bottom part and i'm going to show a
picture of a first order lens including the bottom
like mercury float and the mechanism that rotates
it and all that stuff yeah it's crazy i would
not have believed that existed if you hadn't
shown it to me like a first order lens like standing
in front of it is like Oh my gosh. Some book
you're reading, like a piece of glass, 12 feet
tall, 18 feet tall in assembly. You wouldn't
be able to think about it. I'd be like, wow,
that'd be like as big as this room. And then,
no, actually it's bigger. It's twice as big as
this room. Super cool. Kind of wild. So you have
those assemblies on mercury floats. Yes. So I'm
going to describe a little bit about it. Like
I said, you dramatically increase the speed of
lens rotation while decreasing wear and tear
because of near frictionless mechanism and a
huge decrease in power needed to get the lens
rotating. So it worked with four essential parts,
which varied a little bit between manufacturers
because, of course, nobody's trying to make the
exact same thing. They're trying to get it right.
Yeah, but there's just four main components.
A bowl and all... describe a little bit more
of this so there's a bowl or like a basin that
holds a mercury bath so that's our second component
and a float which fits into this bowl on top
of the mercury bath and then there's a ball needle
or roller bearings to keep the lens vertical
because you don't like it's so heavy and top
heavy that if there's any sort of tilt then you're
losing doing. Yeah. Just you're, we would destroy
it because, so the shape for people that can't
see the photos that I've pulled up it, the mercury
bath is shaped like a donut. And so you have
a basin shaped like a donut. And if you do a
cross section cut, then it's like a U shape.
And then the mercury, there's just very little
that goes into the bottom of this donut shaped
basin. And then the float is the exact same shape
and goes. and fits into that donut shape. And
so it's like two matching. Yeah, like a key into
a slot. Yeah, but a donut. A donut. A donut -shaped
key. So do the bearings go on the vertical walls
of the basin to keep? I'm trying to picture where
those would be because I was confused when we
talked about floats in the past. Yeah. And, you
know, I know that you can just use bearings underneath
a lighthouse assembly. Yeah. And then this was
the improvement here. was to use a float but
i'm going to pull up a picture where you can
see the mechanism okay we'll describe what we
and yeah and because i haven't really like looked
at where they join and stuff but the mechanism
that rotates it is usually off to the side and
then connects to the float system and that is
what rotates so the the float part is connected
to the you can see in this photo the lens support
ring and that's directly connected to the fresnel
lens so it's like all tightly joined and then
you rotate the top half of the bath cool looks
very heavy yeah a properly formed float would
have only 1 16th of an inch space between the
sides and this is the part that would be filled
with mercury the mercury would cover the bottom
and go about halfway up the sides if you had
the perfect amount of mercury in there so like
once the float settles in to your bowl then the
mercury would go halfway up yeah to the sides
and they found that if they added more than that
or a little less it didn't have any effect on
the speed of rotation so they really they optimized
it yeah interesting a 16th of an inch by the
way for perspective i don't know if this will
mean anything to anyone but an eighth of an inch
is the width of a saw blade known as the kerf
yeah so if you're cutting through wood you have
to account for an eighth of an inch being taken
away so half of that is epically tight yeah for
I mean, in modern day manufacturing, all the
time you're going to see tolerances that are
way tighter than that. Yeah, for sure. But that
is very difficult to make. Yeah. And you think
about such tight, specific measurements on something
so giant. Yeah. Normally there's some give here
and there when it comes to like measurements
with something so enormous. Yeah. But very, very
specific. So they would also have a small motor
or clockwork system that would still be used
to run the rotation, but they would be under
minuscule stress and therefore last considerably
longer because it's not having to like really
strain to be constantly to get it started. It
would of course need to have a little more power.
Yeah. But then after that it's based, it's frictionless.
So it's just kind of like no strain. Interesting.
