prepared in the work-yard at Arbroath, and the Lighthouse is built as one solid mass from the centre to the circumference. It is circular, and externally of granite. The masonry is 100 feet high, and including the Light-room, is 115 feet; its diameter 48 feet at the base, and at the top 13 feet. The solid part of the building is 30 feet in height. There are five upper apartments above the water-room; all the windows have double sash-frames, glazed with plate-glass, and are protected by stormshutters; for although the light-room is full 88 feet above the medium level of the tide, and is defended by a projecting cornice, or balcony (with a railing of cast-iron, like meshes of network), yet the sea-spray, in gales of wind, is driven against the glass so forcibly, that it becomes necessary to close the whole of the deadlights to windward. The light-room is of cast-iron framework, and plate-glass one-fourth of an inch in thickness. The light is from Argand burners, with parabolic reflectors, upon a frame, which revolves, and exhibits in succession a red and natural bright light; both so powerful as to be readily seen at 6 or 7 leagues distance. During storms or foggy weather, the reflector machinery rings two bells, each weighing about 12 cwt., to warn the seaman of his danger. The cost of this Lighthouse was 60,000l. It is one of the most prominent and serviceable beacons on the Scottish shore, and has been the means of preventing innumerable shipwrecks. The following beautiful lines were written by Sir Walter Scott in the Album kept in the Lighthouse, on his visit to it in the year 1815: Pharos Loquitur. Far on the bosom of the deep, O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep; A ruddy gem of changeful light, Bound on the dusky brow of night; The seaman bids my lustre hail, And scorns to strike his tim'rous sail. The Skerryvore Lighthouse, in Argyleshire, was built by Alex. Stevenson, son of the engineer of the Bell-rock Lighthouse. The mass of stone in this structure is more than double that used in the Bell-rock, and five times that contained in the Eddystone. The tower is 138 feet high, and the diameter at the base is 42 feet. In constructing this Lighthouse, the engineer appears to have chiefly relied on the weight rather than the extension of the materials for efficient resistance to the impact of the waves. The stones were not dove-tailed or joggled, but trenails were used merely to keep the work together during its erection. The Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses had for many years entertained the project of erecting a light-tower on the Skerryvore reef, and with that object had visited it in 1814, in company with Sir Walter Scott, who has graphically described it in his "Diary." The building of this light affords a good specimen of the difficulties of Lighthouse construction. The Skerryvore reef, which stretches over a surface of nearly 80 miles, is composed of the very hard rock, gneiss, the surface of which is worn as smooth as glass by the perpetual action of the water. In numerous places it rises in small rocky islets, the principal one of which forms the base of the Lighthouse; and it is so small that at high-water little of the rock remains above the surface but a narrow band, a few feet in width, and some rugged lumps of rock, separated from it by gullies, through which the sea incessantly ploughs. The cutting of the foundation alone in this flinty mass occupied nearly two summers; and the blasting of the rock in so narrow a space, without any shelter from the flying splinters, was attended with much danger. Everything had to be provided beforehand, and transported from a distance, to barracks on the neighbouring island of Tyree ; and also on the Isle of Mull, where the granite for the tower was quarried. Piers had to be built at both places to facilitate the shipment and landing of the materials; and a small harbour or basin had to be specially formed for the accommodation of the vessel required to permanently attend on the light-keepers. A steam-tug was also provided for conveying the building materials, which served in the early stages of the work as a floating barrack for the workmen. In 1838, Mr. Stevenson commenced by erecting a wooden barrack on the rock, as far as possible removed from the foundation; but in the great gale of the 3rd of November following it was entirely destroyed, and swept from the rock. Another wooden barrack was subsequently erected, and more strongly secured than the former one, and lasted many years after the completion of the building; notwithstanding, as Mr. Stevenson states, in his excellent account of the works, the men were often disturbed in their beds by the sea pouring over the roof, by the spurting of the water through the doors and windows, and by the rocking of the barrack on its supports. The difficult work was completed in 1844, and cost 86,9787. Reflecting lighthouses in England originated about a century since. At a meeting of a Society of Mathematicians at Liverpool, one of the members wagered that he would read a paragraph in a newspaper at ten yards' distance by the light of a farthing candle. The wager was laid, and the proposer having covered the inside of a wooden dish with pieces of lookingglass, fastened in with glazier's putty, placed his reflector behind the candle, and read the paragraph. One of the company marked this experiment with a philosophic eye. This was Captain Hutchinson, the dockmaster; and with him originated the Reflecting Lighthouses, which were erected at Liverpool in 1763; a result calling to mind the lines in Shakspeare's Merchant of Venice: How far that little candle throws his beams, The South Foreland Lighthouse was one of the earliest constructed in England, it is said, in the reign of Charles II. The original light was only burnt upon the flat roof of the tower, which was supplanted in 1793, when a light was constructed