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Reuben was still wondering why that name was given to it, when his quick ear heard the ringing of a bell afar off in the distance. What could that be? Then Mrs. Tracy told the boys of the valuable bell-buoys, of which they had never heard.
A long time afterward the throbbing ceased, bell-buoys whistled and clanged about them; the sea suddenly grew calm and lifeless; they slid over it as if it were a quavering sheet of ice; and lights sneaked out of the fog and approached with stealthy swiftness.
She had a vague recollection of hearing the motherly lady and the parent of the freckled child ardently disputing the relative advantages of trying several medicines at once, or of taking each in turn; the motherly lady maintaining that the competitive system saved time; the other objecting that you couldn't tell which remedy had effected the cure; their voices went on and on, like bell-buoys droning through a fog.... The porter came up now and then with questions that she did not understand, but that somehow she must have answered since he went away again without repeating them; every two hours the motherly lady reminded her that her husband ought to have his drops; people left the car and others replaced them...
Hence the whistling-buoy is used in roadsteads and the open sea, while the bell-buoy is preferred in harbors, rivers, and the like, where the sound-range needed is shorter, and smoother water usually obtains. In July, 1883, there were 24 of these bell-buoys in United States waters. They cost, with their fitments and moorings, about $1,000 each. Locomotive-Whistles.
The latest use to which it has been put in this country has been to place it off the shoals of Cape Hatteras, where a light ship was wanted but could not live, and where it does almost as well as a light ship would have done. It is well suited for such broken and turbulent waters, as the rougher the sea the louder its sound. Bell-Buoys.
His descriptions of the most approved inventions relating thereto are interesting, and we make the following extracts: The sound signals generally used to guide mariners, especially during fogs, are, with certain modifications, sirens, trumpets, steam-whistles, bell-boats, bell-buoys, whistling buoys, bells struck by machinery, cannons fired by powder or gun cotton, rockets, and gongs. Gongs.
"Couldn't have been a bell-buoy, I suppose?" he suggested, with a tentative laugh as he pushed his cap upwards away from his ears. "No bell-buoys out here," replied the captain, rather sharply, with his usual self-confidence. They stood side by side in silence for five minutes or more. The mist was a little thinner now, and Captain Dixon looked upwards to the sky, hoping to see the stars.
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