1G4 THE SEA. 



taken off, more dead than alive. And thus was Rudyerd's lighthouse also completely 

 destroyed." The Eddystone rocks being- in such an exposed place, right in the way of 

 so much shipping, it was resolved at once to rebuild the lighthouse. 



Previous to the date of the destruction of Rudyerd's timber building, Captain Lovet, 

 the former lessee of the lighthouse, had died, and his interest in it had been acquired by 

 Mr. Robert Weston and two others. Westoii immediately applied to the Earl of Macclesfield, 

 President of the Royal Society, who strongly recommended John Smeaton, then away in 

 the north. Weston immediately wrote to him, but Smeaton, thinking apparently that it 

 only referred to some repairs required in the building, declined to come up, unless there 

 was to be some degree of permanency in his engagement. The answer he received was to 

 the effect that the building was no more; that it must be rebuilt; and concluded with 

 the words, " thou art the man to do it." 



The life of Smeaton is one of the most interesting to be found among "The Lives of 

 the Engineers." He was born near Leeds, on the 8th of June, 1724, his father being a 

 respectable attorney, and he received an excellent education. " Young Smeaton," says Mr. 

 Smiles, "was not much given to boyish sports, early displaying a thoughtfulness beyond 

 his years. Most children are naturally fond of building up miniature fabrics, and perhaps 

 still more so of pulling them down. But the little Smeaton seemed to have a more than 

 ordinary love of contrivance, and that mainly for its own sake. He was never so happy 

 as when put in possession of any cutting tool, by which he could make his little imitations 

 of houses, pumps, and windmills. Even whilst a boy in petticoats, he was continually 

 drawing circles and squares, and the only playthings in which he seemed to take any real 

 pleasure were his models of things that would ' work/ When any carpenters or masons 

 were employed in the neighbourhood of his father's house, the inquisitive boy was sure to 

 be among them, watching the men, observing how they handled their tools, and frequently 

 asking them questions. His life-long friend, Mr. Holmes, who knew him in his youth, 

 has related, that having one day observed some millwrights at work, shortly after, to the 

 great alarm of his family, he was seen fixing something like a windmill on the top of his 

 father's barn. On another occasion, when watching some workmen fixing a pump in the 

 village, he was so lucky as to procure from them a piece of bored pipe, which he succeeded 

 in fashioning into a working pump that actually raised water. His odd cleverness, however, 

 does not seem to have been appreciated ; and it is told of him that amongst other boys he 

 was known as ' Fooly Smeaton/ for though forward enough in putting questions to the 

 workpeople, amongst boys of his own age he was remarkably shy, and, as they thought, 

 stupid." He made great progress at the Leeds Grammar School in geometry and arithmetic, 

 still carrying on his mechanical studies at home. It happened one day that some mechanics 

 came into the neighbourhood to erect a " fire- engine/" as the steam-engine was then called, 

 for pumping water from the Garforth coal mines. Smeaton watched their operations, and 

 thereupon commenced the erection of a miniature engine at home, provided with pumps and 

 other apparatus, which he succeeded in getting to work before the colliery engine was 

 ready. He immediately set it to work on one of his father's fish-ponds, which he succeeded 

 in pumping completely dry, killing all the fish, much to his father's annoyance. By the 

 time he had arrived at his fifteenth year, he had contrived to make a turning-lathe, on 



