Finding that the waves often rose so high as to bury the lantern, Mr. Winstanley, in the fourth year, enlarged the base and added forty feet to the height; and yet in violent weather the sea would seem to fly a hundred feet above the vane; and it was generally said that a six-oared boat might have been directed on the top of a wave through the open gallery of the lighthouse. In November, 1703, some repairs being required, Mr. Winstanley went down to Plymouth to superintend the performance of them. The general opinion was, that the building would not be of long duration; but the builder held different sentiments. As he was about to embark with his workmen, the danger was intimated to him in a friendly manner, and it was remarked that one day or other the lighthouse would certainly overset. To this he replied, that he was so well assured of its stability, "that he should only wish to be there in the greatest storm that ever blew." In this wish he was but too soon gratified; for on the 26th of the month just mentioned, while he was still superintending the repairs, there occurred one of the severest storms within the memory of the oldest inhabit. ants; being the same which Defoe thought proper to chronicle in a volume under the title of "THE STORM." When the people looked abroad the next morning, not a trace of the Eddystone lighthouse was to be seen. The whole fabric, with its ingenious architect, and many other persons, had perished.

As if to show the necessity of instantly rebuilding it, the Winchelsea, a homeward-bound Virginiaman, almost immediately after, struck upon the rock, and was lost, with most of the crew. It was not, however, till 1706, that a new work was commenced. The second Eddystone lighthouse was built as the private undertaking of a Captain Lovett. The immediate architect was Mr. John Rudyard, a linen draper, who, like Winstanley, seems to have had a taste for mechanical pursuits. The building was in the lower part constructed of alternate courses of granite and oak timber; in the upper part, of timber alone: the whole being cased in timber very carefully jointed. The light-room was sixty-one feet above the rock, and the whole height to the ball at the top was ninety-two. The general form was circular, and there were no projections of any kind, in both of which respects it improved upon the former building, which was heavy cornered, with many superfluous ornaments. During the progress of the work, a French privateer took the men upon the lighthouse, together with their tools, and carried them to France, where the captain, it is said, expected a reward for his exploit. While the captives lay in prison, the transaction reached the ears of Louis XIV. who immediately ordered them to be released, and the captors to be

put into their place; declaring that though he was at war with England, he was not at war with mankind. He accordingly directed the men to be returned to their work with presents, as a compensation for the inconvenience which they had suffered. The lighthouse was completed in 1709.

From the simplicity of the figure of this building, and the judg. ment shown in its construction, it was considered likely, notwithstanding the nature of the materials, to have withstood the effects of the winds and waves for an unlimited period. It was doomed, however, to fall before an accident which had not been calculated upon. At two o'clock on the morning of the 2d of December, 1755, one of the three men who had the charge of it, having gone up to snuff the candles in the lantern, found the place full of smoke, from the midst of which, as soon as he opened the door, a flame burst forth. A spark from some of the twenty-four candles, which were kept constantly burning, had probably ignited the wood-work, or the flakes of soot hanging from the roof. The man instantly alarmed his companions; but being in bed and asleep, it was some time before they arrived to his assistance. In the mean time he did his utmost to effect the extinction of the fire by heaving water up to it (it was burning four yards above him) from a tubful which always stood in the place. The other two, when they came, brought up more water from below; but as they had to go down and return a height of seventy feet for this purpose, their endeavors were of little avail. At last a quantity of the lead on the roof having melted, came down in a torrent upon the head and shoulders of the man who remained above. He was an old man of ninety-four, of the name of Henry Hall, but still full of strength and activity. This accident, together with the rapid increase of the fire, notwithstanding their most desperate exertions, extinguished their last hopes; and making scarcely any further efforts to arrest the progress of the destroying element, they descended before it from room to, room, till they came to the lowest floor. Driven from this also, they then sought refuge in a hole or cave on the eastern side of the rock, it being fortunately by this time low water. Meanwhile the conflagration had been observed by some fishermen, who immediately returned to the shore and gave information of it. Boats, of course, were immediately sent out. They arrived at the lighthouse about ten o'clock, and with the utmost difficulty a landing was effected, and the three men, who were by this time almost in a state of stupefaction, were dragged through the water into one of the boats. One of them, as soon as he was brought on shore, as if struck with some panic, took flight, and was never

more heard of. As for old Hall, he was immediately placed under medical care; but although he took his food tolerably well, and seemed for some time likely to recover, he always persisted in saying that the doctors would never bring him round, unless they could remove from his stomach the lead which he maintained had run down his throat when it fell upon him from the roof of the lantern. Nobody could believe that this notion was any thing more than an imagination of the old man ; but on the twelfth day after the fire, having been suddenly seized with cold sweats and spasms, he expired; and when his body was opened there was actually found in his stomach, to the coat of which it had partly adhered, a flat oval piece of lead of the weight of seven ounces five drams. An account of this extraordinary case is to be found in the 49th volume of the Philosophical Transactions.

