The wind blows fiercely here most of the time; the ocean is rough; and, to persons subject to sea-sickness, the short voyage is filled with the misery of that disease.

Yet they contain a great deal that is strange and curious.

On the highest point of the South Farallon the Government has placed a light-house, a brick tower seventeen feet high, surmounted by a lantern and illuminating apparatus.

It is a revolving white light, showing a prolonged flash of ten seconds duration once in a minute.

The light is about three hundred and sixty feet above the sea, and with a clear atmosphere is visible, from a position ten feet high, twenty-five and a half miles distant; from an elevation of sixty feet, it can be seen nearly thirty-one miles away; and it is plainly visible from Sulphur Peak on the main-land, thirty-four hundred and seventy-one feet high, and sixty-four and a half miles distant.