ALONE WITH A CORPSE. 103 



Admirable piece of ship-carpentry, excepting only the moorstone, which was merely intro- 

 duced, as it were, by way of ballast. The outer timbers were tightly caulked with 

 oakum, like a ship, and the whole was payed over with pitch. Upon the roof of the 

 main column Rudyerd fixed his lantern, which was lit by candles, seventy feet above the 

 highest side of the foundation, which was of a sloping form. From its lowest side to 

 the summit of the ball fixed on the top of the building was ninety-two feet, the timber 

 -column resting on a base of twenty-three feet four inches. " The whole building/' says 

 Srneaton, "consisted of a simple figure, being an elegant frustum of a cone, unbroken by 

 any projecting ornaments, or anything whereon the violence of the storm could lay hold." 

 The structure was completely finished in 1709, though the light was exhibited in the 

 lantern as early as the 28th of July, 1706. 



That the building erected by Rudyerd was, on the whole, well adapted for the purpose 

 for which it was intended, was proved by the fact that it served as a lighthouse for ships 

 navigating the English Channel for nearly fifty years. The lighthouse was at first attended 

 by only two men. It happened, however, that one of the keepers was taken ill and died, 

 .and only one man remained to do the work. He signalled for assistance, but the weather 

 prevented any boat from reaching the rock for nearly a month. What, then, was the 

 surviving man to do with the dead body of his comrade ? The thought struck him that 

 if he threw it into the sea, he might be charged with murder. He determined, therefore, 

 to keep the corpse in the lighthouse until a boat should come off from the shore. At last 

 :a boat came off, but the weather was still so rough that a landing was only effected with 

 the greatest difficulty. By this time the effluvia from the corpse was overpowering ; it 

 filled the apartments of the lighthouse, and the men were compelled to dispose of the body 

 by throwing it into the sea. In future three men were always employed. 



The chief defect of Rudyerd's building consisted of the material of which it was 

 constructed ; the necessary lights and heat proceeding from them made it a very dangerous 

 structure. "The immediate cause of the accident by which the lighthouse was destroyed 

 was never ascertained. All that became known was, that about two o'clock in the 

 morning of the 2nd December, 1755, the light-keeper on duty, going into the lantern to 

 .snuff the candles, found it full of smoke. The lighthouse was on fire! In a few minutes 

 the wooden fabric was in a blaze. Water could not be brought up the tower by the men 

 in sufficient quantities to be thrown with any effect upon the flames raging above their 

 heads; the molten lead fell down upon the light-keepers, into their very mouths,* and 

 they fled from room to room, the fire following them down towards the sea. From 

 Cawsand and Rame Head the unusual glare of light proceeding from the Eddystone was 

 seen in the early morning, and fishing-boats, with men, went off to the rock, though a 

 fresh east wind was blowing. By the time they reached it, the light-keepers had not 

 only been driven from all the rooms, but, to protect themselves from the molten lead 

 and red-hot bolts and falling timbers, they had been compelled to take shelter under a 

 ledge of the rock on its eastern side, and after considerable delay the poor fellows were 



*It appears that a post-mortem examination of one of the light-keepers who died from injuries received during 

 the fire took place some thirteen days after its occurrence, and a flat oval piece of lead some seven ounces in weight 

 was taken out of his stomach, having proved the cause of his death. 



