428 Sir James N. Doujlass [Marcli 15, 



of G083 lbs., or 2^ tons nearly, per square foot was recorded. After 

 Smeaton had carefully considered the great defect of the buikling of 

 Kndyerd at the Eddystone, viz. want of weight, he reported that, " if 

 the iitihthouse was to be so contrived as not to give way to the sea, it 

 mnst be made so strong as that the sea must be compelled to give 

 way to the building." Smeaton also had regard to durability as an 

 important element in the structure, for he adds, " in contem})lating 

 the use and benefit of such a structure as this, my ideas of wliat its 

 duration and continued existence ought to be, were not confined within 

 the boundary of one age or two, but extended themselves to look 

 towards a possible perpetuity." Thus Smeaton soon arrived at the 

 firm conviction that his lighthouse must be built of granite, and of 

 this material nearly all lighthouses on exposed tidal rocks have since 

 been constructed, while those on submerged sandbanks are open 

 structures of iron, erected on screw piles or iron cylinders. The 

 screw pile was tlie invention of the late Mr. Alexander Mitchell, of 

 Belfast. 



We have here a model of the first lighthouse, erected in 1838 on 

 these screw piles, at the Maplin Sands, on the north side of the 

 estuary of the Thames; under the direction of the late James 

 Walker, F.K.S. then Engineer-in-Chief to the Trinity House. 

 A lighthouse on the principle of minimum surface exposed to the 

 force of the waves, of which wo have here a model, was erected on 

 the chief rock of the dangerous group of the Smalls, situated about 

 eighteen-and-a-half miles ofi' Milford Haven, by Mr. John Phillips, a 

 merchant and shipowner of Liverpool. 



The work was designed and erected under great difficulties by 

 Mr. Henry Whiteside, a native of Liverpool, and a man of great 

 mechanical skill and undaunted courage. Added to his mechanical 

 ability, Whiteside possessed a great love and knowledge of nnisic, 

 and had, previous to the erection of his lighthouse, excelled in the 

 construction of violins, spinnettes, and upright harpsichords. The 

 lighthouse, commenced in 1772, was intended to be erected on eight 

 cast iron pillars, sunk deep into the rock. This material was, how- 

 ever, soon abandoned for English oak, as being more elastic and 

 trustworthy. The work was completed and lighted in 1776, with 

 eight lamps and glass fiiceted reflectors, similar to the one before us. 



In 1817, sixteen improved lamps and silvered paraboloidal 

 reflectors were substituted for these ; and the lighthouse, although 

 sorely tried by winter storms, was (with the aid of yearly repairs and 

 strengthening) enabled to send forth its beneficent beam until the 

 year 1856, when the Trinity House commenced the erection of a 

 lighthouse of granite, as shown by this model. The vibrations of the 

 ofd wooden structure must have been very considerable with heavy 

 storms, for the lightkeepers occasionally found it sufficient to cause a 

 bucket of water, placed in the living room to spill just half its 

 contents. It was in this lighthouse that the painful circumstance 

 occurred in the year 1802, of the death of one of the lightkeepers. 



