The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 15, 1865.

GREAT ST. JAMES'S HALL.-WIZARD
of the NORTH. Crowded Houses. Great success of
Frederic (the Great) Mambe, the unrivalled ventriloquist
and mimic (vide the London press). Second Sight by Miss
Anderson, more extraordinary than ever. Every night at 8,
Saturday afternoon at 3. Entrances, Regent-street and Pic-
cadilly.

SATURDAY NEXT-DAY PERFORMANCE
Great St. James's Hall. Maccabe, the Ventriloquist.
—The World of Magic by PROFESSOR AND ER3ON,
Seoond Sight by Miss Anderson, the real Indian Basket Feat
by Miss Liz .ie Anderson. Doors open at 2, to commence at 3.
Stalls, is. ; reserved seats, 3s. ; balcony, 2s ; area and gal-
leries, is.; schools and children half price to stalls and re •
served seats, which may be obtained at Mr. Austin's office,
No. 28, Piccadilly.
A. NIMIIO, Acting Manager.

T " 0 X FORD
6. OXFORD STREET. W.
The Oxford and Canterbury Hall Company (limited). _

- -
SIXTY-SIX, by J. Offenbach, performed by
Misses Russell, Barrie, Walmebley, Tyrell ; Messrs. A. St.
Albyn. Husk, Green, and Mons. ERVAH, the new French
Tenore, with full Band and Chorus.
Conductor, Mr. F. Jonghmans.

Ballet-, Comedy, Burlesque. &c., by the celebrated D'Au-
bans. Messrs. Duriah and Davis, and the Misses TESSY
and SARA. GUNNISS.

NO PILE —The Oxford has been entirely Redecorated.
Altered, Newly Lighted, and Ventilated, and now is one of
the most agreeable places of resort in the kingdom.—OPEN
EVERY EVENING at Eight o'clock.

Admission—Area, 6d.; stall➢ and balcony, Is. ; private
boxes. 10s. 6d. .

CANTERBURY HALL.
Sele3tiOns from ORPHEE AUX ENFERS and TIIE
BROTHER AND SISTER, supported by Miss RUSSELL,
Miss Barrie, Itl4ss Hays. &a ; Mows. ST. ALBYN, Green,
&0., with Full Band and Chorus.
Conductor, Mr. F. Jongmans.
Comedy by Arthur Lloyd, Messrs. Duriah and Davis, and
the Grotesque D'Aubans.

THIS EVENING, will be performed, with new Optical
effects. the Illusion, entitled KO KO RI KO, on a scale of
magnificence never before attempted, and embracing the ser-
vises of the entire establishment.

MADAME TUSSAUD'S EXHIBITION.-
Established 30 years, at the Bazaar, Baker-street.

NEW ADDITIONS.--In accordance with the season, the
Exhibition has been entirely re-embellished. The whole of
the ancient Court Dresses of the most costly description,
faithfully copied from the most minute pictures, have been
renewed. Modern Court Dresses of the most splendid de-
scription, selected from the first houses in Paris and London,
and probably never equalled or surpassed, are now on view.

Life-size Models of DOCTOR E. W. PRITCEIARD and
CONSTANCE KENT are now added.
Open from 11 a.m. till 10 p.m.
Admittance, One Shilling; Extra Rooms, Sixpence.

G.LASS, CHINA, EARTHENWARE, and
CHANDELIER SHOW ROOMS.
Notice of Removal in consequence of the late Fire.

JDEFRIES and SONS' Temporary SHOW
• ROOMS.
16 and 17, COMMERCIAL-STREET, WITITEC FIAPEL,
Five Minutes' walk from their Late Establishment,
147, HOUNDSDITCII.

CRYSTAL and BRONZED CHANDELIERS. New Designs,
for the Dining and Drawing-room, either tor
Gas or Candle.
T DEFRIES and SONS, 1G and 17,
tfi • COMMERCIAL-STREET.

PETROLEUM LAMPS and WALL LIGHTS, MIRRORS
(for India).
.__

JDEFRIES and SONS, 16 and 17,
• COMIERCIAL-STREET.

TAVERN AND HOTEL GLASS.
Newest Patterns, Correct Measure.
JT DEFRIES and SONS,
. 1G and 17, COMMERCIAL-STREET.

ALEXANDRA DINNER SERVICES,
For 12 Persons, xi 18s. 6d.
T DEFItIES and SONS,
0 • 16 and 17. COMMERCIAL-STREET.

TABLE GLASS, CHINA. and EARTHENWARE,
CLUB, MESS, GODS FURNISHING ORDERS for the above
ted.
JDEFRIES and SONS supply Designs and
• Pattern Books Free.
Works—LONDON and BIRMINGHAM.

