News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-03-30
The EddystOne Lighthouse.

The EddystOne Lighthouse.
Perhaps there is no lighthouse upon
the coast of Great Britain and Ireland
to which greater or more widespread in
terest attaches than the Eddystone. It
is, indeed, the most historical fabric of
it's kind in the world, and the fame of
its checkered and stormy story has lit
orally gone forth into all lands. It
will, therefore, be heard with no COM
mon interest, in all parts of the world,
that new Eddystone, the successor of
John Smeaton's successful fabric, has
just been completed. Who can venture
to estimate the number of lives or ships
which the Eddyatone lighthouse has
saved during its benefcent existence of
rather more than one hundred and
twenty years? The Eddystone rocks
lie abont ten miles south from the Ram
Head at Plymouth, which is the nearest
point of land in their vicinity.
Ships running up and down the
Channel are exposed to imminent
risks of striking upon the almost sub
merged and treacherous reef, whose
name indicates the seething and boiling
turbulence of the whirling and eddying
waves. The situation of the rocks with
regard to the Bay of Biscay and the
Atlantic is such that they catch the
CyV of I,a
sea is to all appearance smooth and
tranquil and its surface unruffied by the
slightest breeze, the ground-swell smites
upon the slope of the rocks with ire
mendous fury, so as to make 1t impos-
slble for a boats creg to land there at
all. Many gallant ship, which had
safely accomplished her homeward voy-
age across the Atlantic, has torn out
her heart on Eddystone reef, and gone
down in sight of hundreds of Mortified
spectators on land, who were powerless
to rescue their brethren from an awful
doom. Plymouth, which, iu the fif-
teenth and sixteenth centuries, was
highlands principal port, sent up
many a vail praying for some
engineer or architect daring and
cunning enough to fix a per-
manent light upon the monster of
the deep which had caused such
destruction, loss and misery. The same
circumstances, however, which made
the Eddystone rock so formidable to the
mariner, rendered the attempt to erect
a lighthouse upon them a peculiarly
difficult enterprise. At length Mr..
Henry Winstanley, of Littlebury, in
Essex, being a gentleman of some
property, with turn for mechanical
invention, tried his hand, in 1896, upon
the hazardous job. We all know the
sad fate of the rough stone structure,
with an open gallery at the top, in
which its author expressed the hope that
he might himself be an inmate during
the most terrific storm that ever came
out of the heavens. The unhappy man
had his wish. On November 26, 1903, |
he was in his sea-tower, experimenting
SOY repairs, when the worst storm
ever known in those islands burst upon |
him. When morning broke, no signs of |
the stone polygon remained. Then fol-
lowed wooden fabric, constructed by |
John Rudyerd, a silk mercer on Lud-
gate Hill, who began to build in 17O6
md finished his work IN 1909. This
building, contrary to general expecta-
ion, stood until December 2, 1855,
when a spark from one of the twenty
our candles by which it was lighted set
t on fire. The general impression of
he neighboring Iandemen was-in the
words applied by Wordsworth to Chart
cap Well" in Yorkshire ''the place is
.ursed." At length application was
made to the Royal Society for an engi-
leer capable of tackling the Eddystone
Reef, and Lord Macclesfield, its presi-
Ient, recommended John Smeaton.
lie began his work in 1857, and on the
9th of October, 1859, the saving light
treamed forth for the first time from
is summit. For nearly a century and
quarter there has been no surcease of
hat guiding ray, and had it not been
hat the rock upon which the structure
f Smeaton stands was undermined by
he restless waves, who can say whether :
ne triumph of artistic design and skill
hitch was due to his ingenious brain
nd daring conception might not have
lsted until the crack of. doom? A
'ftier and more solid fabric has now
scended upon an adjoining rock, and
e can but hope, that it may be destined
} save as many lives as the last Eddy
5one lighthouse has during its long
Nistence been the means of preserving.