|
Bells Rock Light
The Bells Rock Light was a lighthouse located in the York River in Virginia. History In the nineteenth century, West Point, Virginia was the head of navigation on the York River, and this light was requested in order to facilitate navigation there. A house was built for it at Lazaretto Point in 1880, but this was diverted to Thimble Shoal Light when the latter burned down. A second house was constructed and installed on this spot in 1881. Three years later it was struck by a schooner, breaking three of the support columns; these were repaired expeditiously, however, and the light passed the rest of its days uneventfully. The diminishing of commercial traffic on the river made the light less important, and in 1928 the house was removed and a skeleton tower erected on the iron foundation. This arrangement continues to the present. References *Bells Rock Light from the Chesapeake Chapter of the United States Lighthouse Society The United States Lighthouse Society is a non-prof ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Point, Virginia
West Point (formerly Delaware) is an incorporated town in King William County, Virginia, United States. The population was 3,306 at the 2010 census. Geography West Point is located at (37.543733, −76.805366). The York River is formed at West Point by the confluence of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers; from there, it separates the Virginia Peninsula and Middle Peninsula regions of eastern Virginia as it flows approximately to the Chesapeake Bay. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it (23.12%) is water. Much of the downtown is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the West Point Historic District. History The current site of West Point was once the site of ''Cinquoteck'', a Native American village of the local Mattaponi, an Algonquian-speaking tribe affiliated with the Powhatan Confederacy. During the first half of the 17th century, the Confederacy and the English colonists who es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
York River (Virginia)
The York River is a navigable estuary, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 in eastern Virginia in the United States. It ranges in width from at its head to near its mouth on the west side of Chesapeake Bay. Its watershed drains an area of the Atlantic coastal plain, coastal plain of Virginia north and east of Richmond, Virginia, Richmond. Its banks were inhabited by indigenous peoples of North America, indigenous peoples for thousands of years. In 2003 evidence was found of the likely site of Werowocomoco, one of two capitals used by the paramount chief Powhatan before 1609. The site was inhabited since 1200 as a major village. Enormously important in later U.S. history, the river was also the scene of early settlements of the Colony of Virginia, Virginia Colony. It was the site of significant events and battles in both the American Revolutionary War and the American C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Screw-pile Lighthouse
A screw-pile lighthouse is a lighthouse which stands on piles that are screwed into sandy or muddy sea or river bottoms. The first screw-pile lighthouse to begin construction was built by the blind Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell. Construction began in 1838 at the mouth of the Thames and was known as the Maplin Sands lighthouse, and first lit in 1841. However, though its construction began later, the Wyre Light in Fleetwood, Lancashire, was the first to be lit (in 1840). In the United States, several screw-pile lighthouses were constructed in the Chesapeake Bay due to its estuarial soft bottom. North Carolina's sounds and river entrances also once had many screw-pile lights. The characteristic design is a -storey hexagonal wooden building with dormers and a cupola light room. History Non-screwpile (straightpile) tubular skeletal tower lighthouses were built, usually of cast-iron but also of wrought-iron piles, both onshore and offshore, typically on soft bottoms such as m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cast-iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impurities which allow cracks to pass straight through, grey cast iron has graphite flakes which deflect a passing crack and initiate countless new cracks as the material breaks, and ductile cast iron has spherical graphite "nodules" which stop the crack from further progressing. Carbon (C), ranging from 1.8 to 4 wt%, and silicon (Si), 1–3 wt%, are the main alloying elements of cast iron. Iron alloys with lower carbon content are known as steel. Cast iron tends to be brittle, except for malleable cast irons. With its relatively low melting point, good fluidity, castability, excellent machinability, resistance to deformation and wear resistance, cast irons have become an engineering material with a wide range of applications and are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin that resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, or it is defined more broadly to include the same type of tissue elsewhere such as in the roots of trees or shrubs. In a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also conveys water and nutrients between the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots. Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or woodchips or fiber. Wood has been used for thousands of years for fuel, as a construction material, for making tools and weapons, furniture and paper. More recently it emerged as a feedstock for the productio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fresnel Lens
A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design. A Fresnel lens can be made much thinner than a comparable conventional lens, in some cases taking the form of a flat sheet. The simpler dioptric (purely refractive) form of the lens was first proposed by Count Buffon and independently reinvented by Fresnel. The ''catadioptric'' form of the lens, entirely invented by Fresnel, has outer elements that use total internal reflection as well as refraction; it can capture more oblique light from a light source and add it to the beam of a lighthouse, making the light visible from greater distances. Description The Fresnel lens redu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Head Of Navigation
The head of navigation is the farthest point above the mouth of a river that can be navigated by ships. Determining the head of navigation can be subjective on many streams, as the point may vary greatly with the size or the draft of the ship being contemplated for navigation and the seasonal water level. On others, it is quite objective, being caused by a waterfall, a low bridge that is not a drawbridge, or a dam without navigation locks. Several rivers in a region may have their heads of navigation along a line called the fall line. Longer rivers such as the River Thames may have several heads of navigation depending on boat size. In the case of the Thames, that includes London Bridge, which historically served as the head of navigation for tall ships; Osney Bridge in Oxford, which has the lowest headroom of any bridge on the Thames that generally restricts navigation to smaller vessels such as narrowboats and cabin cruisers, and the long reach above St John's Lock, the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thimble Shoal Light
Thimble Shoal Light is a sparkplug lighthouse in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay, north of the Hampton Roads channel. The third light at this location, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. History The first light at this location was a hexagonal screw-pile lighthouse erected in 1872, replacing the last Lightvessel, lightship stationed within the bay. It was destroyed by fire in 1880 and replaced in the same year with a new house on the same foundation. This was facilitated by the availability of a newly constructed house originally intended for the Bells Rock Light, so that the light was out of service for only fifty-five days. The second light was plagued by collisions with passing ships: it was struck by a steamer in 1891, by a coal barge in 1898, and finally by the schooner ''Malcolm Baxter, Jr.'', which struck the lighthouse on December 27, 1909 while under tow. This last collision damaged the foundation and overturned the stove in the house, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Lighthouse Society
The United States Lighthouse Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to aiding in the restoration of American lighthouses and educating the public about their history. With four chapters, and more than a dozen affiliates, it is one of the largest and oldest lighthouse organizations in the world. History Founded in 1984 by Wayne Wheeler and initially headquartered in San Francisco, California, one of the United States Lighthouse Society's first major projects was the purchase of the lightship LV605 in 1986 from a private individual. The organization subsequently invested $400,000 and more than 40,000 volunteer hours in the preservation and restoration of the vessel. In 2003 the society received the California Governor's Historic Preservation Award for its work on the ship. The society relocated from California to Hansville, Washington in 2008, siting its headquarters at the historic Point No Point Lighthouse, which it rented from Kitsap County (the county, in turn, lease ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lighthouses Completed In 1881
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lighthouses In Virginia
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