I wonder I'm, I'm coffeed up. I wonder if there
was additional weight they put on to start the
rotation and then they took that weight off or
something like that. It would have to be a crazy
amount of weight to make any difference to like
6 ,000 pounds. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know,
force is mass times acceleration. So if you have
this huge mass, that won't change. But going
from a velocity of zero to your consistent velocity
is the only time in which you're going to accelerate.
So that's the loading. the force on the gearing,
whatever other components there might be. Once
you're up to speed, effectively you're frictionless,
assuming you're maintaining that speed. You're
just fighting the tiny amount of friction that
would come from the mercury, from any contact,
from air resistance, so on, so on. Cool. Also,
keep in mind that this, the functioning of the
lens was virtually silent because you'd have
the sound of the motor running and that's it.
And what you think about when we went to Nauset
Lighthouse and how loud that lantern room was.
That's electric motor. That's modern day. So
obviously there's some differences there, but
think about how much worse it probably was back
then, how loud it was. And now it's just like
silent. Well, what would, what would be, I mean,
like, okay. So the rolling action itself was
loud versus a float. That would be loud. We saw
a. I want to say it was 1980s technology at NASET.
It was very large. I'll put in a photo here or
maybe in a video without noise. Maybe I'll add
noise. But they were large, like can -shaped
lights that were rotating about one another.
They had little vents on them for heat. But we
stuck our head up there, and it was... It was
an electric motor doing the rotation. They didn't
have any clockwork there. And a 1980s electric
motor in the year 2024. I know they're taking
care of it, but still it was, you know, it was
like you're under the hood of a car. Yeah. Yeah.
It was crazy. I do have a video on my phone if
we wanted to. Well, I'll put one in. I'll take
a little pause on our audio and everything. Very
good. Cool. So, and I also, in the picture that
I have pulled up, you can see the float. was
always stationary. Well, actually, okay. The
float usually was stationary and connected to
the lens while the bowl would be lowered with
an enormous screw, like when you had to access
it. So you can see in the picture that I pulled
up, it's actually reversed, that the float is
raised up and the bowl is stationary. You can
see there's stairs bolted to it. I'm not sure
what would decide whether or not they have...
a movable float or a movable bowl, but usually
it was the bowl because the float was connected
to so much weight that you couldn't lift. I mean,
it took more effort to lift the float than it
would to lower the bowl. So the example I have
up here is from White Shoal Lighthouse, which
we've already covered. And I think I only briefly
mentioned that I had a mercury float. Michigan?
In the White Shoal's lake. I can't remember.
Out in the middle of Lake... Superior? Okay.
One of the Great Lakes. Yeah. I do remember.
It was Northside, I think. Lake Superior. Yeah.
Right outside of Mackinac. Mackinac City. I'd
have to look. You probably got it right. I don't
know. So my question is, you have a screw, like
literally like a screw. Giant, yeah. And you
have, you would rotate around the screw to lower
or raise for maintenance only. Yes. And then
let's say the bowl came up. The basin rose and
the lens support ring and float stayed in place.
That was the typical installation. The bowl would
lower, yeah. So you lowered it. Now you've maintained
it. I don't know what that means yet. But now
you're going to put it back into place. You did
an oil change, right? Exactly. You would rotate
around the screw. You'd rotate the basin. And
it would rise to a level at which the load would
leave the screw and the load would enter. the
mercury bath, so the float would take effect.
So like right now the lens in this image is suspended
for maintenance. The lens can't spin. But it
can spin once it's lifted into this bath of mercury.
You think? I don't know. I think so, which I'm
fascinated by. The mechanics behind it. People
were smarter in the past. At least smarter than
me. They didn't want opportunities to appear
smart. Now everything's being figured out, so
the things that have to be figured out are like,
you know, physics of like black holes and stuff.
Yeah, I guess so. A little different than...
I don't think I could have figured this out,
but I would love to have worked for the guy who
did. I'm not an inventor, so... What's that?
I was always fascinated by old -timey mechanical
engineers. Yeah, you're... What's the, that you
did a couple of history buoys over? The patents.
