The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism Volume II Part 11

The most noted lighthouse in the world was undoubtedly the Pharos of Alexandria, named from the island on which it stood. The French, Italians, and Spaniards to-day use the term almost in its original purity: thus, French for lighthouse, _phare_; Italian and Spanish, _faro_. It was commenced by the first Ptolemy, and finished about 280 B.C., the workmanship, according to all accounts, being superb. This tower of white stone was 400 feet high. It is stated by Josephus that the light, which was always kept burning on its top at night, was visible over forty miles.

It is believed to have been destroyed by an earthquake, though the date of its destruction is unknown.

The Romans were the first to erect anything approaching a Pharos, or lighthouse, on our coasts. Beacon fires may have been occasionally used before; the conquerors made the matter an organised affair. On either side the Channel, at Boulogne and Dover, structures of no mean alt.i.tude were raised for this purpose. That at Boulogne is supposed to have been erected by Caligula; all vestiges of it have pa.s.sed away. It was originally called _Turris Ardens_, afterwards corrupted to the _Tour d'Ordre_. From a description left by Claude Chatillon, engineer to Henry IV., it appears that it was built about a stone's throw from the edge of the cliff, above and overlooking the high tower and the castle. Its form was octagonal, with a base 192 feet in circ.u.mference. It was built of grey stone with thin red bricks between. That at Dover still exists. It occupies the highest point of the lofty rock on which the famous castle is built. This Pharos was also octagonal in outward form, being square within. It is 33 feet in diameter, and formerly about 72 feet high. On the summit three holes on the three exterior sides indicate their purposes, both for look-out and for exhibiting a light seawards.

Long after, and indeed almost down to our days, fire-beacons were far more common on exposed parts of our coasts than lighthouses. "The first idea of a lighthouse," said Faraday, "is the candle in the cottage window, guiding the husband across the water or the pathless moor." Lambarde says of the lights shown along the coast that, "Before the time of Edward III., they were made of great stacks of wood; but about the eleventh yeere of his raigne it was ordained that in our shyre (Kent) they should be high standards with their pitchpots." Such were long used.

Lighthouses in these days differ greatly in material and mode of construction. Stone, brick, cast and wrought iron, and even wood, are used, according to the necessities of the case, or the lacks of the special locality where they are placed. In the case of some iron lighthouses they are literally screwed into the rock or hard ground.

Seventy of this cla.s.s of structures now exist in the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOWER OF CORDOUAN.]

One of the most remarkable early lighthouses is the Tower of Cordouan, situated on a ledge of rocks at the mouth of the Garonne, which empties into the Bay of Biscay. It was commenced in 1584, and completed in 1610, by Louis de Foix.

The ledge is about 3,000 feet long and 1,500 feet broad, and is bare at low water. It is surrounded by detached rocks, upon which the sea breaks with terrific violence. There is but one place of access, which is a pa.s.sage 300 feet wide, where there are no rocks, and which leads to within 600 feet of the tower. The tower was a circular cone, rising from its rocky base to a height of 162 feet. It is now shorter. The apartments of the tower are highly ornamented, consisting of four storeys, all of different orders of architecture, and adorned with busts and statues of Kings of France and heathen G.o.ds. The bas.e.m.e.nt, or lower storey, appears to have been intended as a store-room; the second storey is called the "King's apartments;" the third is a chapel; and the fourth consists of a dome supported by columns, a kind of lower lantern; above this was originally a lantern formed of a stone dome and eight columns. In the upper lantern a fire of oak wood was kept burning for about a hundred years, when, in 1717, the fire having weakened the stone supports by calcining them, the upper lantern was taken down, and the light was kept up in the lower lantern. As it did not show well there, an iron lantern was erected in 1727 above this, in the place of the old stone lantern, and coal was then used for fuel instead of wood.

The following history of the Eddystone is largely derived from one of Mr.