of fifteen oil-lamps. There was also a lower Lighthouse, to enable the mariner, in time of danger, to keep the two lights in a line, and thereby avoid the Goodwin Sands. These Lighthouses were taken down in 1841, and have been rebuilt. Upon the Goodwin Sands, off the coast of Ramsgate, perhaps more noble ships have foundered than upon any other sandbank in the ocean. At one moment, a ship may be in ten fathoms soundings, and in the next strike upon this treacherous shoal, where her destruction is inevitable. Το guard against this fearful danger, beacons have been reared here, but one after another washed away. In 1840, Captain Bullock, R.N. erected here a Safety Beacon, a column, about 40 feet above the sea-level, with a flag-staff 10 feet high, and a gallery made of sail-cloth to hold 20 persons on the top of the column, with access by ropes and cleets. It was secured to a stout oak platform screwed fast below the surface of the sand, with two tons of pig-iron ballast added to it, and oblique iron bars and chains communicating with the upper part of the column and the gallery. Next, Mr. Bush, C.E. attempted to erect here a Fixed Light, with a cast-iron base 64 feet high, and 30 feet in diameter, and 120 tons weight, to be sunk 30 feet below the sands; and upon this base he placed column 86 feet high, with a lantern; but the whole of the works were washed away in one night. A floating light has, however, since been placed here, and saved many a goodly vessel from foundering. In 1842, a noble Lighthouse was erected at the western extremity of Plymouth Breakwater, upon an inverted arch, founded 18 inches below low-water spring tides. The stones, of granite, are dovetailed and secured with dowels of slate; the centre light is 55 feet from the top of the Breakwater. The Horsburgh Lighthouse, (named in memory of the late distinguished hydrographer to the India House,) the first light in the China Seas, Stevensons engineers, was built in 1851, on the Redro Branco Rock, at the entrance to the Straits of Singapore, ten miles from land. The tower is 95 feet high; the workmen employed in its construction were from various countries, no fewer than eleven different languages being spoken-viz. three varieties of Chinese, Malay, Javanese, Boyans, Kling, Bengalese, Papuas, Rawas, and English, so that many of the directions had to be given by signs. The Light is seen at fifteen miles' distance, the curvature of the earth preventing its being further visible. Cast-iron has been extensively used in constructing Lighthouses. A small Light-tower was first erected on Gravesend pier. Next, a Lighthouse of cast-iron was built on Morant Point, Jamaica, designed by A. Gordon, in outline resembling that of the Celtic towers of Ireland. It was cast in England, and set up at Jamaica within six months, and at one-third of the cost of a stone lighthouse of equal dimensions: its height is 105 feet, and it was erected on the coral rock, by a derrick and crab from the inside, without any external scaffolding. The base is 27 feet of masonry and concrete. The tower shaft consists of tiers of iron plates, each 10 feet high, flanged together with nut and screw bolts, and caulked with iron cement. Ten radiating plates form the floor of the lightroom, secured to the tower upon brackets, and finished by an iron railing. Mr. Gordon has also built, on the same principle, at Gibbs Hill, Bermuda, a Lighthouse 130 feet high, and another at Point-de-Galle, Ceylon. Lighthouses of iron, cast or wrought, or partly of gunmetal, are cheap, easily erected, strong to resist vibration in hurricanes, and safe from lightning, earthquakes, and fire; their lining and ventilation providing the desired and uniform temperature. Lighthouses have also been constructed upon iron piles, fixed in the sand by mooring screws, and made compact by cast-iron braces; the Maplin and Chaplin Lights, at the mouth of the Thames, and those at Fleetwood and Belfast, are on this principle. Others have been built upon hollow cast-iron columns, as that on the Bishop's Rock, thirty miles from the Land's End, and more exposed to the force of the Atlantic than the famed Eddystone Lighthouse. The six columns are sunk five feet into the rock, and tapering upwards, support, at a height of about 100 feet, the dwellings of the three light-keepers, with stores of provisions for four months; the whole is surmounted by the lantern, and the access to the dwellings is by a spiral staircase within a central column. The sources of light in Lighthouses were, first, common wood fires, and then burning coals. A coal fire was employed in the Isle of Man for 180 years (as late as the year 1816). Tallow candles on wooden rods succeeded, and they were burnt in the Eddystone Lighthouse for forty years after it was completed by Smeaton. Then came lamps with twisted cotton wicks, and then common Argand lamps; all these were superseded by Argand lamps and reflectors, with lenses and reflectors, and with lenses and reflecting prisms, instead of mirrors; the first light of this kind, on a large scale, was put up by Alan Stevenson, at the Skerryvore. Captain Drummond, whose famous light can be seen for sixty miles, suggested that burning lime should be employed for Light-houses, with hydrogen gas and oxygen gas combined, passed through wire gauze and made to issue in two streams against the ball of lime but about the year 1835 we were informed by the inventor that the apparatus for producing this light had not been sufficiently simplified to be used by persons who usually take charge of the lights in Lighthouses. Gas was first applied to the illumination of Lighthouses in 1847; in some cases it has been distinctly seen on board ships eighteen miles distant from the coast. In the above year the Hartlepool Lighthouse, then just built, was lit with gas, and by ingenious contrivances for the admission of air, the burner produced a rich opaque mass |