The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-09-11

Iull VI CldltuS WcTc PuI III iOi thiS 10
ward, almost every detective in the
United States representing that he was
entitled to a share. The adjustment of
this mass of claims occupied the men,
bers of the commission little over a
year before they could determine who
were entitled to the reward"
EddystOne Lighthouses.
The foundation stone of the new Ed
dystone lighthouse was successfully laid
the other day by His Royal Highness the
Duke of Edinburgh. The formal COM
mencement of the new structure, which
is to supersede Smeaton's famous
tower, was originally put down for the
21st of June, but the roughness of the
sea on that day selected compelled the
postponement- Smeaton's tower. which
for hundred and twenty years has
withstood the heaviest gales, proving
the salvation of many valuable ship
and warning many mariner off the
fatal Eddystone reef, is. it may be said,
as firm as ever. Indeed, il is a singu-
lar feather in Smeaton's cap, as an En-
glish paper has observed, that the
stability of his famous structure would
have outlasted that of the rock on which
Is DdScu uc toWCE EcLudluS
shaken by the storms, but the house
rock on which it stands shows signs of
enfeebled foundation consequent upon
the incessant wear and beating of the
ocean upon it. Therefore the corpora
ton of Trinity house determined to
erect q new and more commodious
structure on the south rock, the largest
of the reef, lying about 120 feet south
of the present site. The new tower
will be the fourth erected on the reef
in Plymouth Sound. A Mr.. Henry
Winstanley completed a lighthouse
there in 100, and he was SO confident
of the firmness of his structure that he
declared his wish to be in it during the
fiercest storm that could blow. He had
his wish, and persisted in it during q
terrible storm on the 28th of November,
1903.
A Mr.. John Rudyard built a new
lighthouse of wood on the reef in 1709
This was burned in 1855. The third
light-tower, of stone, the one which
still exists, was commenced 120 years
ago by Smeaton, and was finished in
1859. Says a recent English writer:
"a good deal has been made of the
fact that the form of the lighthouse
bears a resemblance to the trunk of q
tree, and it has often been asserted that
the idea of the proper form for the
lighthouse was borrowed from a forest.
Hence, it has been said, its enormous
stability. There is one fact that might
have discredited this story of the origin
of Smeaton's plan, viz, that whereas
in the tree the force which the strength
of the trunk is required to resist comes
from the blowing of the wind on the
head, in the lighthouse the force to be
resisted beats upon the base. If there
fore, it ever occurred to Smeaton mere
ly to copy the trunk of an oak, as is
commonly supposed, this difference
would most certainly have presented
itself at once. The fact is, we believe,
that the engineer on the Eddystone did
not derive his idea from any such
source. When speaking of it once he
incidentally alluded to its lines as curv-
ing first inward and then outward,
somewhat after the fashion of the trunk
of a tree, and the illustration was i'm
mediately seized upon as affording a
clew to the secret of Smeaton's success
where his predecessors had failed. The
plan of the Eddystone appears to have
been developed from. a cone, the lines
of which were calculated to present the
smallest possible resistance to the tre-
mendous waves that beat over the
House rock. From the simple cone the
lines were carried up and curved out
ward toward the top, as a means of in
creasing the weight by which the lower
courses of the tower were to be held in
their places. The greater the weight,
of course, the greater resistance to the
sea. Thus it appears that the resem-
blance to a tree-trunk was merely acci-
dental, and that, after all, nature is
not entitled to the credit of having de-
signed the Eddystone."
The new structure is thus described:
The new house will be built to contain
a light of more extensive radius and
| greater power. The old tower is sew
enty-t two feet above the level of high
water; the new one is designed to be
one hundred and thirty feet above the
level of any spring tide, so that no mat
ter what storm may rage, the light will
be in no danger of being eclipsed. II
will have range of seventeen and a
half miles, and is expected to overlap
the electric light at the Lizard. Be
sides this the tower will be considera-
bly, enlarged. giving nine rooms in place
of the existing four, thus adding to the
L
ers. Tenders were originally asked for
the completion of the designs, but all
of them were seemingly too high, for
the Trinity Board are themselves exc
cutting the work, and expect to COM
plete it at cost of between EGO, ,0OC
and f70.OOO within the next four years.
The direction of the undertaking is in
trusted to Mr.. j. Redmond and MIR. w.
T. Douglass, whose father, Mr.. j: N.
Douglass, consulting engineer at the
Trinity house, prepared the designs.
About three months have been spent in
making the necessary preparations fol
laying down the foundation. To dc
this of course the tides have to be OBJ.
served, and these only permit two OF
three hours work to be accomplished
on any one day. Gangs of men were
taken out in the steamship Hercules,
originally built for service in erecting q
lighthouse at San Serif, in Ceylon.
These, as soon as the tide had receded
sufficiently, were landed on the rock,
and by means of jumpers and the steam
rock drill the rock was rapidly leveleG
down to the requisite condition. Tt
enable the men to work more easily 8
massive dam was constructed arount
the neck, and every available moment
was devoted to the excavation of the
lodges for receiving the foundation
courses. The form of the tower will bs
upOn SmeatOn's principle and all tht