Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

------------ IJIIIMI81JIIIIIIIBIIIIIII «»huh BY W. NOBLE TWELVETREES, M.Inst.Mech.E. The Pharos of Alexandria. 0 all maritime nations, and especially afterwards washed away by the sea, having to the peoples of the Anglo-Saxon bravely withstood the elements for more than race, the subject of lighthouses pos- sesses supreme interest. The present-day i lighthouse, with its gracefully proportioned tower and beautiful equipment, is the modern representative of those lofty beacons which were erected, ages ago, near ancient har- bours to guide the mariner home or to warn him of perils unknown beneath the face of the waters. The Greek word “ Pharos ”—a lighthouse—which has successively found its way into many European languages, was derived from the island of Pharos, at the mouth of Alexandria harbour, in Egypt. The tower, built there by Sostratos in the reign of Ptolemy II., was justly regarded by the ancients as one of the wonders of the world. It rose to the height of 590 feet, and, although threatened more than once, part of the tower remained erect after two great earthquakes in the fourteenth century, but was soon two thousand years. In the early days of which we write, the warning gleam from the summit of a pharos proceeded from an open fire of wood, a material of illumination which was almost universally employed Eajly Modern until the beginning of the seven- Lighthouses, teenth century. Even the South Foreland lighthouses, built in 1634, remained until 1790 mere beacons lit by burning coal, and the first instance of illumination by oil lamps and efficient reflectors was furnished in 1763 by the Mersey lights of Liverpool. So we see that, while sound and enduring construction was inherited from ancient days, so also were crude and inefficient methods of illumination, the evolution of the lighthouse as we know it to-day being the outcome of the scientific awakening which commenced with the Winstanley’s Eddystone Lighthouse. past century.