Yeah. Some of the patents on the US LHS website
for different foghorn and other mechanisms, float
mechanisms. This is cool. Very cool. The next
picture that I'm going to show may be familiar
to you if you remember and listened to our Minot's
Ledge Lighthouse episode. So this is very interesting.
Cape Charles Lighthouse and Minot's Ledge Lighthouse
had the first mercury floats installed in America
in 1895. And I mentioned that these lenses were
the first and only of their kind to have a numbered
flash pattern called the Mahan system. Mahan
system. Yes. Yeah. And evidently, they were also
at the convention showing off America's first
mercury floats. So it's so crazy that I covered...
this happening and didn't know like it really
just goes to show that there's always like more
to learn where if i had known that mercury floats
came to america in like the 1890s then i may
have seen that these lenses were at a convention
and been like oh it says they're mercury floats
i wonder if these were the first ones but i'm
just like oh and they were mercury float and
here you are yeah and i just like move on but
then i'm like oh my gosh they were also the first
ones i just Talked a whole history buoy over
these lenses being at this convention without
noticing that it was revolutionary in two different
aspects. Historical. So anyway, I have a picture
of our Cape Charles. Oh, okay. I forgot I have
this also, this picture. This is an example of
where the float lowers in the screw. Yeah. And
so you can kind of see the top lip of this. The
float system and the rest of it is just the basin
that holds everything. So you would lower the
basin on this one screw and then raise it back
up. So do you think the plaque that shows Grays
Harbor is part of the bowl? Yes. Okay. So those
high walls are the trough that is the bowl. Yeah.
Okay. Really cool. Just an example there. Even
old iron work used to be so cool. I know. Everything
looked so nice. Ornate. So this is the picture
that I was going to pull up. So this is our Cape
Charles. You can see the float is that it's hiding
behind the clockwork mechanism. So you can just
see the edges of the top of the float. So all
the rest of this was just the mechanism to rotate
probably the shaft that goes up to the lens and
connects to the bottom of it. I'm sure the examples
that I saw before this were like fourth order.
Fourth order lenses. Some smaller. Yes. Assemblies.
So this one obviously has a lot more like metal
work around the bottom of it, probably because
it has to distribute weight and like. I would
guess with such a long distance between the bowl
and the lens, especially at the top of the lens.
Yeah. That's where you're going to need some
bearings. Yeah. Because I had thought, well,
how are they going to work with a mercury float?
I would guess they're probably above it to stabilize,
like you said, to keep. Keep upright. Because
otherwise, that's quite a bit of loading. Yeah,
for sure. Really cool. So yeah. So there's a
little bit of friction there. But yeah, in areas
that aren't related to the Mercury. From 1893
to 1914, the U .S. purchased three first -order
float lenses, five second -order, nine third
-order, five third -and -a -half orders, and
17 fourth -order float lenses. So that was the...
They were buying them. Yeah, that was when we
were sourcing them from overseas instead of making
them ourselves. And it wasn't until 1915 that
a float was tested and built in the U .S. of
our own design. And this was at Ashtabula Light
Station. Ashtabula. Ashtabula. Any more info
on that? No. Maybe I'll cover it some other time.
But that was the site for the first... test mercury
float and this was for smaller lenses and they
found that to get the 4 000 pound lens moving
it required 2 000 pounds force and with a float
system that weight was reduced to 75 pounds to
get it moving wow yeah so very significant change
to getting it getting it going i bet the skepticism
around this was so high because it's so it's
such an obscure where do you get mercury from
In the first place. Like if you had told me this
whole thing and you're like, yeah, and they used
oil in the basin instead of mercury, I'd be like,
oh yeah. That's tools that everyone's familiar
with. Mercury. This is like so obscure. I have
no idea where it comes from. It's, there's, I'm
pretty sure you mine it. I don't think there's
a lot of places where mercury is in its liquid
form on the earth, but you mine it and then like,
I guess. As maybe you purify or extract it, it's
liquid? I don't know. You can freeze. I don't
know the properties. You can freeze mercury pretty
easily, I think. Give me one moment. I can't
help myself. I was wrong. What is it? Mercury
freezes at a temperature of negative, almost
38 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh. Okay, that's not that.
