CHAP. III. WINSTANLEY'S AND RUDYERD'S LIGHTHOUSES. 23 



side of the rock. The upper part of the building com- 

 prehended four rooms, one above another, chiefly formed 

 by the upright outside timbers, scarfed that is, the ends 

 overlapping, and then they were firmly fastened to- 

 gether. The whole building was, indeed, an admirable 

 piece of ship-carpentry, excepting the moorstone, which 

 was only introduced, 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 Mr. Eudyerd fixed his 

 lantern, which was lit by candles, seventy feet above 

 the highest side of the foundation, which was of a slop- 

 ing 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 Mr. Smeaton, 

 " consisted of a simple figure, being an elegant frustum 

 of a cone, unbroken by any projecting ornament, or 

 anything whereon the violence of the storms 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. 1 



That the building erected by Mr. Rudyerd was on the 

 whole exceedingly well adapted for the purpose for which 

 it was intended, was proved by the fact that it served as a 

 lighthouse for vessels navigating the English Channel, 

 and withstood the fierce storms which rage along that part 

 of the coast r for a period of nearly fifty years. 2 The 



1 An anecdote is told of a circum- 

 stance which occurred during its 

 erection, so creditable to Louis XIV., 

 then King of France, that we repeat 

 it here. There being war at the 

 time between France and England, 

 a French privateer took the oppor- 

 tunity of one day seizing the men 

 employed upon the rock, and carry- 

 ing them off prisoners to France. But 

 the capture coming to the ears of 

 the King, he immediately ordered 



and sent back to their work with pre- 

 sents, declaring that, though he was 

 at war with England, he was not at 

 war with mankind ; and, moreover, 

 that the Eddystone Lighthouse was 

 so situated as to be of equal service to 

 all nations having occasion to navi- 

 gate the channel that divided France 

 from England. Smeaton 's * Narra- 

 tive,' p. 28. 



2 Mr. Smeaton, in his quaint and 

 interesting * Narrative,' relates some 



that the prisoners should be released ! curious anecdotes of the early light- 