Samuel Smiles' graphic and learned works.(52)

In 1696, Mr. Henry Winstanley (a mercer and country gentleman), of Littlebury, in the county of Ess.e.x, obtained the necessary powers to erect a lighthouse on the Eddystone. That gentleman seems to have possessed a curious mechanical genius, which first displayed itself in devising sundry practical jokes for the entertainment of his guests. Smeaton tells us that in one room there lay an old slipper, which, if a kick was given it, immediately raised a ghost from the floor; in another the visitor sat down upon a chair, which suddenly threw out two arms and held him a fast prisoner; whilst, in the garden, if he sought the shelter of an arbour, and sat down upon a particular seat, he was straightway set afloat in the middle of the adjoining ca.n.a.l. These tricks must have rendered the house at Littlebury a somewhat exciting residence for the uninitiated guest. The amateur inventor exercised the same genius, to a certain extent, for the entertainment of the inhabitants of the metropolis, and at Hyde Park Corner he erected a variety of _jets d'eau_, known by the name of Winstanley's Waterworks, which he exhibited at stated times at a shilling a head.

This whimsicality of the man in some measure accounts for the oddity of the wooden building erected by him on the Eddystone Rock; and it is matter of surprise that it should have stood the severe weather of the English Channel for several seasons. The building was begun in the year 1696, and finished in four years. It must necessarily have been a work attended with great difficulty as well as danger, as operations could only be carried on during fine weather, when the sea was comparatively smooth. The first summer was wholly spent in making twelve holes in the rock, and fastening twelve irons in them, by which to hold fast the superstructure. "Even in summer," Winstanley says, "the weather would at times prove so bad that for ten or fourteen days together the sea would be so raging about these rocks, caused by out-winds and the running of the ground seas coming from the main ocean, that although the weather should seem and be most calm in other places, yet here it would mount and fly more than two hundred feet, as has been so found since there was lodgment on the place, and therefore all our works were constantly buried at those times, and exposed to the mercy of the seas."

The second summer was spent in making a solid pillar, twelve feet high and fourteen feet in diameter, on which to build the lighthouse. In the third year all the upper work was erected to the vane, which was eighty feet above the foundation. In the midsummer of that year Winstanley ventured to take up his lodging with the workmen in the lighthouse; but a storm arose, and eleven days pa.s.sed before any boats could come near them. During that period the sea washed in upon Winstanley and his companions, wetting all their clothing and provisions, and carrying off many of their materials.

By the time the boats could land, the party were reduced almost to their last crust; but, happily, the building stood, apparently firm. Finally, the light was exhibited on the summit of the building, on the 14th of November, 1698.

The fourth year was occupied in strengthening the building round the foundations, making all solid nearly to a height of twenty feet, and also in raising the upper part of the lighthouse forty feet, to keep it well out of the wash of the sea. This timber erection, when finished, somewhat resembled a Chinese paG.o.da, with open galleries and numerous fantastic projections. The main gallery, under the light, was so wide and open that an old gentleman who remembered both Winstanley and his lighthouse, afterwards told Smeaton that it was possible for a six-oared boat to be lifted up on a wave and driven clear through the open gallery into the sea on the other side. In the perspective print of the lighthouse, published by the architect after its erection, he complacently represented himself as fishing out of the kitchen window!

[Ill.u.s.tration: WINSTANLEY'S LIGHTHOUSE.]

When Winstanley had brought his work to completion, he is said to have expressed himself so satisfied as to its strength that he only wished he might be there in the fiercest storm that ever blew. In this wish he was not disappointed, though the result was the reverse entirely of the builder's antic.i.p.ations. In November, 1703, Winstanley went off to the lighthouse to superintend some repairs which had become necessary, and he was still in the place with the light-keepers, when, on the night of the 26th, a storm of unparalleled fury burst along the coast. As day broke on the morning of the 27th, people on sh.o.r.e anxiously looked in the direction of the rock to see if Winstanley's structure had withstood the fury of the gale, but not a vestige of it remained. The lighthouse and its builder had been swept completely away.

The building had, in fact, been deficient in every element of stability, and its form was such as to render it peculiarly liable to damage from the violence both of wind and water. "Nevertheless," as Smeaton generously observes, "it was no small degree of heroic merit in Winstanley to undertake a piece of work which had before been deemed impracticable, and, by the success which attended his endeavours, to show mankind that the erection of such a work was not in itself a thing of that kind." He may, indeed, be said to have paved the way for the more successful enterprise of Smeaton himself; and its failure was not without its influence in inducing that great mechanic to exercise the care which he did, in devising a structure that should withstand the most violent sea on the south coast. Shortly after Winstanley's lighthouse had been swept away, the _Winchelsea_, a richly laden homeward-bound Virginian, was wrecked on the Eddystone Rock, and almost every soul on board perished; so that the erection of a lighthouse upon the dangerous reef remained as much a necessity as ever.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUDYERD'S LIGHTHOUSE.]

