The Marquette Maritime Museum is located in Marquette, MI. Marquette is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is located on Lake Superior. This museum has Fresnel lenses of second, third and fourth order on display. The following pictures are those lenses:




Marquette Harbor Lighthouse Lens.

The first fourth order Fresnel was installed in Marquette Light in 1866. This is believed to be that lens. Fresnel lenses did not have serial numbers so they are essentially untraceable other than by type. The nominal range was 15 miles.

Big Bay Lens.

The lens is a third order fixed Fresnel. It is called fixed because it does not rotate in contrast to the Stannard’s Rock lens. Note that the middle belt lens panels are smooth while the Stannard’s Rock ones have the bulls eyes.

The lens stands about 12 feet tall on the pedestal and weighs about a ton. It’s nominal range is 18 miles.

The Stannard’s Rock lens proper weighs about two tons and the iron pedestal another two tons. The lens stands roughly ten feet high and has a diameter of five feet. The 12 bulls eyes are intended to provide a flash as the lens rotated at a speed of one revolution every three minutes. Visibility of the light was a nominal 25 miles although it could be much greater or less depending on weather and atmospheric conditions. The longest reported sighting was 45 miles.

It is a second order classical 12 bulls eye Fresnel lens built in Paris in 1880.