THE LIGHTHOUSE AND ITS HISTORY.
The Lighthouse—Our most noted one in Danger—The Eddystone
Undermined—The Ancient History of Lighthouses—The Pharos of
Alexandria—Roman Light Towers at Boulogne and Dover—Fire-beacons
and Pitch-pots—The Tower of Cordouan—The First Eddystone
Lighthouse—Winstanley and his Eccentricities—Difficulties of
Building his Wooden Structure—Resembles a Pagoda—The Structure
Swept Away with its Inventor—Another Silk Mercer in the
Field—Rudyerd’s Lighthouse—Built of Wood—Stood for Fifty
Years—Creditable Action of Louis XIV.—Lighthouse Keeper alone with
a Corpse—The Horrors of a Month—Rudyerd’s Tower destroyed by
Fire—Smeaton’s Early History—Employed to Build the Present
Eddystone—Resolves on a Stone Tower—Employment of “Dove-tailing”
in Masonry—Difficulties of Landing on the Rock—Peril incurred by
the Workmen—The First Season’s Work—Smeaton always in the Post of
Danger—Watching the Rock from Plymouth Hoe—The Last
Season—Vibrations of the Tower in a Storm—Has Stood for 120
Years—Joy of the Mariner when “The Eddystone’s in Sight!”—Lights
in the English Channel.
[Illustration]
Round the history of ships and shipping interests innumerable subjects
intertwine. But for the good ship, we should not need coast
fortifications, grand breakwaters, and artificial harbours, lighthouses,
lifeboats, and coast-guard organisations. Just as England stands
pre-eminent on the sea, so in all subsidiary points connected therewith
she is fully represented. To the lighthouse and its history attention is
now invited.
Not long since many an anxious eye was turned Channelwards from Plymouth
Hoe towards that group of rocks, on one of which the famous Eddystone
Light stood—and happily, still stands—for the light that should have
illumined the stormy waters was apparently quenched. Not till morning dawn
had nearly come was a re-assuring glimmer noted in the lantern of that
famed Pharos of our coasts. And there was good reason for anxiety,
although the immediate occasion was a mere temporary derangement of the
lighting apparatus: for the report had spread that Smeaton’s greatest
architectural triumph had collapsed before the power of the sea. One
trembles to think what that might have meant, not merely to its few
inhabitants, but to scores of sailors and owners. “Happily,” said one of
our leading journals, “the Eddystone is still safe, despite the terrible
effects of winds and waves, and the serious weakness of its own
foundations, which was discovered a few years ago. For the tower which
lights the way of the sailor into Plymouth Sound is, after all, not so
secure a structure as could be desired. Built of solid masonry and with
immense skill, by the clever architect from Hull who designed and carried
out the work, it had yet to trust for its foundation to the rock upon
which it stood. Should that give way the stone-work of the edifice might
be strong enough, and yet some day fall into hopeless ruin. Strange to
say, this very weakness has been self-revealed. The rock upon which the
lighthouse stands, and which, of the twenty-three that comprise the group,
is most exposed to the action of the sea, has been so violently attacked
by what Ovid calls the ‘insane waters’ as to have become very seriously
undermined. Gradually the waves have cut away the foundations of the
stone, rising now and then against the lighthouse, and pressing against
the structure with such force as to make the building itself serve the
turn of a crowbar, and so, little by little, creating fissures in the
foundations, and gradually preparing the way to the end.” Many attempts
have been made to obviate these evils by the removal of rock which it was
supposed acted as a lever to the water, and by other means: but in vain.
At length the Board of Trinity House finding their efforts futile,
determined to erect another lighthouse. Meantime, a light-ship has been
provided, which, in case of accident to Smeaton’s tower, will be moored in
the neighbourhood. A larger building is now in course of erection on an
adjacent rock, which affords a more durable foundation and is less exposed
to the merciless waves. It will be nearly double the height of the older
structure, which was seventy-two feet high, and is being built on a
principle of dovetailing, which, it is hoped and believed, will secure it
against the worst fury of the sea. Think what that fury is sometimes,
gentle reader! At the Skerryvore Rock they have an apparatus for
registering the power of the waves per square foot surface; once recently
it registered _three tons_ to the foot!
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 altitude were
raised for this purpose. That at Boulogne is supposed to have been erected
by Caligula; all vestiges of it have passed away. It was originally called
_Turris Ardens_, afterwards corrupted to the _Tour d’Ordre_. From a
description left by Claude Châtillon, 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 circumference. 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 class of structures now exist in the United States.
[Illustration: 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
passage 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 gods. The basement, 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 Essex, 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 canal. 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 passed 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 pagoda, 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!
[Illustration: 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 anticipations. 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 shore 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.
[Illustration: RUDYERD’S LIGHTHOUSE.]
Mr. Smiles graphically describes the coming architect of the period. He
did not, however, come from the class of architects or builders, or even
of mechanics; and as for the class 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 nobody 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 assisted 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
basement 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 oakum, 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 assistance, 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 shore. 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.
[Illustration: 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 quantities 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 compass; 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-class
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 “bloody 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
assistant, 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 principal 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 shore. 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 God’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 ashore 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.
[Illustration: 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 asserting 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 God! 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 glass, 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
circumstance 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 assistant, 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 passes 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
shore.
[Illustration: 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 shore 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.
[Illustration: 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 inshore 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 shore, 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 passed 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 passed on the one hand, and North Foreland on
the other, then the Tongue, the Prince’s Channel, and the Girdler are
passed.” The Nore Light passed, the navigation of the Thames commences.