46 SMEATON'S LIGHTHOUSE ON THE EDDYSTONE. PART VI. 



" The Eddystone in sight ! " sung out from the maintop. 

 Homeward-bound ships, from far-off ports, no longer 

 avoid the dreaded rock, but eagerly run for its light 

 as the harbinger of safety. It might even seem as if 

 Providence had placed the reef so far out at sea as the 

 foundation for a beacon such as this, leaving it to man's 

 skill and labour to finish His work. On. entering the 

 English Channel from the west and the south, the cau- 

 tious navigator feels his way by early soundings on the 

 great bank which extends from the Channel into the 

 Atlantic, and these are repeated at fixed intervals until 

 land is in sight. Every fathom nearer shore increases 

 a ship's risks, especially in nights when, to use the 

 seaman's phrase, it is " as dark as a pocket." The men 

 are on the look-out, peering anxiously into the dark, 

 straining the eye to catch the glimmer of a light, and 

 when it is known that " the Eddystone is in sight ! " 

 a thrill runs through the ship, which can only be 

 appreciated by those who have felt or witnessed it after 

 long months of weary voyaging. Its gleam across 

 the waters has thus been a source of joy and given a 

 sense of deep relief to thousands ; for the beaming of 

 a clear light from one known and fixed spot is infallible 

 in its truthfulness, and a safer guide for the seaman than 

 the bearings of many hazy and ill-defined headlands. 



By means of similar lights, of different arrangements 

 and of various colours, fixed and revolving, erected upon 

 rocks, islands, and headlands, the British Channel is 

 now lit up along its whole extent, and is as safe 

 to navigate in the darkest night as in the brightest sun- 

 shine. The chief danger is from fogs, which alike hide 

 the lights by night and the land by day. Some of the 

 homeward-bound ships entering the Channel from North 

 American ports first make the St. Agnes Light, on the 

 Scilly Isles, revolving once in a minute, at a height of 

 138 feet above high water. But most Atlantic ships 

 keep further south, in consequence of the nature of the 



