BECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



169 



Amongst other things, lie turned out a per- 

 petual screw, then little known, and by inde- 

 fatigable industry, was so good a mechanic, 

 " that," says Mr. Holmes, " few men could 

 work better." But for aU this, he is to be a 

 lawyer. 



SMEATON AT THE DESK. 



Not only mechanics, but the works of 

 that Heavenly Mechanician whom we should 

 all study, became subjects of this honest 

 young Englishman. Nevertheless, in 1742, his 

 father sent him to London to attend the courts, 

 and to practise the law. For a few terms 

 he did so, and then, yielding to the bent of 

 his genius, he memorialized his father. John 

 Doe and Kichard Eoe were not for him. Law 

 puzzled him, but he was clear enough upon 

 mechanics. He told all this in so persuasive, 

 honest, and truthful a way, that his father 

 saw the necessity, and agreed to the transfer. 

 Law lost one honest man; society gained 

 so much, that to this day we reap the benefits 

 thereof. 



Smeaton continued to live in London. 

 There he found food for his genius. He com- 

 menced the business of a mathematical in- 

 strument-maker in 1750. A year afterwards 

 he made a machine to measure the ship's way 

 at sea, also a peculiar compass, and took two 

 voyages to test these inventions. In two 

 years from this he was elected Fellow of the 

 Hoyal Society, and enriched their " Philo- 

 sophical Transactions" with his papers. 



SCIENCE AT LAST. 



The little boy who in his pinafore made a 

 windmill, and invented a pump, still turned 

 his attention to wind and water. These were 

 the two great motive powers, for as yet steam 

 was but infantine, and much unknown and 

 mistrusted. In 1759, Smeaton was adjudged 

 the gold medal of the Society, for his inquiry 

 into the powers of these two forces. He was, 

 however, soon to experience these two united 

 against his own work, to find them, not the 



friend of man, but his worst foe. " Fire," 

 says the old proverb, " is a good servant, 

 but a bad master." Cruel and wasteful it is, 

 a tyrant of the worst sort ; but not worse, 

 nor more destructive to human life, than the 

 winds and waves, when the one lashes the 

 other into fury. 



In December, 1775, fire had a great mas- 

 tery over the Eddystone Lighthouse, and it 

 was burnt down. The Earl of Macclesfield, 

 who had always been friendly to Smeaton, 

 recommended him as the best man in England 

 to build a new one, and he undertook it. 

 '• You must," said he, " build it entirely of 

 stone. Eudyerd and Winstanley have failed ; 

 but what then ? Their houses wanted weight. 

 Ours must not only be founded on a rock, 

 but must press and grow upon that rock." 

 Upon this principle he proceeded. The first 

 actual work was done in August, 1756 ; new 

 steps were cut in the rock, massive stones 

 were dovetailed together, and Smeaton him- 

 self experimented on cements until he found 

 one that would resist the action of the water, 

 and would, under the most adverse circum- 

 stances, grow consistent with and adhere to 

 the stone, and form one solid mass. At the 

 latter end of September he and his men 

 quitted the rock, and it was not till June in 

 the following year (1757) that he renewed 

 his work. The whole story of the building 

 of this lighthouse is one of difficulty and of 

 danger, and of these being overcome by de- 

 termination. The winds and the waves did 

 their worst; but Smeaton's house was not 

 only founded on a rock, but had become 

 amalgamated with the rock itself. Storms 

 beat angrily against it — storms as great as 

 that which carried away the hapless Win- 

 stanley and his workmen, and yet it stood, 

 and stands. He who would behold Smea- 

 ton's great monument should journey to the 

 Eddystone ; others there may be larger and 

 more recent, but the downright English 

 principle of Smeaton's work is the foundation 

 of all enduring works of that kind. 



