Kilauea Lighthouse
This important landfall light, providing a leading
mark for ships bound to Honolulu from the Orient, was built in 1913. The
tower is of reinforced concrete, and is but 52 feet high, but it stands
on a cliff which elevates the light to 216 feet above the water. The
moving parts of the lens weigh 4 tons, and this mass turns on a mercury
float, making a complete revolution every 20 seconds and giving each 10
seconds a double flash of 1,000,000 candlepower. The lens was built in
France and cost about $12,000. Kilauea Lighthouse is also a radio-beacon
station providing radio signals for the guidance of ships.
This light was the first landfall made in the
first flight by plane from the Pacific coast of the United States to
the Hawaiian Islands, in 1927, it being picked up from the air at a
distance of 90 miles
