1696, amidst many difficulties and obstructions from the weather and the sea, executed this formidable task. This erection, however, which is understood to have been chiefly of wood, existed only four years.

In a violent storm it was swept away, along with its ingenious builder, who happened to be in it at the time, and its usual inhabitants the light keepers. The possibility of effecting this important object having thus been ascertained, and the nature of the difficulties to be encountered having been more distinctly unfolded, a new lighthouse was soon afterwards erected on the same spot by a Mr Rudyerd of London. It was a work of three years, and was executed, also chiefly of wood, in a masterly style, after the manner, and on the principles of ship carpentry. The under part consisted of alternate layers of wood and moorstone or granite, the upper part strongly framed of oak timber, and cased with firmly jointed planks. The form was circular. The diameter of the base was about twenty-three feet, and it rose, gently tapering, to the height of ninety-two feet. It was planned and executed with much judgment, and, in the opinion of Mr Sineaton, might have stood for an unlimited period, or, at all events, till the timber had suffered decay, a tendency to which, however, at last appeared.* But it was accidently destroyed by fire, after a light had been exhibited in it for upwards of forty-seven years.

It is pleasing to record the following anecdote, mentioned by our author, which is so honourable to the character of Lewis XIV., and forms so agreeable an exception to the usual ferocity of war. That monarch was at war with Britain while Mr Rudyerd's building was in

* Mr Smeaton, after giving an account of this second lighthouse, says of it, that by withstanding the violence of the sea in such a situation for nearly half a century, and then being destroyed not by water but by fire, it proves the practicability of a similar erection in any exposure in the known world; for, adds he, " having attentively read and considered what is contained in the respective voyages of Anson, Byron, Cook, and Phipps, the most scientific navigators that modern times have produced, I do not find in all their accounts, such an exposure to the sea's uttermost violence as at the Eddystone rocks."

progress, and a French privateer seized upon the men at work on the rock, together with their tools, and carried them to France, the captain being, doubtless, in expectation of a reward for an achievement which was so seriously to injure the commercial interests of the enemy. "While the captives lay in prison, the transaction reached the ears of the French monarch. He immediately ordered them to be released, and the captors to be put in their places, declaring, that though he was at war with England, he was not at war with mankind. He, therefore, directed the men to be sent back to their work with presents."

TWELFTH WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

ARCHITECTURE.-ITS MODERN HISTORY AND PRACTICE-THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE CONTINUED.

For the erection of a third lighthouse on the Eddystone reef, Mr Smeaton was judiciously selected, a person since justly celebrated for his extraordinary talents as an engineer, but not bred to this business, and then known merely as a man of ability and genius. The ingenuous account which Mr Smeaton himself gives of the circumstances which led the proprietors* to fix on him as their engineer is curious and instructive. Mr Weston, one of the proprietors, and a man of acuteness and liberal ideas, applied to the Earl of Macclesfield, then president of the Royal Society, as a nobleman likely, from his intercourse with men of talent, to recommend a fit person for so arduous an undertaking. "Lord Maccles

field told him, that there was one of their body whom he could venture to recommend to the business; yet,

The former lighthouse had been built by the contract of a private company with government; and this contract had still more than half a century to run.

that the most material part of what he knew of him, was his having, within the compass of the last seven years, recommended himself to the society, by the communication of several mechanical inventions and improvements; and though he had at first made it his business to execute things in the instrument way (without having ever been bred to the trade), yet, on account of the merit of his performances, he had been chosen a member of the society; and that, for about three years past, having found the business of a philosophical instrument maker, not likely to afford an adequate recompense, he had wholly applied himself to such branches of mechanics as he (Mr Weston) appeared to want."

On this recommendation the proprietors did not hesitate to act. They had found a man who, "from natural genius, had a turn for contrivance in the mechanical branches of science ;" and such a person, they conceived, was more likely to execute a task where peculiar ingenuity was required, than a mere proficient in the ordinary routine of the engineering profession. The event justified their choice. Mr Smeaton was every way fitted for this important undertaking, and he entered upon it with zeal and alacrity, applying the whole resources of his genius to its execution. Contrary to the prejudices of many, who thought that the elasticity of wood could alone withstand the fury of the waves in such a situation, he resolved to erect the building entirely of stone, ingeniously dove-tailed together, and laid in a strong and durable cement. His publication details at great length the workings of his mind on this subject, and the various experiments by which he verified his views; and there cannot easily be conceived a more interesting or improving employment to a mind of kindred feelings, than to follow him in his admirable account.

For these details, I must refer the reader to the publication itself. But there is something so striking in the means by which this ingenious man arrived at the conclusion, that an enlargement of the base of the building

was preferable to the form of a regular cone, which was that of the previous lighthouse, that I shall not deny myself the pleasure of inserting it. "On this occasion,” says he, “the natural figure of the waist or bole of a large spreading oak presented itself to my imagination. Let us for a moment consider this tree : Suppose at twelve or fifteen feet above its base, it branches out in every direction, and forms a large bushy top, as we often observe. This top, when full of leaves, is subject to a very great impulse from the agitation of violent winds; yet partly by its elasticity, and partly by the natural strength arising from its figure, it resists them all, even for ages, till the gradual decay of the material diminishes the coherence of the parts, and they suffer piecemeal by the violence; but it is very rare that we hear of such a tree being torn up by the roots. Let us now consider its particular figure. Connected with its roots, which lie hid below ground, it rises from the surface thereof with a large swelling base, which, at the height of one diameter, is generally reduced by an elegant curve, concave to the eye, to a diameter less by at least one-third, and sometimes to half of its original base. From thence, its taper diminishing more slowly, its sides by degrees come into a perpendicular, and, for some length, form a cylinder. After that, a preparation of more circumference becomes necessary for the strong insertion and establishment of the principal boughs, which produces a swelling of its diameter. Now, we can hardly doubt, but that every section of the tree is nearly of an equal strength in proportion to what it has to resist ; and, were we to lop off its principal boughs, and expose it in that state to a rapid current of water, we should find it as much capable of resisting the action of the heavier fluid, when divested of the greater part of its clothing, as it was that of the lighter, when all its spreading ornaments were exposed to the fury of the wind; and hence we may derive an idea of what the proper shape of a column of the greatest stability ought to be, to resist the action of ex

ternal violence, when the quantity of matter is given whereof it is to be composed."

There is something exceedingly pleasing in this application of a lesson derived from the vegetable kingdom, which bears such direct testimony to the supreme wisdom of the Creator; and the event proved that the deduction was just. The building artfully rooted in the rock, and standing on an extended base, has, like the oak which was taken for its model, hitherto resisted all the fury of the tempest; and it promises to endure as long as the materials of which it is composed,—destined only to perish

"Amidst the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds."

It was necessary for Mr Smeaton to take every possible precaution for ensuring the stability of his fabric; for the accounts which he had received of the violence it would have to resist, were most fearful. Mr Winstanley had found that the sea sometimes "buried" the lantern, although more than sixty feet high; he had, therefore, encompassed the whole building with " a new work of four feet in thickness from the foundation,” and raised it forty feet higher; yet, though now rising to the height of a hundred and twenty feet to the top of the vane, he tells us, in his narrative, that "the sea, in time of storms, flies in appearance one hundred feet above the vane; and at times doth cover half the side of the house and the lantern, as if it were under water." Mr Smeaton bears testimony to the truth of this statement.Speaking of the view which he took of the finished structure from an elevated position on land during a storm, he says, 66 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 of two or three, an overgrown wave would strike the rock and and the building conjointly, and fly up in a white column, wrapping it like a sheet, rising at least to double