Mr. Smiles graphically describes the coming architect of the period. He did not, however, come from the cla.s.s of architects or builders, or even of mechanics; and as for the cla.s.s of engineers, it had not even yet sprung into existence. The projector of the next lighthouse for the Eddystone was again a London mercer, who kept a silk shop on Ludgate Hill.

John Rudyerd-for such was his name-was, however, a man of unquestionable genius, and possessed of much force of character. He was the son of a Cornish labourer, whom n.o.body would employ-his character was so bad; and the rest of the family were no better, being looked upon in their neighbourhood as "a worthless set of ragged beggars." John seems to have been the one sound chick in the whole brood. He had a naturally clear head and honest heart, and succeeded in withstanding the bad example of his family. When his brothers went out pilfering, he refused to accompany them, and hence they regarded him as sullen and obstinate. They ill-used him, and he ran away. Fortunately he succeeded in getting into the service of a gentleman at Plymouth, who saw something promising in his appearance.

The boy conducted himself so well in the capacity of a servant, that he was allowed to learn reading, writing, and accounts; and he proved so quick and intelligent, that his kind master eventually placed him in a situation where his talents could have better scope for exercise than in his service, and he succeeded in thus laying the foundation of the young man's success in life.

We are not informed of the steps by which Rudyerd marked his way upward, until we find him called from his silk-mercer's shop to undertake the rebuilding of the Eddystone Lighthouse. But it is probable that by this time he had become well known for his mechanical skill in design, if not in construction, as well as for his thoroughly practical and reliable character as a man of business; and that for these reasons, amongst others, he was selected to conduct this difficult and responsible undertaking.

After the lapse of about three years from the destruction of Winstanley's fabric, the Brothers of the Trinity, in 1706, obtained an Act of Parliament enabling them to rebuild the lighthouse, with power to grant a lease to the undertaker. It was taken by one Captain Lovet for a period of ninety-nine years, and he it was that found out and employed Rudyerd. His design of the new structure was simple but masterly. He selected the form that offered the least possible resistance to the force of the winds and the waves, avoiding the open galleries and projections of his predecessor.

Instead of a polygon he chose a cone for the outline of his building, and he carried up the elevation in that form. In the practical execution of the work he was a.s.sisted by two shipwrights from the king's yard at Woolwich, who worked with him during the whole time he was occupied in the erection.

The main defect of the lighthouse consisted of the faultiness of the material of which it was built; for, like Winstanley's, it was of wood.

The means employed to fix the work to its foundation proved quite efficient; dove-tailed holes were cut out of the rock, into which strong iron bolts or branches were keyed, and the interstices were afterwards filled with molten pewter. To these branches were firmly fixed a crown of squared oak balks, across these a set of shorter balks, and so on till a bas.e.m.e.nt of solid wood was raised, the whole being firmly fitted and tied together with tre-nails and screw-bolts. At the same time, to increase the weight and vertical pressure of the building, and thereby present a greater resistance to any disturbing forces, Rudyerd introduced numerous courses of Cornish moorstone, as well jointed as possible, and cramped with iron. It is not necessary to follow the details of the construction further than to state that outside the solid timber and stone courses strong upright timbers were fixed, and carried up as the work proceeded, binding the whole firmly together. Within these upright timbers the rooms of the lighthouse were formed, the floor of the lowest-the store-room-being situated twenty-seven feet above the highest side of the rock. The upper part of the building comprehended four rooms, one above another, chiefly formed by the upright outside timbers, scarfed-that is, the ends overlapping, and firmly fastened together. The whole building was, indeed, an admirable piece of ship-carpentry, excepting only the moorstone, which was merely introduced, as it were, by way of ballast. The outer timbers were tightly caulked with oak.u.m, like a ship, and the whole was payed over with pitch. Upon the roof of the main column Rudyerd fixed his lantern, which was lit by candles, seventy feet above the highest side of the foundation, which was of a sloping form. From its lowest side to the summit of the ball fixed on the top of the building was ninety-two feet, the timber column resting on a base of twenty-three feet four inches. "The whole building," says Smeaton, "consisted of a simple figure, being an elegant frustum of a cone, unbroken by any projecting ornaments, or anything whereon the violence of the storm could lay hold." The structure was completely finished in 1709, though the light was exhibited in the lantern as early as the 28th of July, 1706.

