HOUSES. 



his own in (he solid marble, and then filling np the hollow of the 

 letters with mortar, wrote on it thf- aiiove-mentioned inscription. 

 In process of time the mortar with Ptol> my's name beinaj wore off, 

 the following inscription appeared ; ' Sostratus the Cnidian, the 

 son of Dexiphani'g, to the gods the saviours for the benefit of 

 sailors." This, as it was en^ravr-d on the solid marble, lasted as 

 long as the tower itself. This wonderful work has been demoIMi< d 

 some ages since ; and now in its phce stands a castle, as our mo. 

 clerii travellers informs us, called Faiillon, where a garrison is 

 kept fo defend the harbour. Pharos was originally an island about 

 seven furlongs distant from the continent, to which it was after, 

 wards joined by a causey, it being seven furlongs in length. This 

 was the work of Dexiphanes, the father of Sostratus, who com- 

 pleated it at the same time that his son put the la->t hand to the 

 tower. As they were both celebrated architects, Ptolcr y employed 

 them in these and many other works, which he undertook for the 

 adorning and strengthening Alexandria, the metropolis of his king- 

 dom. Amiamis Marcelling ascribes the heptastarlhim to queen 

 Cleopatra j but as he contradicts therein Caesar in his Commenta- 

 ries, and all the ancients who speak of that great work, his autho- 

 rity is of no great weight with us. 



Nicholas Lloyd tells us out of a manuscript copy of the Grtek 

 scholiast on Lucian, whose very words he quotes, that this tower 

 was a square structure of a furlong, or sir hundred foot on each 

 side, and so hhyh, that it was seen at the distance of an hundred 

 miles. Eben Adris, an Arabic writer, in his book, which the La. 

 tin translator styles Geogrnphia XtiMensi?, says, tiiat this tower 

 was three hundred cubits, or four hundred and fifty foot high. 



In our own day the most c< 1* bra <-c! li^ht house is tint built on 

 the Eddy stone, rocks. These are situat* nearly S.S.VV. from the 

 middle of Plymouth sound, according to the true meridian. The 

 distance from the port of Plymouth is nearly fourteen miles, and 

 from the promontory railed Kamhead about ten miles. They are 

 almost in the line, but somewhat within if, which joins the Start 

 and the Lizard points ; and as they lie nearly in the direction of 

 vessels coasting up and down the channel, they were necessarily, 

 before the establishment of li^ht-hous^, very dan.-.erous, and often 

 fatal to ships under such circumstances. Their situation, likewise, 

 with regard to the bay of Kiscay and Atlantic ocean, is such, that 

 th^y lie oprn to the swells of the bay and ocean from all the south- 

 western points of the compass : which swells are generally allowed 



