HERE is another provision for the safety of the mariner, which, if not so important as the Compass, tends to protect him from much of that danger to which he is continually exposed. This is the Lighthouse, erected on the sea-coast, or on some rock far away from shore, over which the waves of the stormy sea are unceasingly breaking, and which is placed there to warn vessels of shoals or other perils that might cause their destruction. A few centuries ago, our sea-girt island had few such lights to cast their blaze upon the boiling eddies, and warn ships from rocks, shallows, and sand-banks. The billows broke upon the beach

over the wrecked vessel: for then, instead of Lifeboats manned with brave seamen, who from youth had been familiar with the dangers of the deep, there were often cruel wreckers prowling upon the shore ready to plunder the half-drowned mariners.

One of the earliest Lighthouses of which we have any account was built on a rock called Pharos, opposite the city of Alexandria, and surrounded by water. It consisted of several stories of galleries of a prodigious height; on the top fires were kept continually burning to direct sailors how to reach the harbour of Alexandria; it was then provided with a lantern, and Arab historians describe the huge mirror of metal which was placed here as a reflector, and which the inhabitants of Alexandria are said to have used to concentrate the rays of the sun, and thus burn the vessels of their enemies. This Lighthouse was built by one of the Ptolemies, A.M. 3670: it was 450 feet in height, or 50 feet higher than St. Paul's Cathedral; and its cost was 800 talents Attic (165,000l.), or in Alexandria double that sum. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the World; all lighthouses after it were called Pharos, and the construction of Lighthouses is, in modern phrase, termed Pharology. Among the Roman remains of Dover Castle is a small pharos. Another ancient lighthouse was the huge lamp which blazed in the right hand of the Colossus of Rhodes. The oldest existing Lighthouse is that at Corunna, in Spain, said to have been erected in the reign of Trajan, and now fitted with a very fine modern light apparatus.

Among the most celebrated modern Lighthouses is the Tower of Cordovan, or Corduan, founded in 1584, finished in 1610, at the mouth of the Garonne river: thirty years since it was considered the best illuminated Lighthouse in France, and supposed "the finest light in the world." There is a fine print of it, engraved by order of Louis XIII. It is built of stone, circular in plan, architecturally ornamented, and more resembling a church tower than the plain tubular lighthouses of our days. The light is that by M. Fresnel, and is revolving; its four-fold socket-lamp has been kept lighted for fourteen hours without snuffing it. The lens is from a suggestion of Sir David Brewster; by the additional apparatus, that portion of the light of the lamp which escapes the lens placed in front of it, is caught by another and smaller lens placed above it, and then again reflected in a horizontal line, parallel to the beams of the original lens.

The difficulties so successfully surmounted in the construction of the Eddystone, the Bell Rock, and the Skerryvore Lighthouses and their brilliant lights, render them objects of great interest. Upon the Eddystone rock, about 14 miles S.S.W. from Plymouth, and fronting the entrance to Plymouth Sound, there had been built two Lighthouses, prior to that which now breasts the waves on the same reef. The first was designed by Mr. Henry Winstanley, a gentleman of Littlebury, in Essex, whose genius for mechanism had been displayed in various inventions. His was a polygonal building, about 100 feet high, which was commenced in 1696, and finished in 1700. That edifice was swept away in the great storm of 1703, together with its ill-fated architect, who was then within it, superintending some repairs. He had been heard to say a short time before-"he was so well assured of the strength of his building, that he should only wish to be there in the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of the heavens, that he might see what effect it would have upon his structure." Unhappily, his confidence proved most misplaced; for not a vestige of his labour was ever found, except some iron cramps, and part of an iron chain. Mr. Smeaton, the engineer, conceived, after examining the spot, that the Lighthouse had been "overset altogether," and had torn up a portion of the rock along with it.

The next Lighthouse on the Eddystone, was erected by Mr. John Rudyerd, a silk mercer, on Ludgate-hill, who was a Cornishman of very humble parentage. His building was altogether unlike the preceding ones, for its shape was the frustrum of a cone; it was constructed of strong oak-planks, and other timber, caulked with oakum, and bolted and clamped with iron. Its height was 92 feet, the work being terminated with an octagonal balcony, and light-room, surmounted by a cupola. But this Lighthouse, after enduring several tempests, was, on the morning of the 2nd of December, 1755, totally destroyed by fire: it broke out in the cupola, which was of light timber, and burnt downwards to the very foundations, nothing remaining but the iron cramps and branches, which had been fixed into the rocks, and the lower part, which had been filled with stone as ballast. The Lighthouse on the Bell Rock, off the coast of Fife, and the one placed at the entrance of the Mersey, on the Black Rock, are constructed similarly to the second Eddystone, so that there seems to be

good reason for Rudyerd adopting the principle; he had been assisted by two shipwrights from the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. Mr. Smeaton thought that the work was well done, though the worm had affected the timbers.

After a considerable lapse of time, the first stone of the present Eddystone Lighthouse, by Smeaton, was laid June 12, 1757, and completed in October, 1759. For the construction of this Lighthouse the stones were hewn, and dovetailed, and fitted to each other on shore, at Mill Bay, adjoining the Hoo, at Plymouth, and thence conveyed to the rock by yawls

and other vessels. All the lower corners of stone are joggled and morticed into the rock itself, which was hewed for that purpose into six steps; and every surmounting course of masonry is likewise so ingeniously dovetailed together, as well as into each other, and strengthened with oak trenails, iron cramps, and chainwork, (the latter embedded in lead), that the

whole may be regarded as constituting one solid mass, the base, 26 feet in diameter, being barely less than the surface of the rock on which it stands. The basement and exterior are entirely of Cornish Moorstone, or granite, but most of the interior is of Portland stone. The light-room is octagonal, of cast and wrought-iron framework, with copper window sashes, glazed with plate-glass; the whole surmounted by a cupola, (weighing about II cwt.), and a gilt ball. Below the light-room are two store-rooms, a kitchen, and a bed-room. On the course of granite under the ceiling in the upper store-room, is the following verse from the 127th Psalm, wrought in by a pick :

EXCEPT THe lord build the house,

THEY LABOUR IN VAIN THAT BUILD IT.

There are in all, fifty-two courses of stonework to the top of the masonry; of these forty-six courses are contained in the

SECTIONAL VIEW OF THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.

main column, the height of which, to the floor of the balcony, is 70 feet. The height of the light-room to the top of the ball is twenty-four feet; the entire height is ninety-four feet; or