that's not that cold i mean we but i that's the
temperature you can achieve in america just in
the air but with yeah it's tough though with
refrigerant for sure you can do that well what
about um like dipping dots because we came across
those yesterday liquid nitrogen is typically
used keep dipping dots frozen at like a temperature
that's not achievable in a freezer what well
you can't so i work in refrigeration and hvac
you can use different refrigerants with different
and different rates to achieve certain heat transfer
and stay at a certain temperature. See, Dippin'
Dots requires storage at a temperature of negative
40 Fahrenheit. So you can freeze mercury in a
Dippin' Dots freezer. And the other side of the
equation, mercury doesn't boil until 674 Fahrenheit.
The important part is that you can have it in
a lantern room. Because you know how hot lantern
rooms get. And I actually am going to cover some
more interesting details about it. Okay. I'll
keep this up just in case. So the Ashtabula Light
Station was the first one to have this float
design. And we made several more after that.
But in 1920, the largest float system ever was
built in the U .S. for Cape Fear Lighthouse,
which is no longer. So it's kind of sad. It's
a cool, cool name. I know. Well, it made me think
of Cape Disappointment. I'm like, how many? Other
like emotions are, we should like cover all the
lighthouse emotions. It had an enormous first
order lens that weighed 6 ,000 pounds. So this
was my example for like the heaviest. Every time
I talked about something being the heaviest is
Cape Fear that I was referring to. And the float
was also the last put into service in the US.
So 1920 was the end of like new lighthouse float
systems. And this was because while it was a
lot more efficient and we all know it now, it's
also a lot more expensive. So that's our first,
there's two strikes against mercury. Engineers
hate to hear that. I know. One of them being
that it's very expensive. So what could be achieved
with a $15 ball bearing was replaced with $100
worth of mercury. So obviously it's, you're paying
the price for the efficiency that you're seeking.
As an example, a second -order lens with a chariot
cost $4 ,000 in 1880, which I need to cover clockwork,
but I'm like, I'm intimidated. I thought Mercury
floats were going to be a short history buoy.
And here we are. And then I started researching.
I was like, wow, look at all this information.
My main source of information being from the
USLHS had a... Shout out. I think Jim Woodward
is his name. It sounds familiar. We've talked
about him before. Yeah, James Woodward. He did
a whole paper on Mercury float rotation. Awesome.
That's what I used for most of this information.
Thank you, James. Yeah, that's in our show notes,
a link, so that you guys can check it out too.
It's very good. I didn't include all the information.
Anyway, I only cover chariots and clockwork rotation
and all that in other history movies or other
episodes. $4 ,000 in 1880 for one of those, and
then a second order floating lens was $12 ,500.
Yeah. significant price difference and we learned
more about mercury over time i mean mercury used
to be readily in every thermostat yeah like i
remember when i broke one when i was a kid in
my mom's bathroom and the little beads went between
all the tiles and i just moved them around and
then my mom saw like found me like playing with
mercury she's like don't touch that It's so funny.
I totally forgot about that until I was researching
this. And I was like, wait a minute, I've touched
mercury before. Like, that's crazy. It's so funny.
I had my dorm room at KU. So year 2015 had a
thermostat in the room that was no longer active,
but it was abandoned in place. Wow. And took
off the cover because I'm an engineer. And underneath
there's a mercury vial. And I would just touch
it. Like it was contained. It's a vacuum. But
I would just, you know, as if the thermostat
was turning on and off. Yeah. I would flip it
and it would watch it. Ooh, this way. Back that
way. It was like a dime amount of mercury. Yeah.
Always just a little. As we learned in time that
we should try to avoid toxic things. Yes. Should
never touch it. Everyone don't touch it. There's
still people having lots of mercury indigestion
or. Indigestion. Ingestion. There were, I think
this is the thing still. People make watches
using mercury as like they paint it on. What?
