The Eddystone-Henry Winstanley-The Fatal Storm-Heroic Failure-John Rudyerd-The Lighthouse on Fire!-John Smeaton-Dangerous Labour-Driven out to Sea-Sir Walter Scott-Unknown Heroes-A Terrible Strait-John Metcalfe-Stories of Blind People-Metcalfe's Wonderful Courage-His Walk from London to Harrogate-His Labours and Amusements-Takes to Road-making-Builds a Bridge-Makes a Name-Brunel and the French Revolution-His Courtship and Marriage-Witty Inventions-The Thames Tunnel-Flooding of the Works-Heroic Conduct of Young Brunel-A Fatal Occurrence-Isambard Kingdom Brunel-Constructs the Great Western Railway-The Great Eastern Steamship-The Napoleon of Engineers. HERE are many great engineering works, as there are great On this rock, visible only at low water, a country gentleman of Essex, Henry Winstanley, conceived the daring project of building a lighthouse. It was not a mere dream, but a downright earnest determination, and no sooner had he obtained the necessary powers than he set to work, and for four years laboured untiringly. The work was as difficult as it was dangerous. Even in calm weather the sea was almost always rough at the Eddystone, and it happened that sometimes in the summer season all the works would be buried beneath the waves for ten or fourteen days at a time. But he persevered, and no sooner had he raised the works high enough than he took up his abode there with the workmen, who caught the contagion of his own enthusiastic confidence. It was a curious building of wood, and, as it turned out, inadequate for the requirements of such a place. But Winstanley was satisfied it was strong enough to defy the fury of the HENRY WINSTANLEY AND JOHN RUDYERD. 35 elements-so confident, in fact, that he expressed the wish that he might be in the lighthouse in the midst of the fiercest storm that ever blew. Unhappily his wish was gratified. Five years after the light had first shone out from the summit of the tower, Winstanley was in the lighthouse superintending some repairs, when a storm of fearful violence occurred, and raged through the night. In the morning many eager eyes were strained to see how the lighthouse had stood the gale, but there was nothing to be seen save the angry sea dashing over the Eddystone rock-the lighthouse, with Winstanley and the lightkeepers, had been swept away! It was a failure, but a noble and heroic failure, and others reaped the benefit. Winstanley had shown that it was possible to erect a lighthouse on that dangerous rock, that it was possible to save annually many souls from perishing within sight of home on that dreaded reef; and others, gaining by his experience, proved that it was possible to build of stronger material a structure that should successfully defy all storms and tempests. A silk-mercer of Ludgate Hill, one John Rudyerd, hearing that a large vessel had been wrecked on the rock soon after the lighthouse had been destroyed, determined to build another in its place. He avoided in the construction of his lighthouse many of the defects of Winstanley's edifice; the design was simple, but effective and good, being conical, and without any projections which should offer futile resistance to a storm. But he fell into the same fatal error that had been the ruin of his predecessor's scheme-he built the lighthouse of wood. In the year 1706 the light was first exhibited, and for forty-nine years it stood defying all the fierce gales that swept over that stormy coast, and sending its friendly light across the sea. But, as we have said, it was built of wood, and one night the keeper on duty, when going to attend to the light, found to his dismay that the lantern was full of smoke. Nothing could be done to save the building, in which in a few moments fire raged furiously; there were no appliances for throwing water to the height at which the fire originated; the keepers had to fly for their lives, and, to avoid the molten lead which fell in showers, sought refuge on a wave-lashed ledge of the rock. They were eventually saved by means of ropes thrown to them from boats, but nothing could save the lighthouse, which was burnt down to the water's edge. Rudyerd had failed, but not so completely as Winstanley; the latter had failed both as regards form and material, Rudyerd had failed only as regarded the material. The absolute necessity of a lighthouse on the Eddystone was so borne in on the minds of men that no long time elapsed before a fresh attempt was made to build a structure that should live. Curiously enough the two builders who had already made the attempt were both silk-mercers, and not less curious was it that the third who undertook the work was not an engineer by profession, but a mathematical-instrument maker, John Smeaton, of Furnival's Inn Court, London. He was a born mechanic, and had given singular evidence of constructive skill in his very earliest days, and by the time his services were required in connection with the Eddystone, had acquired a reputation so extensive that he was considered on all sides to be the right, and, in fact, only man to undertake the important work. Profiting by the experience of his predecessors, he determined, before ever he had seen the rock on which he was to build, to preserve the form adopted by Rudyerd, but to construct the lighthouse of stone, and went so far as to elaborate his designs on the principles he had laid down as theoretically the correct ones, before inspecting the scene of his future operations. When he arrived at Plymouth he was eager to go at once and examine the rock, but the waves were dashing over it, and only now and again could he see a small portion of it above the waters. Only twice in seventeen days was he able to effect a landing, but, nothing daunted, he occupied the intervals in making preparations for his work. When he had succeeded in taking dimensions of all parts of the rock, he constructed with his own hands a model of the proposed building, and this being unanimously approved, he began his task in earnest, working by day or night, as the state of the weather and the tide would allow, but even then it sometimes happened that only for two hours out of the twenty-four could operations be continued. One incident will give an illustration of the dangers and difficulties attending the work upon which Smeaton and his men were engaged. A buss, the Neptune, was kept at anchor near to the rock, and on this the men lived, rather than waste time in going to and fro to the shore; sometimes they would remain for days at a time, unable to resume work on the rock, and unable to get ashore owing to the roughness of the weather, and at such times provisions would run short and innumerable discomforts have to be endured. One November day, when the cuttings in the rock were completed, it was determined to take the buss to the port and employ the men in preparing stones for the building. The weather being rough, the buss had to be steered for Fowey, on the coast of Cornwall, and in the night a storm came on, which increased to a hurricane. Smeaton, who was down below in his berth, hearing an unusual disturbance overhead, rushed up on deck clad only in his night-shirt, when the first thing that met his gaze was the appearance of breakers almost surrounding them, and the first articulate sound that fell on his ears the voice of one of the seamen crying, "Heave hard at that rope if you mean to save your lives!" Laying hold of the rope, Smeaton hauled at it with vigour, at the same time encouraging the men, and urging them not to relax their efforts. Just WINSTANLEY'S LIGHTHOUSE. as the sound of the angry waves dashing on the rock rose above the howling of the wind, just when one sail was blown to ribands and it was feared the mainsail would follow, the little craft gallantly answered to the helm, and her head was put round to sea. All through that night, with the waves sweeping over the decks, the brave company held their own, and in the morning found themselves out of sight of land. But they were not to perish. For four days and nights, however, they were tossing on the stormy waves, and when at last they came to anchor in Plymouth Sound, it seemed to their friends that they were as men who had come back from the grave, for they had been mourned as dead. Amid innumerable difficulties, amid the sneers of men who persisted in affirming that no building of stone would stand on the Eddystone rock, amid storms and tempests of unusual violence, the work progressed steadily, until the last stone was set, and upon it the last piece of mason's work performed by inscribing the words "LAUS DEO;" and then, |