The Eddystone rocks, on which this celebrated light-house is built, are
situated nearly south-south-west from the middle of Plymouth sound,
being distant from the port of Plymouth nearly fourteen miles, and from
the promontory called Ramshead, about ten miles. They are almost in the
line, but somewhat within it, which joins the Start and the Lizard
points; and as they lie nearly in the direction of vessels coasting up
and down the channel, they were necessarily, before the establishment of
a light-house, very dangerous, and often fatal to ships under such
circumstances. Their situation, likewise, relatively to the bay of
Biscay and the Atlantic ocean, is such that they lie open to the swells
of both from all the south-western points of the compass; which swells
are generally allowed by mariners to be very great and heavy in those
seas, and particularly in the bay of Biscay. It is to be observed, that
the soundings of the sea, from the south-west toward the Eddystone, are
from eighty fathoms to forty, and that in every part, until the rocks
are approached, the sea has a depth of at least thirty fathoms; insomuch
that all the heavy seas from the south-west reach them uncontrolled, and
break on them with the utmost fury.
The force and hight of these seas are increased by the fact that the
rocks stretch across the channel, in a direction north and south, to the
length of above one hundred fathoms, and by their lying in a sloping
manner toward the south-west quarter. This _striving_ of the rocks, as
it is technically called, does not cease at low-water, but still goes on
progressively; so that, at fifty fathoms westward, there are twelve
fathoms of water; neither does it terminate at the distance of a mile.
From this configuration it happens, that the seas are swollen to such a
degree, in storms and heavy gales of wind, as to break on the rocks with
the utmost violence. It is not surprising, therefore, that the dangers
to which navigators were exposed by the Eddystone rocks should have made
a great commercial nation desirous to have a light-house erected on
them. The wonder is that any one should have had sufficient resolution
to undertake its construction. Such a man was, however, found in the
person of Mr. Henry Winstanley, of Littleburgh, in Essex, who, being
furnished with the necessary powers to carry the design into execution,
entered on his undertaking in 1696, and completed it in four years. So
certain was he of the stability of his structure, that he declared it to
be his wish to be in it “during the greatest storm which ever blew under
the face of the heavens.” In this wish he was but too amply gratified;
for while he was there with his workmen and light-keepers, that dreadful
storm began, which raged most violently on the night of the twenty-sixth
of November, 1703; and of all the accounts of the kind with which
history has furnished us, no one has exceeded this in Great Britain, nor
has been more injurious or extensive in its devastations. On the
following morning, when the storm was so much abated, that an inquiry
could be made, whether the light-house had suffered from it, nothing was
to be seen standing, with the exception of some of the large irons by
which the work was fixed on the rock; nor were any of the people, nor
any of the materials of the building ever found afterward.
[Illustration: THE EDDYSTONE LIGHT-HOUSE.]
In 1709, another light-house was built of wood, on a very different
construction, by Mr. John Rudyerd, then a silk-mercer on Ludgate hill.
This very ingenious structure, after having braved the elements for
forty-six years, was burned to the ground in 1755. On the destruction of
this light-house, that excellent mechanic and engineer, Mr. Smeaton, was
selected as the fittest person to build another. He found some
difficulty in persuading the proprietors, that a stone building,
properly constructed, would be in every respect preferable to one of
wood; but having at length convinced them, he turned his thoughts to the
shape which would be most suitable to a building so critically situated.
Reflecting on the structure of the former buildings, it seemed to him a
material improvement to procure, if possible, an enlargement of the
base, without increasing the size of the waist, or that part of the
building placed between the top of the rock and the top of the solid
work. Hence he thought a greater degree of strength and stiffness would
be gained, accompanied with less resistance to the acting power. On this
occasion, the natural figure of the waist, or bole of a large spreading
oak, occurred to our sagacious engineer.
With these very enlightened views, as to the proper form of the
superstructure, Mr. Smeaton began the work on the second of April, 1757,
and completed it on the fourth of August, 1759. Its appearance, as
completed, may be seen in the cut on the preceding page. The rock, which
slopes toward the south-west, is cut into horizontal steps, into which
are dovetailed, and united by a strong cement, Portland stone and
granite. The whole to the hight of thirty-five feet from the foundation,
is a solid body of stones, engrafted into each other, and united by
every means of additional strength that could be devised. The building
has four rooms, one over the other, and at the top a gallery and
lantern. The stone floors are flat above, but concave beneath, and are
kept from pressing against the sides of the building by a chain let into
the walls. It is nearly eighty feet in hight, and since its completion
has been assaulted by the fury of the elements, without suffering the
smallest injury. To trace the progress of so vast an undertaking, and to
show with what skill and judgment this unparalleled engineer overcame
the greatest difficulties, would far exceed the limits of this work.