A Lighthouse on a rocky shore is represented as just lighted, the twilight having become darkened by a sudden storm, during which the phenomena of "water-spouts" occur, which are represented to the left of the Lighthouse.
THE AËRIAL AND TERRESTRIAL MIGRATIONS OF THE WATERS.
Neither storms nor ocean-currents, nor ebb and flood, however great their influence, cause such considerable movements of the waters, or force them to wander so restlessly from place to place as the silent and imperceptible action of the warming sunbeam. In every zone evaporation is constantly active in impregnating the atmosphere with moisture, but the chief seat of its power is evidently in the equatorial regions, where the vertical rays of the great parent of light and heat plunge, day after day, into the bosom of ocean, and perpetually saturate the burning air with aqueous vapours.
In this chapter I intend following these invisible agents of fertility and life, as they lightly ascend from the tropical seas, and accompanying them in their various transformations, until they once more return to the bosom of their great parent. A cursory view of the benefits they confer on the vegetable and animal world, as they wander over the surface of the land, will, I hope, agreeably occupy the reader, and serve to increase his admiration for that deep and dark blue ocean without which all organic life would soon be extinct upon earth.
I begin with a few words on the winged carriers of marine exhalations, the winds, which, although now and then detrimental or fatal to individuals by their violence, largely compensate for these local injuries, by the constant and inestimable benefits they confer on the whole body of mankind.
On taking a comprehensive view of their origin, we find that, like the oceanic currents, they are chiefly caused by the unequal influence of solar warmth upon the atmosphere under the line and at the poles. In the torrid zone, the air, rarefied by intense heat, ascends in perpendicular columns high above the surface of the earth, and there flows off towards the poles, in the same manner as in a vase filled with cold water and placed over the flame of a lamp, the warmed liquid rises from the bottom and spreads over the surface.
But cold air-currents must naturally come flowing in an opposite direction from the poles to the equator to fill up the void, as in the example I have cited, colder and consequently heavier water comes streaming down the sides of the vase to replace the liquid which is rising in the centre under the influence of heat.
Thus the unequal distribution of solar warmth over the surface of the earth evidently generates a constant circulation of air from the equator to the poles, and from the icy regions to the tropics, and by this means the purity of the atmosphere is chiefly maintained. The sun is not only the great fountain of warmth, he is also the universal ventilator; he not only calls forth animal life, but at the same time, by a simple and admirable mechanism, provides for its health by constantly renewing the air, which is essential to its existence.
If caloric were the sole agent which influences the direction of the winds, or if the earth were one uniform plain, the opposite air-currents I have mentioned would naturally flow straight to the north and south; but their course is modified or diverted in the same manner as that of the ocean-currents by the rotation of the globe. Thus, the cold air-current (polar-stream) which comes rushing upon us from the Arctic regions, is felt in our latitude as the biting east or north-east wind, so trying to our nerves and organs of respiration, while we enjoy the warm air-current from the tropics as the mild western or south-western breeze.
But besides the rotation of the earth, there are many other local influences by which the winds are deflected from their course, or by whose agency partial air-currents are called forth. Among these we particularly notice high chains of mountains, the unequal capacity of sea and land in absorbing and retaining heat, which gives rise to sea and land breezes; the increasing or diminishing power of the sun in different seasons by which the equilibrium of the air is modified in many countries, the difference of radiation from a sandy desert or a forest, electrical discharges from clouds, &c. &c.
Although subject to many of these local disturbances, the winds generally blow with an astonishing regularity in the tropical zone; while in our variable climate the polar and equatorial stream are engaged in a perpetual strife, now bringing us warmth and moisture from the south and west, now cold and dryness from the north and east.
Thus, in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean we find the trade-winds perpetually blowing from the east, the north-east trade-wind between 9° and 27° N. lat., and the south-east trade-wind between 3° N. lat. and 25° S. lat. It was by their assistance that Columbus was enabled to discover America, and that the wretched barks of Magellan traversed the wide deserts of the Pacific from end to end.
Between these two regions of the trade-winds lies the dreaded zone or girdle of the equatorial calms (doldrums), where long calms alternate with dreadful storms, and the sultry air weighs heavily upon the spirits.
On their polar limits, the trade-wind zones are again girdled with calm belts, the horse latitudes, whose mean breadth is from ten to twelve degrees. The boundaries of these alternating regions of winds and calms are not invariably the same, on the contrary, they are perpetually moving to the north or south, according to the position of the sun.
From 40° N. lat. to the pole, westerly winds begin to be prevalent, and in the Atlantic Ocean their proportion to the easterly winds is as two to one.