And they like lick the, it's worth looking into.
We'll look at it maybe outside of this episode.
Oh, are you talking about the women who would
lick the paintbrushes as they were doing the
watches? That was uranium, I think, or something.
Something that glows. Something radioactive,
yeah. I can't remember exactly. I can't remember
either. They use it in a lot of like firearms
stuff as well. Really? Like tritium. like night
sights. Yeah. Things that are radioactive that
glow. Yeah. They still, I mean, mercury is, it's
dangerous, but it's used in a lot of stuff today.
Like, like medication and things. Oh really?
Yeah. Something that you ingest. I can't remember
what it was. I wish I'd made more. I made this,
I made this less about mercury and more about
mercury floats. So yeah, I pulled us off. I pulled
us off track. Get us back, back in the float.
Yeah. So. The first thing is that it was expensive.
The second thing, obviously, the health concerns
that come with handling mercury. And they actually,
we've known for hundreds of years before this
that mercury is dangerous. Mad as a hatter is
a term that came from felt hat makers who used
mercury compounds and they would have, they'd
be mentally affected by their use of mercury
so much so that it became a saying to be mad
as a hatter. Awesome. Criminals of Rome, the
worst ones, were sent to work in the Cinnabar
mines in Spain with a life expectancy of three
years. The mines for mercury. Cinnabar, yeah.
It's mercury ore and it's bright red. So then
they would use this for like lipstick and paint.
Oh my God. Yeah. It's not good. That's why they
always tell you never to use makeup products
from... Old days? The olden days. Well, way back
in the olden days, like blue was a very difficult
color to find in nature to use for decoration.
So blue was the color of the Royals for that
reason. Not the baseball team, but those who
were Royals. Yeah. And I think that's also why
it's the color of the baseball team. Purple,
I think, was also. Yeah. I think any bright color
was difficult. Red, I'm sure. And then gold has
a long history. Cool. Really cool. Yeah. We already
knew that it was dangerous. But for some reason,
concerns about this and like testing and research
and everything didn't start until 1980s. 1980s?
I was almost alive. My parents were 20 -something
in the 1980s. I don't think we cared about the
world too much. But how crazy. Like we already
knew that it... killed criminals within three
years of mining it in its natural form. Not even
like it's concentrated, like elemental. Well,
this may be naive to say, but I don't think that
there's been a historical movement at any time
on the premise of environmental preservation
or climate change, any of those things until
the 70s, which was the hippie movement. Well,
that's not even environmental. That's just...
Human health? It included, well, they did a lot
of drugs. Wait, what are you talking about? 1970s,
the hippie movement, and then 1980s was like,
again, we weren't around, but like cocaine, cowboys
decade, like Scarface. Not everybody was doing
cocaine in the 80s, but I just mean like it was
a different time. I don't think environmental
studies really picked up until probably the 70s
or 80s. But it's not environmental, it's... I
mean, at all. Like any scientific research to
try to. Oh, research in general. Like OSHA, like
occupational safety wasn't around, I don't think
at all until the 80s. Okay. Like people just
died working on skyscrapers and mines. So just
more awareness coming up in the 80s than before.
Like, oh, maybe we should care about. Like, why
mercury is a problem? Well, I mean, even like,
I'm a little off track, I know, but Triangle
Island Lighthouse we talked about. Yeah. And
the scientific research station that was out
there on Triangle Island was mostly to study
birds. And all the birds, puffins, I think. I'm
pretty sure you said puffins. All these birds,
like 80 % of their world's population is on those
islands. Yeah. Away from people and other predators.
And like. We just set up a couple of stations.
What are they called? Connex boxes. Those big
truck steel shipping boxes. That's what they're
called. Military invented them. But set up those
and put some lights and desks in them and started
studying birds. I think all this started happening
late in the 1900s. Yeah, like a curiosity for...
And with computers and technology, we could start
databases. Anyways, I'm way off track. Sorry.
