Clockwork Mechanism

There are three major types of lenses used in lighthouse towers -fixed, flashing, and a combination of fixed and flashing. Flashing lights are the most effective and powerful. The first lens created by Augustin Fresnel was a flashing lens. The flashing lens rotates and has a number of bulls-eye lens panels that create beams of concentrated light (an eight-panel lens produces eight beams). As the lens rotates, the beams successively pass the view of the mariner giving what appears as a flash of light followed by darkness.