A Frenchman Named Fresnell
The Hamilton Spectator
March 22, 2006
We told you last week about Operation Guano, now under way on the Beach Strip beside the lift bridge. Three men in white hazard suits are cleaning the pigeon poop out of Hamilton's long-forgotten lighthouse, built in 1858.
This week the crew emerged with a prize for Dave Auger, head of the volunteer group restoring the lighthouse. They handed him the Fresnel lens that used to bounce the light from a coal-oil flame out into the lake.
It was a Frenchman named Augustin Fresnel who designed it in the early 1800s. "It was the single biggest leap forward in lighthouse technology," Auger says.
In the beginning, they sent out warnings by open fire, candles, reflectors.
"But Fresnel developed this system of prisms and lenses to redirect the light so it was all going in the same direction," Auger says. "It's still the standard technology for focusing, gathering and directing light."
Auger drove the precious cylindrical lens, the size of a trash can, to temporary storage at Joseph Brant Museum.
This summer the Fresnel may make a trip to an international lighthouse conference in Southampton. By 2008, it should be bending light again atop our limestone tower.
Photo, The Fresnel lens before the clean-up started.
Forum Photo
The Hamilton Spectator
March 22, 2006
We told you last week about Operation Guano, now under way on the Beach Strip beside the lift bridge. Three men in white hazard suits are cleaning the pigeon poop out of Hamilton's long-forgotten lighthouse, built in 1858.
This week the crew emerged with a prize for Dave Auger, head of the volunteer group restoring the lighthouse. They handed him the Fresnel lens that used to bounce the light from a coal-oil flame out into the lake.
It was a Frenchman named Augustin Fresnel who designed it in the early 1800s. "It was the single biggest leap forward in lighthouse technology," Auger says.
In the beginning, they sent out warnings by open fire, candles, reflectors.
"But Fresnel developed this system of prisms and lenses to redirect the light so it was all going in the same direction," Auger says. "It's still the standard technology for focusing, gathering and directing light."
Auger drove the precious cylindrical lens, the size of a trash can, to temporary storage at Joseph Brant Museum.
This summer the Fresnel may make a trip to an international lighthouse conference in Southampton. By 2008, it should be bending light again atop our limestone tower.
Photo, The Fresnel lens before the clean-up started.
Forum Photo
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