No, you're good. Through this research, we find
that mercury can get you through three different
methods of exposure. And that being inhalation,
absorption, and ingestion. So it's kind of like,
it's tough. It's a triple whammy. You got to
watch out because it can get you from any direction.
You can't just not drink it. Yeah, exactly. It's
like, oh no. The vapors in mercury floats were
reduced by pouring a layer of motor oil. Smart.
Over the top, so it kind of traps it. But obviously,
that doesn't stop. It's not perfect. No, and
it's so hot in the lantern rooms that the vapors
are inevitable. They just kind of end up everywhere.
And there were lots of stories of people being
sick and working around something. Or you go
into a lantern room. I can't remember which example
they used. People should really go read this
paper that's in our show notes because it's really
good. It's just kind of a fun read. I can't remember
which lighthouse it was, but it had a couple
of major mercury spills. And nobody really, like,
just, okay, wipe it up. So there are these tons
of pools of mercury and little beads just, like,
sitting in the lighthouse. Kind of crazy that
they did. They were like, okay, we'll put some
motor oil on there so that the vapors aren't
as prevalent. But lighthouse instructions from
the government made no mention of safety gloves
or protection in any way from handling mercury.
And it stated that keepers should remove the
mercury with a teacup and squeeze it through
their hands to get rid of contaminants. Or like
if there's any solids or anything in the mercury.
A teacup. Remove it. Yeah, just a teacup. Just
use a teacup to scoop it out. Yeah, I'm sure.
If nobody ever says anything about how dangerous
it is then. Wild. And they also suggested doing
this during the summer months since the days
were longer. It was hot, and so mercury was more
volatile and produced more vapors. Man. And on
top of this, mercury attacks the kidneys and
the nervous system, but mostly the brain, as
we saw from earlier, like Matt is a hatter. The
brain is where you see the most damage from mercury
poisoning. And it resulted in hard to diagnose
poisoning that was impossible to reverse. If
it was like some kind of acute exposure where
all of a sudden you're like, then you could go
and get like toxic treatment at a hospital. But
if you have long -term exposure to mercury, like
it just destroys you. I wonder if that plays
into. So the other thing about mercury, it's
shiny. And when we. I like shiny things. I would
like run my fingers through it. I would put it
in my teacup and I'd pour it into the thing.
Like if you didn't know, you'd be like, this
is awesome. Right. Every kid would want to touch
a pool of liquid silver, like dripping out. Like
if you, everyone would want to come see it. They
show like when they drain, when they were draining
the white shoals bath, it was just like, you
know, this stream of silver. It's so crazy. Everybody's
in. hazmat suits i saw a video on the internet
yesterday of a guy draining oil out of a car
and put it under his mouth ew ew what do you
why i don't to make a video because he's an idiot
that's gross he's an idiot and that's clearly
we know that's a terrible idea and that you know
so the point is the point is shiny am i so grossed
out by that anything no All right, so the point
is, though, you have this shiny material, which
adds to our interest in touching it. Yes. Let
alone drinking or breathing it. But also, so
back in the day, I wonder if the toxicity and
the poisoning, the brain damage, led to some
of the lore around weird lighthouse keepers.
Yes. Like the movie we watched, we still haven't
talked about it much, The Lighthouse with...
Who's the guy who plays? Robert Pattinson. And?
William Dafoe. Dafoe. It's worth watching, I
gotta say. You really think so? Yeah. Now, no.
No from the beginning. It's strange. Yes. But
if you enjoy film, if you would say you enjoy
film. Like they're trying to get emotion out
of you, so they do some weird stuff. Weird square
shooting, black and white. But Dafoe is this
crazy character, and part of it may be. From
the lore of toxicity. So a new young lighthouse
assistant shows up and the old guy's crazy. Well,
maybe he's crazy because he's been poisoned with
mercury. Yeah. Intoxication. It's not a word,
I don't think, but mercury over who knows how
long. And they have a lot of stories about one
of the most noticeable long -term effects of
mercury is depression. And so there were a lot
of lighthouse keeper suicides off of lighthouses.
And isolation. I'm pretty sure. Repetitiveness.
