The lens at Cape Race was built by Chance Brothers of Birmingham. The optical equipment and base, which rotate twice per minute, weigh 7 tons and float in a 950-pound bath of liquid mercury. Lenses of this type were the largest ever built, and were installed in fewer than a dozen major landfall beacons around the world. Other recipients include Makapu'u Point lighthouse on Oahu Island in Hawaii, Cabo da Sao Vincente in Portugal, Manora Point in Karachi, Pakistan, the famous Bishop Rock off the coast of Cornwall (UK), and Abrolhos island off the coast of Brazil. By the 1920's, high-intensity lamp technology had rendered lenses of this size obsolete.