The Rhode Islander

New Light For Light Houses. - A Washington Correspondent of the N. Y. Journal of Commerce thus refers to the subject of a new combustible material, for lighting light houses, which has attracted the attention of the government:

"The Secretary of the Treasury will in a few days transmit to the Senate, in obedience to a resolution of that body, several reports upon the result of an experiment to apply, what has been patented as "Costin Gaslight," to the light houses of the United States. The experiment has been in progress for a year past at the Christina lighthouse, near Wilmington, Delaware, and has been very successful. A Board of scientific gentlemen, connected with the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, and Capt. Prince of the Revenue service, who have separately inspected the apparatus and subjected it to sundry tests, have made able and elaborate reports in its favor. The Hon. Sr. Naudain, Collector of the port of Wilmington, and Superintendent of light houses on the Delaware Bay and River, - under whose charge the experiment has been made, - has also sent to the Secretary an able and voluminous report, in which he establishes the superiority of this mode of lighting our rivers, bays, lakes and coast, over all others, as well on the score of brilliancy, certainty and uniformity, as economy.

To these is added the report of Mr. Costin, the inventor, (who is at the head of the National Laboratory attached to the Navy Yard in this city.) Taken together, these reports contain much that will interest the scientific and curious in such matters. The facts adduced by Mr. Naudain show, among other things, that twice as much light has been obtained for $60, as was derived from oil, during a corresponding period the year before, and which cost upwards of $409! The general application of this invention to the light houses of the United States, as has been demonstrated by the result at Christina, will save to the government annually, upwards of $30,000, over and above all the salaries of the light house keepers! This, aside from its greater brilliancy and uniformity, should be a sufficient recommendation to its immediate and general adoption by the government. The apparatus of Mr. Costin is so simple as to have been managed by a journeyman shoemaker, who is the light house keeper at Wilmington, and who never before saw a gas apparatus of any description!

It is gratifying to perceive that the spirit of reform has at last reached this important but hitherto most bunglingly managed branch of the public service. It is doubted whether the coast of any country in the world, is so poorly lighted as that of the United States. It rests with Judge Bibb or his successor, to apply the remedy now furnished by the ingenuity of one of our own countrymen."