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The proprietors, who by this time had become numerous, that it was not their interest to lose a moment in setting about the rebuilding of the lighthouse. One of them, a Mr. Weston, in whom the others placed much confidence, made application to Lord Macclesfield, the president of the Royal Society, to recom mend to them the person whom he considered most fit to be engaged. His lordship immediately named and most strongly recommended Mr. Smeaton. Once more, therefore, the Eddystone lighthouse was destined to have a self-educated architect for its builder. When it was first proposed that the work should be put into his hands, he was in Northumberland; but he arrived in London on the 23d of February, 1756. On the 22d of March he set out for Plymouth, but, on account of the badness of the roads, did not reach the end of his journey till the 27th. He remained at Plymouth till the 21st of May, in the course of which time he repeatedly visited the rock, and having, with the consent of his employers, determined that the new lighthouse should be of stone, hired workyards and workmen, contracted for the various materials he wanted, and made all the necessary arrangements for beginning and carrying on the work. Every thing being in readiness, and the season sufficiently advanced, on the fifth of August the men were landed on the rock, and immediately began cutting it for the foundation of the building. This part of the work was all that was accomplished that season, in the course of which, however, both the exertions and the perils of the architect and his associates were very great. On one occasion the sloop in which Mr. Smeaton was, with eighteen seamen and laborers, was all but lost in returning from the work.

During this time the belief and expressed opinion of all sorts of persons was that a stone lighthouse would certainly not stand the

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winds and seas to which it would be exposed on the Eddystone However, on the 12th of June, 1757, the first stone was laid. From this period the work proceeded with great rapidity. the 26th of August, 1759, all the stonework was completed. the 9th of October following the building was finished in every part; and on the 16th of the same month the saving light was again streaming from its summit over the waves. Thus the whole undertaking was accomplished within a space of little more than three years, "without the loss of life or limb," says Mr. Smeaton, "to any one concerned in it, or accident by which the work could be said to be materially retarded. During all this time there had been only four hundred and twenty-one days, comprising two thousand six hundred and seventy-four hours, which it had been possible for the men to spend upon the rock; and the whole time which they had been at work there was only one hundred and eleven days ten hours, or scarcely sixteen weeks. Nothing can show more strikingly than this statement the extraordinary difficulties under which the work had to be carried on.

Smeaton spent much time in considering the best method of grafting his work securely on the solid rock, and giving it the form best suited to secure stability; and one of the most interesting parts of his interesting account is, that in which he narrates, how he was led to choose the shape which he adopted, by considering the means employed by nature to produce stability in her works. The building is modelled on the trunk of an oak, which spreads out in a sweeping curve near the roots, so as to give breadth and strength to its base, diminishes as it rises, and again swells out as it approaches to the bushy head, to give room for the strong insertion of the principal boughs. The latter is represented by a curved cornice, the effect of which is to throw off the heavy seas, which, being suddenly checked, fly up, it is said, from fifty to one hundred feet above the very top of the building, and thus are prevented from striking the lantern, even when they seem entirely to enclose it.

To prepare a fit base for the reception of the column, the shelving rock was cut into six steps, which were filled up with. masonry, firmly dovetailed and pinned with oaken trenails to the living stone, so that the upper course presented a level circular surface. The building is faced with Cornish granite, called in the country, moorstone; a material selected on account of its durability and hardness, which bids. defiance to the depredations. of marine animals, which have been known to do serious injury, by perforating Portland stone when placed under water. The interior is built of Portland stone, which is more easily obtained

in large blocks, and is less expensive in the working. It is an instructive lesson not only to the young engineer, but to all persons, to see the diligence which Smeaton used to ascertain what kind of stone was best fitted to his purposes, and from what materials the firmest and most lasting cement could be obtained. He well knew that in novel and great undertakings no precaution can be deemed superfluous which may contribute to success; and that it is wrong to trust implicitly to common methods, even when experience has shown them to be sufficient in common cases. For the height of twelve feet from the rock the building is solid. Every course of masonry is composed of stones firmly jointed and dovetailed into each other, and secured to the course below by joggles, or solid plugs of stone, which being let into both, effectually resist the lateral pressure of the waves, which tend to push off the upper from the under course.

[Horizontal Section of the lower and solid part of the Eddystone Lighthouse; showing the mode in which the courses of stone are dovetailed together.]

The interior, which is accessible by a moveable ladder, consists of four rooms, one above the other, surmounted by a glass lantern, in which the lights are placed. The height from the lowest point of the foundation to the floor of the lantern is seventy feet; the height of the lantern is twenty-one feet more. The building has braved, uninjured, the storms of eighty winters, and is likely long to remain a monument almost as elegant, and far more useful than the most splendid column ever raised to commemorate imperial victories. Its erection forms an era in the history of lighthouses, a subject of great importance to a maritime nation. It came perfect from the mind of the artist, and has left nothing to be added or improved. After such an example, no rock can be