That the building erected by Rudyerd was, on the whole, well adapted for the purpose for which it was intended, was proved by the fact that it served as a lighthouse for ships navigating the English Channel for nearly fifty years. The lighthouse was at first attended by only two men. It happened, however, that one of the keepers was taken ill and died, and only one man remained to do the work. He signalled for a.s.sistance, but the weather prevented any boat from reaching the rock for nearly a month.

What, then, was the surviving man to do with the dead body of his comrade?

The thought struck him that if he threw it into the sea, he might be charged with murder. He determined, therefore, to keep the corpse in the lighthouse until a boat should come off from the sh.o.r.e. At last a boat came off, but the weather was still so rough that a landing was only effected with the greatest difficulty. By this time the effluvia from the corpse was overpowering; it filled the apartments of the lighthouse, and the men were compelled to dispose of the body by throwing it into the sea.

In future three men were always employed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DESTRUCTION OF RUDYERD'S LIGHTHOUSE.]

The chief defect of Rudyerd's building consisted of the material of which it was constructed; the necessary lights and heat proceeding from them made it a very dangerous structure. "The immediate cause of the accident by which the lighthouse was destroyed was never ascertained. All that became known was, that about two o'clock in the morning of the 2nd December, 1755, the light-keeper on duty, going into the lantern to snuff the candles, found it full of smoke. The lighthouse was on fire! In a few minutes the wooden fabric was in a blaze. Water could not be brought up the tower by the men in sufficient quant.i.ties to be thrown with any effect upon the flames raging above their heads; the molten lead fell down upon the light-keepers, into their very mouths,(53) and they fled from room to room, the fire following them down towards the sea. From Cawsand and Rame Head the unusual glare of light proceeding from the Eddystone was seen in the early morning, and fishing-boats, with men, went off to the rock, though a fresh east wind was blowing. By the time they reached it, the light-keepers had not only been driven from all the rooms, but, to protect themselves from the molten lead and red-hot bolts and falling timbers, they had been compelled to take shelter under a ledge of the rock on its eastern side, and after considerable delay the poor fellows were taken off, more dead than alive. And thus was Rudyerd's lighthouse also completely destroyed." The Eddystone rocks being in such an exposed place, right in the way of so much shipping, it was resolved at once to rebuild the lighthouse.

Previous to the date of the destruction of Rudyerd's timber building, Captain Lovet, the former lessee of the lighthouse, had died, and his interest in it had been acquired by Mr. Robert Weston and two others.

Weston immediately applied to the Earl of Macclesfield, President of the Royal Society, who strongly recommended John Smeaton, then away in the north. Weston immediately wrote to him, but Smeaton, thinking apparently that it only referred to some repairs required in the building, declined to come up, unless there was to be some degree of permanency in his engagement. The answer he received was to the effect that the building was no more; that it must be rebuilt; and concluded with the words, "thou art the man to do it."

