84 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 
that a part of every day was generally occupied in forming some 
ingenious piece of mechanism. In 1753, his various inventions 
and improvements had already attracted such notice that he was 
elected member of the Royal Society ; and when, a few years 
later, the accident happened which burnt down the Eddystone 
lighthouse to the ground, he was at once fixed upon as the person 
most proper to rebuild it A better choice could not possibly 
Kddystone Lighthouse. 
have been made, for Smeaton’s lighthouse, firm as the rock on 
which it stands, has now already braved the storms of more than 
a century, and will no doubt continue to brave them for many 
ages tocome. Of him it may well be said * exegit monumentum 
ere perennius,” for to him is due the honour of having fixed the 
best form to be given to a marine lighthouse, and even now the 
Eddystone beacon-tower remains a model which has hardly been 
surpassed by the taller and more graceful edifices of Bell Rock 
