The Great Exhibition

Surely these were words spoken, or similar expressions of relief, gratitude, and amazement, for the better part of nine decades, as legions of mariners navigated around the deadly dangers of Diamond Shoals. For more than 25,000 nights, this light flashed from a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras, delivering its signal of assurance, caring, and guidance through the green-tinted crown-glass of its French Fresnel lens. Throughout countless storms, impenetrable fogs, and even an earthquake, the counterweights fell, the gears and rollers turned, and the 12-foot-tall apparatus of 1,008 prisms and bullseye lenses gracefully rotated around its four-wick hydraulic lamp. And night after night, the light flashed faithfully, once every 10 seconds.