I keep saying things because I didn't make notes.
And so they just kind of like hung around in
my brain from reading this article. But there
was a lighthouse in Canada that had a mercury
float. And it had like three lighthouse keeper
suicides because they think of the mercury float
that was in there. Yikes. So it's very interesting.
That's sad. So another thing that is interesting
about mercury, it was just found out kind of
like as we use mercury floats, is that mercury
vapors react very strongly with precious metals
and like mercury itself. So like if you drop
gold in mercury, it dissolves. Oh. I know. That'd
be sad. Well, they'd say lighthouse keepers,
you know, you'd have, I keep saying lighthouse
keepers. I don't know why it's like, I don't
just say keepers. anyway so it's a keepers of
the light they have wedding bands right and so
even coming into contact with vapors it would
dull their wedding rings immediately and it just
would never come back unless you can go and like
polish it or whatever but yeah if you if you
had any contact with gold with mercury then it
would dissolve it's kind of crazy but in the
early 1900s aluminum was a revolutionary new
material that was used for the entirety of the
white shoal lantern room Oh, no. I know. One
that protected a mercury float lens. Luckily,
most of the walls were painted like a protective
coating in between the vapors and the aluminum.
But there was an area where they didn't paint
it, like towards the floor. And when they were
doing a restoration, they found that the aluminum
had reduced to a fine white powder. And so I
have a video of what this reaction looks like
between aluminum and mercury. Yeah, okay. And
so I have a video. So while you're pulling that
up, I'll say that's strange because aluminum
today is known to be almost corrosion free. Like
truck bodies and car parts that are made of aluminum
are supposed to not, they don't rust because
they don't oxidize naturally or they barely have
any oxidation. And we use aluminum in our designs
where you. want to fight oxidation instead of
iron or carbon steel, things like that. Yeah.
And additional to that, it's quite difficult
to paint aluminum. Really? Yeah. So the fact
that they had a paint coating, any protective
coating on aluminum inside that lighthouse. Yeah.
It's really interesting. Well, aluminum forms
a protective layer itself, doesn't it? Like an
oxide. Yeah. But it's, it's very slight compared
to like cast iron oxidizes like crazy. Yeah.
It turns to rust. But actually once you have,
a cast iron piece that's covered in rust, it
stops deteriorating. If you clean off all the
rust, it will deteriorate again and oxidize.
So anyways. Cool. We have the, oh, what? Yeah,
so they put a drop of mercury down on a sheet
of aluminum. And so this is just kind of a sped
up view of what happens. There's this column
of very fine white crap. I don't like the up
close view. Four hours. What? That was four hours?
What I really wish would have happened is that
the person showing this video would have squished
the column of white that happened. Because of
over time and it being small bits of vapor, obviously
it was a powder whenever they found it. But this
kind of shows it as a very controlled environment.
It forms this interesting column of white. That's
super interesting. Such a weird reaction. I know.
It's very interesting, though. This is just what
happened in the lighthouse where there wasn't
anything between the vapors and our aluminum
surfaces. So I wonder, some scientists could
probably tell us, but the off -gassing of the
vapors of mercury, do they continue until all
of the mercury is gone? Is it pure mercury that
goes into the, maybe this is silly stupid to
say, but like if you had water on a pot. Yeah.
And you had the heat on under it, it's going
to slowly evaporate. Yeah. Whether it's boiling
or not, it's evaporating. Right. And over time
you'd be left with whatever calcification or
the minerals will be stuck on the inside of your
pot and the water would have been gone. Is there
a similar effect in mercury where there's a certain
amount of fumes that come off and then it's now
you're left with your. I'm not sure if there
were deposits or like if that's what they mean
by that when the keepers had to do maintenance
that they squeeze the mercury to get out any
contaminants or whatever. But they did often
have to refill. And that's why the bowl was like
easily accessible. It's like the keeper could
do it himself. It was evaporating. Yeah. And
so like they'd have some amount of mercury in
the lighthouse to top off the mercury bath. Something
interesting. Leads again to a high risk of exposure.
