Besides the windows of the lantern, ten other windows were constructed for the edifice—namely, for the store-room two, and for each of the upper rooms four. In fixing their bars, an accident happened to Smeaton, which was nearly attended with fatal results.
“After the boat was gone,” he says, “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 overheated: 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.”
Escaping this and other perils, Smeaton saw his beautiful edifice finally brought to completion; and on the 16th of October a light was once more shown from the Eddystone rock.
The lighthouse has now, as Mr. Smiles remarks, withstood the storms of upwards of a century—a solid monument to the genius of its architect and builder. Sometimes, he says,[30] when the sea rolls in with more than ordinary fury from the Atlantic, and the billows are driven up the Channel by the force of a south-west wind, the lighthouse is enveloped in spray, and its light momentarily obscured. But the shadow passes, and once more it beams across the waters like a star, a signal and a warning to the homeward bound. Occasionally, when a strong wave strikes it, the central portion of the wave shoots up the perpendicular shaft and leaps quite over the lantern. At other times, a colossal billow hurls itself upon the lighthouse, as if to shake it from its foundation; and to its inmates the shock is like that of a cannon; the windows rattle, the doors jar, and the building trembles to its very base. But the vibration felt throughout the lighthouse on such an occasion, instead of being a sign of weakness, is the best evidence that can be desired of the unity of the fabric and the cohesion of all its parts.
When the Eddystone was built, scarcely any other light guided the mariner in his intricate navigation of the Channel; but now it is abundantly illuminated along its whole extent, and its course is almost as easily tracked as that of a main thoroughfare in London. First comes the St. Agnes Light, on one of the Scilly Isles, revolving every minute, at an elevation of 138 feet above high water. Next are made the two Lizard Lights, which crown the rugged cliffs at the southernmost point of the English coast. In the deep curve between this bold headland and the craggy promontories of Bolt Head and Start Point, lie the revolving light on St Anthony’s Point, and the two lights on Plymouth Breakwater; while out at sea, almost in front of Plymouth Sound, and midway between the Lizard and the Start, the waves beat and swirl around the Eddystone. On Start Point there are two lights: one revolving, for the Channel; and another fixed, to guide ships inshore clear of the Skerries.
THE LIGHTSHIP AT THE NORE.
Continuing our voyage up Channel, we see on the south, off the coast of Jersey, the three Casquet Lights, and on the north the two fixed lights of Portland Hill. If we make for Portsmouth, we are guided by the light on the outermost Needle Rock and the harbour signals; but keeping out at sea, we pass St. Catherine’s, on the extreme southerly headland of the Isle of Wight, and next, the lights displayed at different heights on the Nab, and the single fixed light on the Owers vessel.