1^ 



EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



SMEATOHr S LOVE OF HIS "WOEK. 



When the Eddystone had grown to a 

 good level, so that the engineer could walk 

 about, he took such pleasure in his work 

 that he walked backwards and forwards sur- 

 veying it, tUl, stepping backwards, he fell 

 over the rocks, and might have kUled him- 

 self, but happily escaped with only a broken 

 thumb. No aid being near, he set it himself; 

 but the thumb plagued him sorely for a year. 

 In August, 1758, the fourteenth course of 

 stones, and what was called the fundamental 

 solid, was completed; and thenceforward 

 greater care was necessary, as the centre 

 stone was omitted, and the hollow pillar for 

 stairs, weU-hole, and entry-door was com- 

 menced. Throughout the winter the work 

 stood solidly, and in another year the twenty- 

 eighth hollow course, surrounded with iron 

 chains of great strength lying in grooves cut 

 in the stone, into which was poured molten 

 lead, was completed. Then commenced the 

 buUding of rooms for the keeper and his 

 assistants. The winter of 1758-9 Smeaton 

 spent in London, preparing everything for 

 his work. In March, 1759, there was a great 

 storm, and much damage was done at Ply- 

 mouth. To Smeaton's delight the lighthouse 

 was found unharmed, with the workmen's 

 tools lying in the same places as they had 

 left them in the last year. 



On Friday, August 17th, 1759, the column 

 of the lighthouse was completed. It con- 

 tained forty-six courses of stone, and rose to 

 the height of seventy feet. The top was 

 finished with a gilt ball and cupola, and 

 every precaution was taken that the beds of 

 the keepers should be free from damp, and 

 that the spray of the sea should not pene- 

 trate the frames. Of the lighting of this 

 house we have nothing to say here ; the pro- 

 cess deserves a separate notice. The labours 

 of others have since made perfect the re- 

 flection from the celebrated building of 

 Smeaton. 



FAME AND FOBTTJNE. 



Little more than one hundred years ago, 

 on the 16th of October, 1759, the lights along 

 the shore again beamed forth from the Eddy- 

 stone, a warning and a guide to the toil-worn 

 mariners. Smeaton's satisfaction at the com- 

 pletion of the work was intense. The boy 

 in a pinafore had felt a wondrous triumph in 



his miniature water-mill. As fresh and as 

 beautiful were the feelings of the man of forty 

 at the completion of his great work. He 

 slept in the lighthouse, sailed out to sea and 

 viewed it, gazed at it from a telescope from 

 the shore. From the garrison of Plymouth 

 he watched it in a storm, and the sight was 

 grand. "A combination would happen," he 

 says, " when an overgrown wave would strike 