Yeah, for sure. Lots of contact. Point Arena
Lighthouse was the last. Could we cover Point
Arena? I've heard of it. Or is it USLHS related?
Point, no point, wait. I know I've heard of Point
Arena, so I don't remember if that's because
we've covered it or why. I think we've covered
this. This was the one that was made by a guy
or a company that did like industrial smokestacks
or something. Okay. Very earthquake resistant.
Anyway, that was the last lighthouse to get its
mercury float removed in 2004 in the U .S. So
officially the U .S. has no more mercury floats.
However, in Canada, they had 214 lighthouses
with mercury floats. And they are still in the
process of taking them out of service. So there's
still some mercury floats functioning in Canada.
And I'm sure in other countries too, but just
a close example. I wonder, I'm sure somewhere
there's an exhibit you can go see. Oh, I bet.
You know, isolated. Yeah, controlled. Somehow
you can observe it. I mean, you can look up Mercury,
but in person it'd be really cool to see a big
mass rotating on Mercury. Well, I wonder if our
Cape Charles lighthouse. Oh, maybe. Maybe. You
never know. And also, kind of a side quest, but
remediation. You know, so having a professional
come in, like you talked about White Scholl,
and remove Mercury and its contaminants. In the
same way we do like asbestos insulation. They
talked about that in Canada. A lot of their lighthouses
are integral with the Keeper's Cottage. And so
when they did remediation and took out the mercury
floats, they would also have to gut the house
and the walls, like take off panels and everything
because there's mercury everywhere, like in the
house. Yeah, but no one would have thought of
that back in the day. No, of course not. Oh,
convenient. Yeah. Let's just connect everything.
So it's kind of funny that even with all the
downsides and how expensive it is and all of
that, we still ended up putting them everywhere.
It was just like, oh, it's really, really expensive
in comparison. But the payout was so positive
that we ended up with mercury floats all over
the place, especially in other countries. Like
we started out kind of late and like didn't adopt
as many. I'm pretty sure I listed all the ones
that we had purchased, but I don't know exactly
how many lighthouses we ended up having mercury
floats for. Well, it's interesting that that's,
and maybe there are other uses for mercury as
a lubrication, but it's not lubrication as much
as it is the floating. If it's truly a floating
material that's not connected to another material.
Like if you could have put mercury in a automobile
and it would act as a lubricant between gears
and shafts, that would have been. totally under
the same force discipline that would have been
a force equation that would have been like world
changing, but it's not a lubricant. It's the
fact that there's no contact at all. Yeah. It's
really a barrier more than anything. Yeah. So
pretty cool. Yeah. Lots of information there
for anybody that wants to look in our references
and our show notes, you can check it out yourself.
It's a lot of cool stuff. Lot. Of cool history.
That's what you get when you come to the Lighthouse
Lowdown. Yeah. Lots of cool history. You think
people skip the history buoy? Doubtful. Somebody
mentioned that, didn't they? Yeah. I can't remember
what they said. I went to skip the history buoy.
And we must have said something about it in that
one. But for the people that are going to skip
this, like, oh. We have fun. Those are Mercury
Floats and Walton Lighthouse. Thank you, everybody,
for listening in once again. We're working our
way through listener lighthouses, and I think
we're going to be having an interview coming
up here pretty soon. Oh, nice. It'll be pretty
exciting. Next episode will be, well, I won't
give away anything. It'll be number 75. Exactly.
Episode number 75, and probably an interview
for 76. It'll be Vince's turn once again. That's
right. I've got some ideas. Okay, good. Some
big ones, big ideas. I know, I need to work on
them. Well, thanks for dropping in. You can check
out our Instagram at thelighthouselowdown and
our website, thelighthouselowdown .com, where
you can watch our videos, listen to our episodes,
and leave us a review. And we love reviews. We
don't have a lot, so get out there and review
us if you like it. That's right. And hopefully
we catch you next time on The Lighthouse Lowdown.