158 EDDY3TONE LIGHTIIOUSB. 



with some panic, took flight and was never heard of more. As for old 

 Hall, he was placed immediately under medical care, but although he 

 took his food tolerably well, and seemed for some time likely to recover, 

 he always persisted in saying that the doctors would never bring him 

 round, unless they could remove form his stomach the lead, which he 

 maintained had run down his throat, when it fell upon him from the 

 roof of the lantern. Nobody could believe that this notion was anything 

 more than an imagination of the old man ; but on the 12th day after the fire, 

 having been suddenly seized with cold sweats and spasms, he expired ; 

 and when his body was opened, there was actually found in his stomach, 

 to the coat of which it had partly adhered, a flat oval piece of lead, of the 

 weight of seven ounces five drachms ! An account of this most 

 extraordinary case is to be found fully reported in the forty ninth 

 volume of the Philosophical Transactions. 



As there was still more than half a century of their lease unexpired, 

 the proprietors (who by this time had become numerous) felt that it was 

 not their interest to lose a moment in setting about the rebuilding of the 

 light-house. 



Application being made to Lord Macclesfield, at that time President 

 of the Royal Society, he strongly recommended Mr. Smeaton, (who had 

 recently left his business of mathematical instrument maker, and devoted 

 his talents to engineering) ; so that, for the third time, this great work was 

 undertaken by a self-educated architect. It being determined that the 

 light-house should be built of stone, Mr. Smeaton, after several trials, 

 selected that from the isle of Portland. His models and designs being 

 approved by the Lords of the Admiralty, he began his operations on 

 the 12th of June 1757, when the first stone was laid, and his workmen 

 continued to labor as long as the weather would permit. From this time 

 the building proceeded with regularity and dispatch, and with no other 

 interruption than what might be expected from the nature of the work, 

 until the 9th of October, 1759, when, after innumerble difficulties and 

 dangers, a happy period was put to the great undertaking, without the loss 

 of life or limb to any one concerned in it, or accident by which the work 

 could be said to be materially retarded. During all this time there 

 had been only four hundred and twenty-one days, comprising two 

 thousand six hundred and seventy-four hours, which it had been possible 

 for the men to spend upon the rock ; and the whole time which they had 

 been at work, was only one hundred and eleven days ten hours, or 

 scarcely sixteen weeks ! It now remained only to test its durability. 

 The hard weather of 1759-60 and 1761, appeared to make ao impression. 