Our Lights and Lighthouses.

How far that littlo candle throws his beams !
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Merchant of Venice.

If the faint twinkling of a candle's light was cal-
culated to awaken so beautiful an idea in the mind
of our great dramatist and poet, to what shall we
liken that noble light which not only so far transcends
the little candle in magnitude and beauty, and in
the distance to which its beams are thrown, but
whose mission it is to protect and save,—which
pierces the midnight gloom, lighting the seaman's
path along the trackless deep, to warn him of the
hidden shoal, the sunken rock, the beetling cliff—
to be, as it were, " a light to his feet and a lamp to
his path—to guide him to the haven where he would
be?" It may be likened to religion's holy light,
which reveals to man the road to Heaven, and
warns him of the many hidden dangers on which
moral shipwreck may befall him on his way.
So calculated, indeed, is the beacon-light to
awaken elevated and even holy thoughts, that it
seems somewhat strange so humble, and indeed
unsuitable a name, as " lighthouse" should have been
adapted to signify the shrine of so splendid a jewel,
and especially as such buildings have rarely the ap-
pearance of a house at all. A tower, or more often
a spire, their tall and graceful forms resemble, and
accordingly their names in some other Euro-
pean languages have such a signification— as
the " Tour h feu," in the French, and the
" Torre de lutes," in the Spanish language.
Their more frequent name is, however, taken
from the Greek " Pharos," the celebrated light-
tower of Alexandria, erected there, on a small
island of that name, by Ptolemy Philadelphus, about
300 years before the birth of Christ; thus " phare"
in French, and, in our own language, the term
" pharology" has been adopted to signify the science
of lighting up sea-coasts with beacon or warning
lights.

The most ancient light-tower of which there is
any authentic record is the one above named, which
endured for 1,600 years. Others were erected at
Ostia, Ravenna, Apamea, and at Capio, or Apio,
as recorded by Pliny, Strabo, and other writers.
The oldest existing light-tower is that at Corunna,
in Spain, said to have been erected in the reign of
Trajan, and now fitted with one of the finest
modern light-apparatus. The celebrated Colossus
of Rhodes has also been supposed by some to have
had a light at its summit, but on no certain evi-
dence. Various ruins of towers on the coasts of
Great Britain, and on the shores of Europe, have
likewise been supposed to be the remains of ancient
lifsbi-hou.oa y ..a, if ouch be the case, they may be
looked on as fitting emblems of the departed
of the earlier civilisation of our race, which was fol-
lowed by a long period of barbaric darkness.
The subject of pharology, although it may not be
of universal interest, should at least be so to every
Englishman who is sensible of the vast commercial
intercourse between his island home and the world
around it, and of the immense effect of that inter-
course in promoting the prosperity and advance-
ment not only of his own country and its numerous
dependencies, but directly and indirectly of the
whole world.

The slight sketch, which is all that we can
attempt, of this to us interesting subject, we will
divide into the three heads under which it seems
naturally to fall, namely-
-Ist.--The towers or buildings containing the
lights.
2d.—The lights themselves.
3d.—The positions in which such lights are
placed.
1. THE BUILDINGS.—The character of the build-
ings in which the beacon-lights are placed is dependent
on their situation. They may be placed on lofty
cliffs at a considerable height above the sea, as at
Flamborough Head and the North and South
Foreland, in which case the building itself need not
be lofty, but only of such peculiar shape and colour
as to make it conspicuous from the sea by daylight,
and to make it easily distinguished from the dwel-
ling houses or other buildings in its neighbourhood.
Or they may be situated on low promontories but
little above the sea level, as on the flat beds of
shingle at Oxfordness and Dungeness, where they
must be raised to a considerable elevation, that the
light by night and the building by day may be dis-
cernible at long distances from the land. Or they
may be fixed on the isolated and even sunken rock,
as the celebrated Eddystone in the English Chan-
nel, in which CAN the whole akin and science el the

engineer must be expended, not only on their foun-
dations, but also on their entire structure, to enable
them to stand the mighty shocks of the ocean-
waves. Or, lastly, they may be required to stand
in the very midst of the great deep itself, where
not even a sunken rock will afford a foundation
On which to build ; and then they must be either
erected on open work of piles, or on a floating ves-
sel, strongly moored to the ground below, many of
which invaluable though non-locomotive craft may
be seen around our coasts, warning the mariner from
the treacherous sandbanks that are so numerous in
our tidal sea.