The life of Smeaton is one of the most interesting to be found among "The Lives of the Engineers." He was born near Leeds, on the 8th of June, 1724, his father being a respectable attorney, and he received an excellent education. "Young Smeaton," says Mr. Smiles, "was not much given to boyish sports, early displaying a thoughtfulness beyond his years. Most children are naturally fond of building up miniature fabrics, and perhaps still more so of pulling them down. But the little Smeaton seemed to have a more than ordinary love of contrivance, and that mainly for its own sake. He was never so happy as when put in possession of any cutting tool, by which he could make his little imitations of houses, pumps, and windmills. Even whilst a boy in petticoats, he was continually drawing circles and squares, and the only playthings in which he seemed to take any real pleasure were his models of things that would 'work.' When any carpenters or masons were employed in the neighbourhood of his father's house, the inquisitive boy was sure to be among them, watching the men, observing how they handled their tools, and frequently asking them questions. His life-long friend, Mr. Holmes, who knew him in his youth, has related, that having one day observed some millwrights at work, shortly after, to the great alarm of his family, he was seen fixing something like a windmill on the top of his father's barn. On another occasion, when watching some workmen fixing a pump in the village, he was so lucky as to procure from them a piece of bored pipe, which he succeeded in fashioning into a working pump that actually raised water. His odd cleverness, however, does not seem to have been appreciated; and it is told of him that amongst other boys he was known as 'Fooly Smeaton,' for though forward enough in putting questions to the workpeople, amongst boys of his own age he was remarkably shy, and, as they thought, stupid." He made great progress at the Leeds Grammar School in geometry and arithmetic, still carrying on his mechanical studies at home. It happened one day that some mechanics came into the neighbourhood to erect a "fire-engine," as the steam-engine was then called, for pumping water from the Garforth coal mines. Smeaton watched their operations, and thereupon commenced the erection of a miniature engine at home, provided with pumps and other apparatus, which he succeeded in getting to work before the colliery engine was ready. He immediately set it to work on one of his father's fish-ponds, which he succeeded in pumping completely dry, killing all the fish, much to his father's annoyance. By the time he had arrived at his fifteenth year, he had contrived to make a turning-lathe, on which he turned wood and ivory, making little presents of boxes and other articles for his friends. His father had destined young Smeaton for the law, but at last consented to his son's wish to become a mathematical instrument maker. The son came to London, and was soon enabled to earn enough for his own maintenance. He did not, however, live a mere workman's life, but frequented the society of educated men, and was a regular attendant at the meetings of the Royal Society. We find him at the age of twenty-six reading papers before that most learned society. He had already attempted improvements in the mariner's compa.s.s; had invented a machine for measuring the amount of "way" on a ship at sea; and designed improvements in the air-pump, in ships' tackle, and in water and wind-mills. He had already acquired an honourable reputation as a scientific engineer when the question of rebuilding the Eddystone Lighthouse arose.

This afforded Smeaton a grand opening for advancement, and as soon as some preliminaries were arranged, he came to town, where he studied the subject in its entirety. He soon came to the conclusion that stone was the only material to employ in the construction of a lighthouse, contrary to the opinion of the Brethren of the Trinity House, who had faith in wood, and that only. He also devised a system of dovetailing, then scarcely known in masonry, though common enough in carpentry. All these investigations were made before Smeaton had even paid a visit to the exposed site on which the lighthouse was to be built. It was not till March, 1756, that he set out from London to Plymouth, a journey which occupied him six days, on account of the badness of the roads. At Plymouth he met Josias Jessop, to whom he had been referred for information as to the previous lighthouse. Jessop was then a foreman of shipwrights in the dockyard, and a first-cla.s.s draughtsman, full of ingenuity and mechanical knowledge. Smeaton was very anxious to go out to the rocks at once; but the sea was so heavy that no opportunity occurred till the 2nd of April, when they were able to reach them. The sea was breaking over the landing-place with such violence that there was no possibility of landing. All that the enthusiastic engineer could do was to view the cone of bare rock-the mere crest of the mountain whose base was laid so far in the sea-deeps beneath. Three days later another voyage was made, and he was enabled to land on the site of his future triumph. He stayed there more than two hours, when he was compelled by the roughness of the sea to leave the rock. Several subsequent trials were unsuccessful. On the 22nd of the same month, after a lapse of seventeen days, Smeaton was able to effect his second landing at low water. After a further inspection, the party retreated to their sloop, which lay off until the tide had fallen, when Smeaton again landed, and the night being perfectly still, he says, "I went on with my business till nine in the evening, having worked an hour by candlelight." The following day he again landed, and pursued his operations until interrupted by the ground-swell, which sent the surf and waves high upon the reef, and the wind rising, the sloop was forced to put for Plymouth. This is, as we shall see, but a sample of the difficulties attending the actual construction of the tower. Lord Ellesmere said of him that "b.l.o.o.d.y battles had been won, and campaigns conducted to a successful issue, with less of personal exposure to physical danger on the part of the commander-in-chief, than was constantly encountered by Smeaton during the greater part of those years in which the lighthouse was in course of erection. In all works of danger he himself led the way-was the first to spring upon the rock and the last to leave it; and by his own example he inspired with courage the humble workmen engaged in carrying out his plans; who, like himself, were unaccustomed to the special terrors of the scene."(54)

