THE STORY OF THE EDDYSTONE.

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 142, 16 June 1923, Page 14

THE STORY OF THE EDDYSTONE.

The story of the construction of the famous Eddystone lighthouse,. off the coast of England,,is a graphic one, full of tragedy and hardship, of difficulties, seemingly insurmountable, yet overcome by the patience and perseverance of the engineers. The first structure was built of wood on the outermost point of rock in the group. Men were found to live in this feeble affair, and, sad to say, several of these brave fellows lost their lives when, one dark night, at the height of a winter gale, one great wave rolled up and swept the whole structure away. Other' lighthouses were constructed, until we learned sufficiently in the rough school of actual experience to build a structure that would successfully withstand tha fiercest gale, and thus it stands to-day, having weathered all the anger of the sea from the year 1882, in which it was completed. This great tower contains no less than 4668 tons of masonry; the great stones are 2171 in number, containing just over sixty-three thousand cubic feet, and all are dovetailed into eaGh other for extra security. The Eddystone of to-day is the work of Mr. James N. Douglas, and standing beside it is the stump of the tower, built by John Smeaton, which- was' never defeated by the sea, but was cut down at the building of the new tower, owing to the fact that the waves were undermining the rock upon which it was built, so whereas 'the lower half still stands as a monument to the skill and energy of Smeaton, the upper portion stands intact on Plymouth Hoe, in,memory of the great Yorkshireman who 1 first taught us the art of lighthouse building. Finally, (says an English writer), in this all too brief survey of the building of- these "island" lighthouses we must tell of the construction under the supervision of Alan Stevenson of the great lighthouse that now stands on the Skerryvore rocks. The actual construction had no very salient points of difference from. the works of Smeaton and Rennie, but instead of accommodating his workmen in a floating vessel, Stevenson built a hut for his men on the rock itself, raised on three legs, under which the sea roared during the wintry gales. Here, perched forty feet above the wave-washed rock, the architect and his men spent many weary days and nights with nothing in sight but the breakers, and nothing to be heard but the roar of the sea. On, one occasion stress of weather madfl the relief boat some seven weeks overdue, and by that time they were short of coal, their sodden clothing was worn to rags, they had little to eat and no tobacco to smoke. Their slumbers at times were fearfully interrupted by the sudden lash of great masses of spindrift over the roof of their slender structure; their frail, fragile home rocked fearfully, and ever and anon the water, spouted through the seams of the doors and windows. On two occasions the shocks were so violent that the men sprang up in alarm, some even crawled out of the shack and spent the rest of the night, cold and miserable, crouched under the unfinished walls. This gives just a brief glimpse of the hardships endured in the building of these warning towers aiid the romance of their construction. To-day the Corporation of Trinity House have 93 lighthouses under its control and fifty light vessels, and the personnel consists of 224 lightkeepers (to give the familiar lighthouse man his official name), and 509 lightsmen, in tlie lightships, and every one of these men could; tell 6ome enthralling story of tile sen. Many of the lighthouses are situated on points on the mainland, but, of course, all the lightships are well to sea, and in the fierce storms of the winter, when the alarm rocket from some'ship.in distress flames in the sky, it is often their telephone or their wireless that calls out the lifeboats from the mainland.