The principal class of buildings of this description
to be noticed are those of the third class above
alluded to, which are erected on outlying rocks, or
on softer ground in shallow water ; for such edifices
are invested with peculiar interest, from the skill and
energy that have been engaged in their construction ;
as being amongst the most striking illustrations of
the conquest of mind over matter ; as being invested
with a certain wild romantic interest from their
isolated exceptional position, eternally surrounded
by the great watery waste, and cut off from the
busy haunts of man.
THE Tour DE CORDUAN.—Perhaps the first
light-tower that has claim on our attention, as far
as architectural grandeur is concerned, is the Tour
de Corduan. It is erected on an extensive reef at
the mouth of the river Garonne, in France, and
serves as a guide to the shipping of Bordeaux and
the Languedoc Canal, and, indeed, of all that part
of the Bay of Biscay. It Was commenced in the
year 1584, and not completed until 1610. It is
197 ft. high, and around the base is a wall of circum-
vallation 134 ft. in diameter, in which the light-
keeper's apartments are formed, somewhat in the
style of the casemates in a fortification. Its first light
was obtained by burning billets of wood in a chauffer
at the top of the tower, which was no doubt the
mode by which all the earlier light-towers were
illuminated. It has since gone through all the
gradations of improvement of the several modern
discoveries, viz., from a fire of wood to one of coal,
and the subsequent addition of a rude reflector ;
next, in about the year 1780, the substitution of
improved reflectors and lamps ; and lastly, in 1822,
by the introduction of the dioptric apparatus, first
proposed by our distinguished countryman, Sir
David Brewster, in 1812, and subsequently in
France by M. Fresnel.
TILE EDDYSTONE.—Of the British light-towers of
this class, that on the Eddystone rock, 9 miles off
the coast of Cornwall, is the most celebrated,
although much larger ones have been since built on
the same design. The first light-tower on these
dangerous rocks was designed by Mr. Winstanley,
and was formed of wood ; it was commenced in
1696 and completed in 1698. It was 60ft. high ;
but as the sea broke fairly over its top, its height
was subsequently increased to 120 f t. In Novem-
ber, 1703, some considerable repairs were being
executed, when the storm of the 26th of that month
swept the entire edifice away, and Mr. -Winstanley
and the whole of his assistants, 30 in number, un-
happily perished 'on the occasion ; a proof of the
danger and difficulty attending the construction of
such works. Shortly after its destruction, the
Winchilsea ship-of-war was wrecked on these rocks,
and most of her crew were drowned. In 1706,
another tower, likewise of wood, was commenced
under the direction of Mr. John Rudyerd, of Lon-
don, and was completed in 1708. This one lasted
until the year 1755, when the whole of the edifice
was destroyed by fire. The height of this tower
was 92 ft., and the diameter at its base 23 ft. The
great importance of a light on these dangerous rocks
having been long recognised by seamen no time
was now lost in replacing it, and Mr. Smeaton was
intrusted with its re-erection. On the 12th June,
1757, the first stone of the present edifice was laid,
and the last on the 20th August, 1759. The whole
structure is 93 ft. in height, and has 26 ft. diameter

at the base. The first 12 ft. above the rock is a
solid mass of masonry, the stones being united to
each other by means of stone joggles, dovetailed
joints, and oak tree-nails. This beautiful tower,
which, after the lapse of more than a century,
stands as firm as the rock on which it rest, has been
the model of successive structures in similar positions.
THE BELL ROCK.—Amongst the chief of these
light-towers is the Bell Rock tower, on the east coast
of Scotland on a dangerous reef, right in the fairway
of the Firths of Forth and Tay, which had long been
a terror to mariners ; the task of erecting a durable
edifice on this reef was a still more difficult one than
had been that in the case of Eddystone, since there
was a depth of 12ft. of water over the rocks at every.
spring-tide. Ail difficulties, however, were over-
come, and a splendid stone tower, after the model
of the Eddystone, was successfully erected under
the direction of Mr. Robert Stevenson, the engineer
to the Lighthouse Board of Scotland. This tower
is 100 ft. high, 42ft. in diameter at the base, and 15ft.
at the top. The foundation having been excavated,
the first stone was laid on July 10, 1808, and the
light was first exhibited on the night of Feb. 1, 1810.
Its base is of solid masonry to the height of 30ft., at
which height is the door for
which is reached from the outside by a massive cop-
per ladder. It cost £60,000. ingress and egress, and
THE SKERRYVOItE.—Another noble specimen of
sea-architecture, if we may use the term, is also to
be found in the coast of Scotland. The Skerry-
yore Rocks on the coast of Argyleshire, 12 miles
W.S.W. of the Isle of Tyree, were long known as
the dread of seamen, owing to the numerous ship-
wrecks that had occurred on them, fatal alike to the
vessels and their crews.

The Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses
had for many years entertained the project of
erecting a light-tower on the Skerryvore reef, and
with that object had visited it in the year 1814, in
company with Sir Walter Scott, who has given a
graphic description of it in his " Diary." It was
not, however, until the year 1834 that a minute
survey of the reef was undertaken by that board,
and the work was not actually commenced before
1838. In illustration of the danger attending the
construction of Cll,ll PAificecs we. will describe come
details
er. regarding the commencement of this light-
The Skerryvore reef, which stretches over a sur-
face of nearly 8 miles from W.S.W. to E.N.E., is
composed of the very hard igneous rock called gneiss,
the surface of which is worn
light-
tower. w
as smooth as glass
by the perpetual motion of the water. In nume-
rous places it rises above the surface of the
water, forming small rocky islets, the principle one
of which alone presents sufficient surface to form
the base of a light-tower ; and it is so small, that
at high water little of it remains above the surface
but a narrow band of a few feet in width, and some
rugged lumps of rock, separated from it by gullies,
through which the sea almost incessantly plays.
The cutting of the foundation alone, in this irregu-
lar flinty mass, occupied nearly two summers ; and
the blasting of the rock in so narrow a space, with-
out any shelter from the flying splinters, was at-
tended with much hazard.

In such a situation, of course, everything had to
be provided beforehand, and transported from a
distance ; and the omission even of a little clay for
the tamping of the mine-holes might for a time have
stopped the works. Barracks had to be built at the
workyard in the neighbouring island of Tyree, and
also on the Isle of Mull, where the granite for the
tower was quarried. Piers had to be built at both
places, to facilitate the shipment and landing of
materials ; and a small harbour or basin, with a re-
servoir and sluices for scouring the entrance, had to
be specially formed, for the accommodation of the
small vessel required to permanently attend on the
light-keepers. A steam-tug had also to be pro-
vided, to expedite the transport of the building
materials, and which also served, in the early stages
of the work, as a floating-barrack for the workmen,
in which service she and those on board her had to
incur many risks, the tug being moored off the rock

on foul and rocky ground, on which the anchor
often tripped.
In the summer of 1838, Mr. Allan Stevenson, the
engineer who designed the tower, commenced by
erecting a wooden barrack on the rock, as far as
possible removed from the foundation ; but in the
great gale of the 3d November following it was en-
tirely destroyed and swept from the rock, leaving
nothing but a few twisted iron stanchions to mark
its site. For the greater part of two seasons the
men then lived on board the vessel moored off
the rock, at the end of which time they
erected another wooden barrack, more strongly
secured than the former one, and which fortunately
endured through the winter's storms, until the com-
pletion of the building, and indeed till many years
afterwards, notwithstanding that, as Mr. Stevenson
describes it, they were often disturbed in their beds
by the sea pouring over the roof, by the spurting of
the water through the doors and windows, and by
the rocking of the whole edifice on its supports.
The Skerryvore light-tower was completed in
1844. It is 158Ift. high, exclusive of the lantern,
42ft. in diameter at the base, and 16#. at the top.
It was an adaptation of Sineaton's Eddystone-
tower, with such modifications in the size and
general arrangements of the buildings as were called
for by the peculiar situation and other circum-
stances, while it embodied such improvements as
later knowledge had suggested.
The tower contains a mass of stonework of about
58,580 cubic feet, being more than double that of
the Bell Rock, and nearly five times that of the
Eddystone. Its cost, including all the contingent
and preliminary expenses, was £86,978.
The other light-towers of this description most
worthy of notice aro the Bishop Rock, off Scilly,
the New Sinai's, that on the Hanois Rock on the
Jersey coast, and perhaps that at Carlingford on
the east coast of Ireland. The three first-named
have been all erected by the Trinity House, under
the superintendence of the Messrs. Douglass, who
are now engaged on the difficult task of erecting a
tower on the Wolf Rock off the Land's End. The
Carlingford tower was designed by Mr. George
Halpin, the inspector of the Irish lights ; it was
first exhibited on the 20th December, 1830. Its
figure is that of a frustrum of a cone, 111 ft. high,
and 48 ft. diameter at the base.
Some idea may be formed of the difficulties of
erecting light-towers of this class, from the circum-
stance that in working at the tower on the Wolf
Rock, 82 working hours is said to have been the
whole time that was available to work on the rock
during the year 1862. Some idea may likewise be
formed of the tremendous strain to which they
are subjected from the fact that, at Skerryvore,
where an instrument to test the forces of the
waves had been exposed, it was found to have
equalled, in *the maximum case no less than
6,0831b5. on the square foot; also from the fact that,
at the Bishop Rock Light-tower, off Scilly, a mas-
sive bell, which was fixed with strong iron supports,
built into the masonry, at 120 ft. above the level of
the sea, was struck with such force by a wave which
ran up the tower, that it was wrenched from its po-
sition, while its iron supports were broken. It will
be readily felt, then, that the greatest possible
strength that human ingenuity can devise must be
requisite to resist the impact of such enormous
forces. This strength is obtained in the stone-
towers by a solid mass of masonry, to a height of
30ft. in some towers, above the sea-level, the stones
being all dovetailed together, both laterally and
vertically, and united by hydraulic cement, so that
the stones cannot be separated without being
broken, and the whole base is literally as solid and
indivisible as if it were a natural, solid rock.
A novel class of towers has been designed and
erected by Mr. Alexr. Gordon, consisting of iron
plates bolted together. There are several fine examples
of his light-towers at Jamaica, Bermuda, the Baha-
mas, and other places. They are well adapted for
positions and countries where skilled labour and
suitable materials are wanting. _ _

