Besides the windows of the lantern ten other windows were constructed for the edifice, namely, two for the store-room, and four each for the other two rooms. In fixing the bars for these windows, an accident occurred which had nearly proved fatal to Smeaton, and which he thus describes:—‘After the boat was gone, and it became so dark that we could not see any longer to pursue our occupations, I ordered a charcoal-fire to be made in the upper store-room, in one of the iron-pots we used for melting lead, for the purpose of annealing the blank ends of the bars; and they were made red hot altogether in the charcoal. Most of the workmen were set round the fire, and by way of making ourselves comfortable, by screening ourselves and the fire from the wind, the windows were shut; and, as well as I remember, the copper cover or hatch put over the man-hole of the floor of the room where the fire was; the hatch above being left open for the heated vapour to ascend. I remember to have looked into the fire attentively to see that the iron was made hot enough, but not over-heated: I also remember I felt my head a very little giddy; but the next thing of which I had any sensation or idea, was finding myself upon the floor of the room below, half drowned with water. It seems, that without being further sensible of anything to give me warning, the effluvia of the charcoal so suddenly overcame all sensation that I dropped down upon the floor; and had not the people hauled me down to the room below, where they did not spare for cold water to throw in my face and upon me, I certainly should have expired upon the spot.’
By unremitting exertions on the part of Smeaton and his work-people, the balcony-rails, the lantern, with the cupola and gilt ball, the lightning-conductor, and, in fact, all the remaining parts of the lighthouse, with the stores and necessary furniture, were set in their places by the 16th of October, on which day a light was once more exhibited on the Eddystone Rock.
It may be imagined that Smeaton took peculiar pleasure in this beautiful monument of his skill and ingenuity. He slept in the lighthouse, viewed it from sea and land, and made every observation that an ingenious and clever man might be expected to make. The account he gives of its appearance after a storm, as he viewed it with his telescope from the garrison at Plymouth, is this: ‘Though I had had many opportunities of viewing the unfinished building, when buried in waves in a storm at S. W., yet never having before had a view of it under this circumstance in its finished state, I was astonished to find that the account given by Mr. Winstanley did not appear to be at all exaggerated. At intervals of a minute, and sometimes two or three, I suppose when a combination happens to produce an overgrown wave, it would strike the rock and the building conjointly, and fly up in a white column, enwrapping it like a sheet, rising at least to double the height of the house, and totally intercepting it from sight; and this appearance being momentary, both as to its rising and falling, one was enabled to judge of the comparative height very nearly, by the comparative spaces alternately occupied by the house, and by the column of water, in the field of the telescope.’
The year 1759 closed with a series of very stormy weather, and as this was the first winter’s trial of the lighthouse, it may be supposed that there was some anxiety among the more timid and doubting of those concerned in it. Especially was the courage of the light-keepers put to the test. When a boat could come near them after one of these storms, a letter was sent by Henry Edwards, one of the light-keepers, to the manager of the works acquainting him that they had had such bad weather, and that the sea ran over the house in such a manner, that for twelve days together they could not open the door of the lantern or any other. ‘The house did shake,’ says the poor light-keeper, ‘as if a man had been up in a great tree. The old men were almost frightened out of their lives, wishing they had never seen the place, and cursing those that first persuaded them to go there. The fear seized them in the back, but rubbing them with oil of turpentine gave them relief.’
Meanwhile the lighthouse itself bore the storm admirably, and suffered nothing from it. Two years afterwards a tempest of unusual violence occurred, causing much loss of life and property at Plymouth. Eighty thousand pounds’ worth of damage were done in the harbour and sound, and a friend of Smeaton’s, after writing a full description of the several disasters, adds, ‘In the midst of all this horror and confusion, my friend may be assured that I was not insensible to his honour and credit, yet in spite of the high opinion that I had of his judgment and abilities, I could not but feel the utmost anxiety for the fate of the Eddystone. Several times in the day I swept with my telescope from the garrison, as near as I could imagine, the line of the horizon, but it was so extremely black, fretful, and hazy, that nothing could be seen, and I was obliged to go to bed that night with a mortifying uncertainty. But the next morning early, I had great joy to see that the gilded ball had triumphed over the fury of the storm, and such an one as I had no conception of. I saw the whole so distinctly from the bottom to the top, that I could be very sure the lantern had suffered nothing. It is now my most steady belief, as well as everybody’s here, that its inhabitants are rather more secure in a storm, under the united force of wind and water, than we are in our houses from the former only.’
After this trial of the strength of the lighthouse, there seems no longer to have been any apprehension concerning it. The light-keepers even became attached to the spot, and found it a remarkably healthy and comfortable abode. There were often as many as half a dozen applications for the office, although the salary was only twenty-five pounds per annum.
One of the light-keepers, after a residence of fourteen years on the rock, became so much attached to the place, that for two summers he gave up his turn of going on shore to his companions, and declared his intention of doing so on the third; but being over-persuaded he went on shore to take his month’s turn. At the lighthouse he had always been a decent, sober, well-behaved man; but he had no sooner got on shore than he went to an alehouse and became intoxicated. This he continued the whole of his stay; which being noticed, he was carried in an intoxicated state on board the Eddystone boat and delivered in the lighthouse, where he was expected to grow sober; but after lingering for two or three days, he expired. Vacancies, however, seldom occurred in the lighthouse. Smeaton mentions several men who had served there to his knowledge ten, fifteen, or twenty years.
Having thus conducted our readers to the close of Smeaton’s arduous undertaking, and noticed its complete success, we may proceed to describe the more remarkable lighthouses erected in other portions of the kingdom subsequent to the labours of this celebrated engineer.