Our Beautiful World

Skagen, Denmark  
Seesaw - up and down.
 Rightclick on most pictures for full screen view


Look once more at the picture, and start guessing.
What do you think it is? At first we thought it was a way to get up water
from a very deep well. But since it was placed on a small 'hill', that
sounded stupid. But how about a look-out for ships in bad water?
A man could be placed in the basket, and up he goes....


Perhaps you need to take a closer look....
There should be no doubt.
Of course you can see far away from up there.
And if you do a bad job,
perhaps the men on the ground will leave
you up there for a while...

Any other guesses before we give you
the right answer to this very, very old thing?

Of course, this is only a copy of the original,
which was built - and in use - here
in the first part of the 15th century.



Following the many ships being wrecked when trying to pass the
northern tip of Denmark on its way to and from Skagerrak and Kattegat,
many nations placed demands on the danish government forcing them to
build lighthouses on the coast.

Now the 'Parrot-lighthouse' was built on Skagen.
At first it was lightened by wood from the nearby woods, but
soon there were no more woods in the area, and they began
import of more wood from Norway.

About 1581 the sea broke down the lighthouse.
Between 1607 and 1627 other lighthouses were built.



It was around this time the seesaw-lighthouse was built.
About 6 bushels of coal was put in the basket, and set on fire.
Then up and down as the weather changed.

Because of the flying sand and eroding coastline, the seesaw-light
was moved several times till about 1742 when a permanent lighthouse
was built.
all pictures. : © www.vulkaner.no except where otherwise stated.





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