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Low Head Lighthouse is in Low Head, Tasmania, about north of George Town on the east side of the mouth of the Tamar River. It was the third lighthouse to be constructed in Australia, and it is also Australia's oldest continuously used pilot station.〔 This light is now unmanned and automated. ==History== During the course of their circumnavigation of Van Diemen's Land now Tasmania in the ''Norfolk'' in 1798, George Bass and Matthew Flinders made landfall at a place they named Port Dalrymple now George Town, to the north-west of Launceston. In doing so, they proved the existence of a strait between Australia and Tasmania.〔 Flinders reported difficulty in locating the entrance to the channel. Colonel William Paterson arrived on 16 February 1804 aboard HMS ''Buffalo'' as the newly appointed Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land with the first settlers.〔 The first navigation marker he installed at Low Head was a simple flagpole in 1804. Later that year, Paterson established a pilot station and signal station in the sheltered bay below Low Head. He also installed a fire beacon at Low Head to mark the hazardous entrance of the Tamar River. When a vessel was sighted after sunset, a fire would be lit and attended all night by convicts to allow the vessel to maintain sight of the port.〔〔 Several serious shipping accidents occurred near the mouth of the Tamar River early in the history of George Town. The first and most infamous of these occurred on 15 June 1808, when the ''Hebe'' struck a reef between Low Head and Western Head at the entrance to Port Dalrymple. The ship was wrecked on the rocks at the mouth to the Tamar River, which have since that day carried the name Hebe Reef. Responding to this ongoing threat to shipping, the local Committee of Pilotage recommended in 1826 that a lightstation should be built at Low Head.〔 Australia's first lighthouse, Macquarie Lighthouse in Vaucluse, New South Wales was lit in 1793.〔 Australia's second lighthouse, Iron Pot Lighthouse at the entrance to the River Derwent was lit in 1832.〔 Low Head Lighthouse, constructed by convict labor and first lit on 27 December 1833, became Tasmania's second and only the third one to be built in Australia.〔 The presence of Low Head Lighthouse has undoubtedly prevented numerous shipping accidents since its first operation in 1833, but by no means all of them. Since the loss of the ''Hebe'' in 1808, nine more vessels have been lost on Hebe Reef. The most recent was , chartered by BHP Shipping. On 10 July 1995, nearing the end of a voyage from Groote Eylandt with a load of manganese ore, ''MV Iron Baron'' ran aground on Hebe Reef. All crew were safely evacuated but the accident resulted in the worst oil spill in Australian history.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Low Head Lighthouse」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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