In the centre, a vertical section. At sides, transverse sections at different masonry courses, showing method of laying the stones.
It was a grim episode at this light which brought about the practice of appointing three men at least to a sea light-station. When first completed, The Smalls was provided with only two keepers, and on one occasion one of the two died. His companion refrained from committing the body to the sea, lest he might be suspected of foul-play, so he constructed a rough shell, in which he placed the body of his dead chum, and stood the grisly burden on end beside his flag of distress on the gallery outside the lantern. As the spell of duty in those days was four months, it was some time before the relief came out. Then they discovered a shattered human wreck tending the lights, who had never neglected his duty under the onerous and weird conditions, but who nevertheless had become broken down and aged under the terrible ordeal. After this experience three men instead of two were placed on duty at all such exposed and inaccessible lights. It may be recalled that Alphonse Daudet tells a similar creepy story which was related to him by a light-keeper on the rugged Corsican coast, and which he narrates in the “Phares des Sanguinaires.” A similar experience is also associated with Rudyerd’s Eddystone light.
Off the North Welsh coast there are the famous lights of the South Stack and the Skerries, the latter rising out of the water on a dangerous cluster of rocks off Carmel Head. The Isle of Man also possesses a magnificent specimen of lighthouse engineering in the Chicken Rock light, the work of the brothers Stevenson, which, although in the Irish Sea, comes within the jurisdiction of the Commissioners of Northern Lights. This tower stands on a reef which is submerged by 6 feet of water even at high neap-tides. When a gale is raging and the spring-tides are at their highest, the waves frequently engulf the lantern, although it is perched 143 feet above the water. The light is of 143,000 candle-power, of the revolving type, and visible for sixteen miles in clear weather.
Entering the English Channel from the Scillies, the voyager observes the powerful Lizard light gleaming like two brilliant white stars from a prominent elevated point on the cliff. Formerly three lights were shown, but two were found to meet the necessities of the situation adequately. The steamship lane lies across the chord of the arc formed by the coastline between the Lizard and Start Point, leaving the Eddystone to the north. The next important light is the Needles, at the entrance to the Solent. A few miles farther on the brilliant spoke-light flashes of St. Catherine’s, described in another chapter, compel attention. No other light after this is seen until Beachy Head is approached. Another dreary stretch brings the vessel abeam the nose of Kentish coast known as Dungeness, a particularly notorious danger spot. Here there is a continual struggle between the engineers and the sea. While the waves gnaw into the coastline at other neighbouring places, here they surrender their capture, so that the headland is persistently creeping farther and farther out to sea. It is lighted, and has been guarded for years, but the tower is left at a constantly increasing distance from the water’s edge. The light has been moved once or twice, so as to fulfil its purpose to the best advantage, but the engineer will be kept on the alert until the currents change their courses and refrain from piling up further drift at this point. This light, coming as it does at the entrance to the bottle-neck of the English Channel, is of prime importance to navigation, because vessels, after they have rounded the South Foreland, make a bee-line for this headland.
Since the eastern coast of England is flanked by sandbanks and shoals, the lighthouse is not in powerful evidence, the aids to navigation consisting chiefly of light-vessels, which are distributed liberally so as to patrol completely a treacherous stretch of shoals. Northwards the sandy, low-lying wastes give way to towering cliffs, amongst which Flamborough Head and its light are conspicuous. At the far northern limit of the operations of Trinity House comes the Longstones, mounting guard over the terrible Farne Islands and their rocky outposts. Who has not heard of the heroism of Grace Darling, the light-keeper’s daughter, and the thrilling rescue, in the teeth of a hurricane, of the exhausted survivors of the Forfarshire?
Complaints have been made often regarding the paucity of powerful lights around the coast of England, but the criticism scarcely is deserved. All the prominent and most dangerous spots are lighted adequately, and, as may be recognized, the provision of these lights has proved an exacting and costly enterprise. What England may lack in numbers in this particular field of engineering is compensated for by the daring nature of the works completed, which are regarded throughout the world as marvellous achievements.
CHAPTER VII
THE BELL ROCK AND SKERRYVORE LIGHTS
At first sight it seems somewhat remarkable—some might feel disposed to challenge the assertion—that so small a country as Scotland should stand pre-eminent among the nations of the world as being that possessed of the greatest number of imposing sea-rock lights. But such is the case. Moreover, North Britain offers some of the finest and most impressive specimens of the lighthouse builder’s resource and skill to be found in any part of the globe.