On his return to town, after several other visits, when he arranged for the formation of a better landing-place, he made his report to the proprietors, and was fully authorised to proceed with the design. He accordingly proceeded to make a careful model of the lighthouse as he intended it to be built. This having been approved by the proprietors and by the Lords of the Admiralty, the engineer set out for Plymouth, arranging at Dorchester, on his way, for a supply of Portland stone, of which it was finally determined that the lighthouse should be mainly constructed. Artificers and foremen were engaged; vessels provided for the transport of men and material, and Mr. Jessop was appointed general a.s.sistant, or as it is now termed, Resident Engineer. Mr. Smeaton fixed the centre, and laid down the lines on the afternoon of the 3rd of August, 1756, and from that time the work proceeded, though with many interruptions from bad weather and heavy seas. At best, six hours' work was all that could be performed at one time, and when it was possible the men worked by torchlight. One princ.i.p.al object of the first season was to get the dovetail recesses cut out of the rock for the reception of the foundation-stones. The _Neptune_ buss was employed as a store-ship, and rode at anchor a convenient distance from the rock in about twenty fathoms of water. For many days the men could not land from her, and even had they been able to do so, must have been washed off the rock, unless lashed to it. At such times the provisions ran short, no boat being able to come off from Plymouth. Towards the end of October, the yawl riding at the stern of the buss broke loose by stress of weather and was lost. Smeaton was very anxious to finish the boring of the foundation-holes during that season, and the men still persevered when the weather gave the slightest chance, although sometimes only able to labour two hours out of the twenty-four.

On the completion of the work at the end of November, the party prepared to return to the yard on sh.o.r.e. The voyage proved most dangerous. Not being able, in consequence of the gale that was blowing, to make Plymouth Harbour, the _Neptune_ was steered for Fowey, on the coast of Cornwall.

The wind rose higher and higher, until it blew quite a storm; and in the night, Mr. Smeaton, hearing a sudden alarm and clamour amongst the crew overhead, ran upon deck in his shirt to ascertain the cause. It was raining hard, and quite a hurricane was raging. "It being dark," he says, "the first thing I saw was the horrible appearance of breakers almost surrounding us; John Bowden, one of the seamen, crying out, 'For G.o.d's sake, heave hard at that rope if you mean to save your lives!' I immediately laid hold of the rope at which he himself was hauling as well as the other seamen, though he was also managing the helm. I not only hauled with all my strength, but called to and encouraged the workmen to do the same thing." Their sails were carried away or torn to ribbons, while the sea could be heard beating on the rocks, though nothing of the coast could be seen. Fortunately the vessel obeyed her helm, and they put to sea again. At daybreak they found themselves out of sight of land, and driving for the Bay of Biscay. Wearing ship, they stood once more for the coast, and before night sighted the Land's End. Finally, after having been blown to sea for four days, they came to anchor in Plymouth Sound, much to their own joy and that of their friends.

Winter was very fully occupied in dressing stones at the yards ash.o.r.e for next season's work. Mr. Smeaton himself laid all the lines on the workshop floor in chalk, in order to insure the greatest possible accuracy in fitting. Nearly 450 tons of stone were thus dressed by the time the weather was sufficiently favourable to continue operations on the rock.

During one of his visits to the quarries, a severe storm of thunder and lightning occurred, by which the spire of Lostwithiel Church was shattered, and this turned his attention to the necessity of protecting his lighthouse in some way from the similar danger to which it would be exposed. Franklin had just before published his mode of protecting tall buildings by conductors, and Smeaton decided to adopt his plan. The work of building fairly commenced in the summer of 1757, the first stone, of two and a quarter tons weight, being in its place on the morning of Sunday, the 12th of June. By the evening of the following day the first course of four stones was laid, these being all required from the sloping nature of the Eddystone Rock. The actual diameter of the tower itself kept increasing until it reached the upper level of the rock. Thus the second course consisted of thirteen pieces, the third of twenty-five, and so on.

