Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE STORY OF THE LIGHTHOUSE. 371 As an introduction to the principles governing the con- struction of lighthouses ex- posed to the waves, we may appropriately cite the tower erected by Winstanley on the Eddystone Rocks as an ingenious defiance of com- mon sense, and a most ex- cellent illustration of how things ought not to be done. (See Fig. 1.) As finished in 1698, the tower was 80 feet high, and polygonal in form, thus presenting unnecessary ob- struction to the action of the waves. Moreover, it had windows and projecting structures in the lower part, and at a distance of less than 40 feet above high- water level the tower began to assume the aspect of a bandstand or a Chinese pagoda, a configuration dis- tinctly inviting the waves to lift off the upper portion. In 1699 it was found neces- sary to Strengthen the tower by an outer sheathing of masonry and to increase its height to 120 feet. Never- theless, in 1703 the structure was washed away during a great hurricane, and on its site was built, in 1704, the lighthouse of Rudyerd (Fig. 2), destroyed by fire in 1755. Among the good points of this design were its circular form, presenting a smooth surface devoid of ornamental and other projections, its securely fixed base, and the employment of stone, so that the effect of weight might! rig. 5. Fig. 1. eddystone lighthouse (Winstanley, 1698). Fig. 2.—rud- ■ YERD’s EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE (1704); Fig. 3.—EDDYSTONE lighthouse (Smeaton, 1759). Fig. 4.—dovetailed joints in smeaton’s eddystone lighthouse. Fig; 5.—bell rock lighthouse (R. Stevenson, 1806). Fig. 6.—dovetailed joints IN BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE. timber-framed Rudyerd’s Eddystone Lighthouse. supplement the security afforded by mechanical attachment. When called, upon to build a third tower on the Eddystone Rocks, Smeaton adopted granite as the material of construction, and shaped the stones, whose average weight was one ton each, so as to form dovetailed joints, as shown in Fig. 4. He Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse.