Of course, in an isolated station lying perhaps some miles off the mainland, it may be necessary to keep the gun going night and day in fog and in clear weather alike. In this case, naturally, the great number of explosions involves considerable expense; but the inventors are carrying out experiments with a view to switching the gun on and off, as required, from a distant point by means of wireless telegraphy, so as to effect a saving in the expenditure of acetylene when there is no need on account of fine weather to keep the gun going. Still, it must not be supposed that the detonations even during clear weather are altogether abortive, inasmuch as a sound-signal at sea, where the atmosphere has a long-distance-carrying capacity as a rule, in conjunction with a light, draws double attention to a danger spot. Under such circumstances the waste of acetylene gas during periods of clear weather is more apparent than real.
The contest against the elements is still being waged, and slowly but surely engineering science is improving its position, and is hopeful of rendering audible signals as completely effective as those of a visual character.
CHAPTER V
THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE
It is doubtful whether the name of any lighthouse is so familiar throughout the English-speaking world as the “Eddystone.” Certainly no other “pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day,” can offer so romantic a story of dogged engineering perseverance, of heartrending disappointments, disaster, blasted hopes, and brilliant success.
Standing out in the English Channel, about sixty miles east of the Lizard, is a straggling ridge of rocks which stretches for hundreds of yards across the marine thoroughfare, and also obstructs the western approach to Plymouth Harbour. But at a point some nine and a half miles south of Rame Head, on the mainland, the reef rises somewhat abruptly to the surface, so that at low-water two or three ugly granite knots are bared, which tell only too poignantly the complete destruction they could wreak upon a vessel which had the temerity or the ill luck to scrape over them at high-tide. Even in the calmest weather the sea curls and eddies viciously around these stones; hence the name “Eddystones” is derived.
From the days when trading vessels first used the English Channel the reef has been a spot of evil fame. How many ships escaped the perils and dangers of the seven seas only to come to grief on this ridge within sight of home, or how many lives have been lost upon it, will never be known. Only the more staggering holocausts, such as the wreck of the Winchelsea, stand out prominently in the annals of history, but these serve to emphasize the terrible character of the menace offered. The port of Plymouth, as may be supposed, suffered with especial severity.
As British overseas traffic expanded, the idea of indicating the spot for the benefit of vessels was discussed. The first practical suggestion was put forward about the year 1664, but thirty-two years elapsed before any attempt was made to reduce theory to practice. Then an eccentric English country gentleman, Henry Winstanley, who dabbled in mechanical engineering upon unorthodox lines, came forward and offered to build a lighthouse upon the terrible rock. Those who knew this ambitious amateur were dubious of his success, and wondered what manifestation his eccentricity would assume on this occasion. Nor was their scepticism entirely misplaced. Winstanley raised the most fantastic lighthouse which has ever been known, and which would have been more at home in a Chinese cemetery than in the English Channel. It was wrought in wood and most lavishly embellished with carvings and gilding.
Four years were occupied in its construction, and the tower was anchored to the rock by means of long, heavy irons. The light, merely a flicker, flashed out from this tower in 1699 and for the first time the proximity of the Eddystones was indicated all round the horizon by night. Winstanley’s critics were rather free in expressing their opinion that the tower would come down with the first sou’-wester, but the eccentric builder was so intensely proud of his achievement as to venture the statement that it would resist the fiercest gale that ever blew, and, when such did occur, he hoped that he might be in the tower at the time.