The workmen were sometimes interrupted by ground-swells and heavy seas, which kept them off the rock for days together, but, at length, on the sixth course being laid, it was found that the building had been raised above the average wash of the sea, and thenceforward the progress of the work was much more rapid. The stones, when brought off from the vessels, were all landed in their proper order, and everything was done to facilitate the rapid progress of the work. Smeaton superintended the construction of nearly the whole building, and was ever foremost in the post of danger. Whilst working at the rock on one occasion, an accident occurred which might well have proved more serious in its results. "The men were about to lay the centre stone of the seventh course, on the evening of the 11th of August, when Mr. Smeaton was enjoying the limited promenade afforded by the level platform of stone which had, with so much difficulty, been raised; but, making a false step into one of the cavities made for the joggles, and being unable to recover his balance, he fell from the brink of the work down among the rocks on the west side. The tide being low at the time, he speedily got upon his feet, and at first supposed himself little hurt, but shortly after he found that one of his thumbs had been put out of joint. He reflected that he was fourteen miles from land, far from a surgeon, and that uncertain winds and waves lay between. He therefore determined to reduce the dislocation at once; and, laying fast hold of the thumb with his other hand, and giving it a violent pull, it snapped into its place again, after which he proceeded to fix the centre stone of the building." The work now proceeded steadily, occasional damage being done by the heavy seas washing over the stones, tools, and materials.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.]

The following winter was very tempestuous, and the floating light-ship, stationed about two miles from the rock, was driven from its moorings, though it eventually reached harbour in safety. It was the 12th of May before Smeaton, anxious to see how his tower had stood the winter storms, could land on the rock. He was delighted to find that the entire work remained intact, as he had left it. At the end of this season, the twenty-ninth course of stones had been laid, and the apartments of the lighthouse-keepers commenced. While living at Plymouth, Smeaton used to come out upon the Hoe(55) with his telescope and, from the spot where the Spanish Armada was first descried making for the English coast, peer out towards the rocks on one of which his lighthouse stood. "There were still many who persisted in a.s.serting that no building erected of stone could possibly stand upon the Eddystone; and again and again the engineer, in the dim grey of the morning, would come out and peer through his telescope at his deep-sea lamp-post. Sometimes he had to wait long, until he could see a tall white pillar of spray shoot up into the air. Thank G.o.d! it was still safe. Then, as the light grew, he could discern his building, temporary house and all, standing firm amidst the waters; and, thus far satisfied, he could proceed to his workshops, his mind relieved for the day."

The winter following the third season was spent by Smeaton in London, where he made the designs for the cast and wrought iron and copper works of the lantern, the gla.s.s, and rails of the balcony, which were carried out under his own eye. The ensuing season proved so stormy that it was the 5th of July before a landing could again be made on the rock, but from this point the work proceeded with such rapidity that in thirteen days two entire rooms were erected, and by the 17th of August the last pieces of the corona were set, and the forty-sixth and last course of masonry laid, bringing the tower to its specified height of seventy feet. "The last mason's work done was the cutting out of the words '_Laus Deo_' upon the last stone set over the door of the lantern. Round the upper store-room upon the course under the ceiling, had been cut, at an earlier period, 'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.' The iron-work of the balcony and the lantern were next erected, and, over all, the gilt ball, the screws of which Smeaton fixed with his own hands, 'that in case,' he says, 'any of them had not held quite tight and firm, the circ.u.mstance might not have been slipped over without my knowledge.'

Moreover, this piece of work was dangerous as well as delicate, being performed at a height of some hundred and twenty feet above the sea.

Smeaton fixed the screws while standing on four boards nailed together, resting on the cupola; his a.s.sistant, Roger Cornthwaite, placing himself on the opposite side, so as to balance his weight whilst he proceeded with the operation. Smeaton worked with the men in fitting the lantern and interior arrangements. The light was first exhibited on the night of the 16th of October, 1759. About three years after its completion, one of the most terrible storms ever known raged for days along the south-west coast; and though incalculable ruin was inflicted upon harbours and shipping by the hurricane, all the damage done to the lighthouse was repaired by a little gallipot of putty."

Whatever may be the truth regarding the foundations of the Eddystone, the old lighthouse has done good work for considerably over a century.

Sometimes when the sea rolls in with more than usual fury the lighthouse is enveloped in spray, and when struck by a strong wave, the central portion shoots up the perpendicular shaft and leaps quite over the lantern, but soon its brilliant light shines forth again, a warning and a guide to the mariner. When a wave hurls itself upon the lighthouse, the report of the shock is like a cannon, and a tremor pa.s.ses through the building. At first the lighthouse-keepers were afraid for their lives. The year after the completion of the tower, a terrible storm raged, the sea dashing over the lighthouse so that those inside dare not open the lantern door, nor any other, for even an instant. A man who visited the rock after some similar storm wrote to Mr. Jessop, "The house did shake as if a man had been up in a great tree. The old men were almost frightened out of their lives, wishing they had never seen the place, and cursing those that first persuaded them to go there. The fear seized them in the back, but rubbing them with oil of turpentine gave them relief." The men, however, soon became used to the life; and Smeaton mentions the case of one of them who was even accustomed to give up to his companions his turn for going on sh.o.r.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF SMEATON.]

"Many a heart," says Mr. Smiles, "has leapt with gladness at the cry of 'The Eddystone in sight!' sung out from the maintop. Homeward-bound ships, from far-off ports, no longer avoid the dreaded rock, but eagerly run for its light as the harbinger of safety. It might even seem as if Providence had placed the reef so far out at sea as the foundation for a beacon such as this, leaving it to man's skill and labour to finish His work. On entering the English Channel from the west and the south, the cautious navigator feels his way by early soundings on the great bank which extends from the Channel into the Atlantic, and these are repeated at fixed intervals until land is in sight. Every fathom nearer sh.o.r.e increases a ship's risks, especially on dark nights. The men are on the look-out, peering anxiously into the dark, straining the eye to catch the glimmer of a light, and when it is known that 'the Eddystone is in sight!' a thrill runs through the ship, which can only be appreciated by those who have felt or witnessed it after long months of weary voyaging.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF THE LIGHT-CHAMBER OF THE EDDYSTONE.]

"By means of similar lights, of different arrangements and of various colours, fixed and revolving, erected upon rocks, islands, and headlands, the British Channel is now lit up along its whole extent, and is as safe to navigate in the darkest night as in the brightest sunshine. The chief danger is from fogs which alike hide the lights by night and the land by day. Some of the homeward-bound ships entering the Channel from North American ports first make the St. Agnes Light, on the Scilly Isles, revolving once a minute, at a height of 138 feet above high water. But most Atlantic ships keep further south in consequence of the nature of the soundings about the Scilly Isles; and hence they oftener make the Lizard Lights first, which are visible about twenty miles off.

"From this point the coast retires, and in the bend lie Falmouth (with a revolving light on St. Anthony's Point), Fowey, the Looes, and Plymouth Sound and Harbour; the coast line again trending southward until it juts out into the sea, in the bold craggy bluffs of Bolt Head and Start Point, on the last of which is another house with two lights-one, revolving, for the Channel, and another, fixed, to direct vessels insh.o.r.e clear of the Skerries Shoal. But between the Lizard and Start Point, which form the two extremities of this bend in the land of Cornwall and Devonshire, there lies the Eddystone Rock and Lighthouse, standing fourteen miles out from the sh.o.r.e, almost directly in front of Plymouth Sound and in the line of coasting vessels steaming or beating up Channel.

"On the south are seen the three Croquet Lights on the Jersey side; and on the north the two fixed lights on Portland Bill. The west is St.

Catherine's, a brilliant fixed light on the extreme south point of the Isle of Wight. Next are the lights exhibited on the Nab, and then the single fixed light exhibited on the Ower vessel. Beachy Head, on the same line, exhibits a powerful revolving light 285 feet above high water, its interval of greatest brilliancy occurring every two minutes. Then comes Dungeness, exhibiting a fixed red light of great power, situated at the extremity of the low point of Dungeness beach. Next are seen Folkestone, and then Dover Harbour Lights, whilst on the south are the flash light, recently stationed on the Verne Bank; and further up Channel, on the French coast, is seen the brilliant revolving light on Cape Grisnez. The Channel is pa.s.sed with the two South Foreland Lights, one higher than the other, on the left; and the Downs are entered with the South Sandhead floating light on the right; and when the Gull and the North Sandhead floating lights have been pa.s.sed on the one hand, and North Foreland on the other, then the Tongue, the Prince's Channel, and the Girdler are pa.s.sed." The Nore Light pa.s.sed, the navigation of the Thames commences.