Another description of light-tower, or lighthouse,
deserving of notice, is that on the ingenious plan of
Mr. Alexander Mitchell, supported on screw-piles.
Buildings of this class are especially applicable to
shallow waters, at the estuaries of rivers, and such-
like situations, over flat, soft ground of mud or
sand. The Maplin, at the mouth of the Thames,
was the first of these, begun in 1838. It stands on
nine piles, secured to as many iron screws, which
were screwed down to a depth of 22ft. into the sand.
These screws consist of a single turn of a flange,
4ft. in diameter, on the lower end of the iron pile.
They were fixed in nine consecutive days, under the
personal direction of the blind inventor. The piles
are secured in place and bound together by suitable
ties, and the dwelling room and lantern are placed
above the reach of the sea, which breaks harm-
lessly through the open work of iron piles, &c., be-
neath. Similar buildings have been constructed at
Fleetwood, Belfast, and other places.
Lastly, there remains to be described the floating-
lights. It is, we believe, an axiom in pharology
never to place a floating light Where a suitable posi-
tion can be had for a fixed building; the reasons
being that their lights must be comparatively small;
that they are liable to drag their anchors in violent
storms, and thus, by their change of position, to
mislead instead of guiding, although this does not
often happen ; that they are much more expensive,
requiring 11 men to work them, whereas 3 men are
all that are necessary to occupy a first-class light-
tower ; the cost of management of the former being
about £1,300 per annum, and of the latter £350 ;
also that they are much more troublesome, requir-
ing to be periodically taken into dock to refit, on
which occasions they have to be replaced by similar
vessels. There are 51 floating lights on the coasts
of the United Kingdom, being a greater number
than appear in any other country, the United States
of America having only 39 lights. These craft are
in general ordinary-shaped vessels, and are now
expressly built for the purpose. The floating light-
vessels of Mr. George Herbert's design are, however,
circular, and are moored from their centre of gra-
vity. They have immense stability, and are com-
paratively motionless ; they have been found to
answer admirably where adopted for floating bea-
cons, &c.
Light-vessels are ordinarily painted of a dark-red
colour, to make them readily distinguishable from
all other craft, and that colour, which is the oppo-
site of green, being more conspicuous than any other
on the surface of the water.
The greatest depth of water in which any of these
vessels at present ride is about forty fathoms, as is
the case with the one at the station of the Seven
Stones, between the Scilly Islands and CoCornwall.The lights on land, or lighthouses, which are at
the highest elevation, with the distances they com-
mand in clear weather, are given in the following
table, compiled from the general return published
by the Admiralty :
Height of Distances
Lantern at which
Year above High the Lights
erected. Water. are seen.

Feet. Miles.
Lizard 1751 ... 224 ... 20
Needles
Beachy Head lB2B 285 ... 22
South Foreland 1793 ... 372 ... 25
Cromer
Flamborough Head 1806 ... 214 ... 19
Inchkeith
Isle of May lBl6 240 ... 21
Dunnet Head lB3l ... 346 ... 23
Sumburgh Head lB2l ... 300 ~. 22
Cape Wrath
Barra Head 1833 ... 680 ... 32
Kintyre
Mull of Galloway
Calf of Man
St. Bee's Head
Lundy Island lB2O ... 540 ... 30
Cape Clear lBl7 455 ... 27
Clare Island
Skellig's Rock 1826 ... 372 ... 25

The figures which are appended, together with
the above brief sketch, will, perhaps, give a suffi-
cient general idea of the nature of the buildings
which enclose and protect the beacon-lights that
encircle our shores.—Journal of the National Life-
boat Institution,