In the Northern Indian Ocean and in the Chinese Sea we also find the trade-wind, which is there called the north-east monsoon; here, however, it only blows from October to April, as during the summer terrestrial influences prevail which completely divert it from its course.
From the wide plains of central Asia glowing with the rays of a perpetually unclouded sun, the rarefied air rises into the higher regions. Other columns of air rush from the equator to fill up the void, and cause the trade-wind to vary its course, and change into the south-western monsoons of the Indian Ocean, which blow from May to September. The regularly alternating monsoons materially contributed to the early development of navigation in the Indian seas, and conducted the Greeks and Romans as far as Ceylon, Malacca, and the Gulf of Siam. Similar monsoons, or deflections from the ordinary course of the trade-winds, occur also in the Mexican Gulf, in the Gulf of Guinea, and in that part of the Pacific which borders on Central America, through the influence of the heated plains of Africa, Utah, Texas, and New Mexico.
The passage from one monsoon to the other is of course only gradual, since the land also is only gradually heated and cooled. Thus at the change of the monsoon, an atmospheric war of several weeks' continuance occurs, during which the trade-wind and the monsoon measure their strength, and calms alternate with dreadful storms (typhoons, cyclones, tornadoes).
According to the researches and observations of Franklin, Cooper, Redfield, Reid, &c. &c., these storms are great rotatory winds, that move along a curved line in increasing circles. In the northern hemisphere, the rotatory movement follows a direction contrary to that of the hands of a clock; while the opposite takes place in the southern hemisphere. The knowledge of the laws which regulate the movements of storms is of great importance to the mariner, since it points out to him the direction he has to give his ship to gain the external limits of the tornado, and thus to remove it from danger.
Water-spouts are formed by two winds blowing in opposite directions, and raising or sucking up the water in their vortex. They generally form a double cone; the superior part with its apex downwards, consisting of a dense cloud, while the inferior cone, the apex of which is turned upwards, consists of water, which is thus sometimes raised to a height of several hundred feet.
Water-spouts seldom last longer than half-an-hour. Their course and movements are irregular; straight forwards; in zig-zag lines; alternately rising and falling; stationary; slow; or progressing with the rapidity of thirty miles an hour. The rotatory movement is also variable; its power is often very great, but sometimes water-spouts pass over small vessels without injuring them. They are more frequent near the coast than on the high seas; and are more commonly seen in warm climates. They seem to occur particularly in regions where calms frequently alternate with storms, which is not to be wondered at, since they owe their origin to miniature storms or whirlwinds.
How do the aqueous vapours with which evaporation impregnates the atmosphere, again descend upon the surface of the earth?
Everybody knows that when in summer a bottle filled with cold water is brought into the room, it soon gets covered with thick dew-drops, which presently trickle down its sides, although it was perfectly dry on entering. Whence does this moisture come from? Not from the inside of the bottle as ignorant people might imagine, but from the surrounding atmosphere; in consequence of the capacity of the air to absorb and retain moisture, increasing or diminishing, as its temperature grows warmer or colder.
Thus when the cold bottle is introduced into the room, the warm sheet of air, which is in immediate contact with its surface, immediately cools, and being no longer able to retain all the moisture with which it was impregnated, is obliged to deposit it on the sides of the vessel. This familiar example suffices to explain the formation of dew, rain, hail, snow, hoar-frost, and all other atmospherical precipitations. They all result from the influence of some refrigerating cause upon the air; such as the passage of a warm current into a cooler region; the influx of a cold wind; a cold-radiating chain of high mountains; a forest, and so forth.
The very name of dew is refreshing, and calls forth a host of pleasing ideas, associated as it is with the memory of serene skies and sunny mornings. How beautiful are its diamonds glittering in all the colours of the rainbow, on verdant meads, or on the blushing petals of the rose. How suggestive of all that is lovely, pure, and innocent!
Poetry is of older date than prose, and bards have sung long before philosophers inquired. Thus, although the children of song from Homer and Theocritus to Byron and Wordsworth so frequently mention dew in their immortal strains, it is only in our time that its formation has been fully explained by Dr. Wells, who in a very ingenious and masterly essay on this subject, first proved that it results from the ground radiating or projecting heat into free space, and consequently becoming colder than the neighbouring air. During calm and clear nights, the upper surfaces of grass-blades, for instance, radiate their caloric into the serene sky, from which they receive none in return. The lower parts of the plant, being slow conductors of heat, can only transmit to them a small portion of terrestrial warmth, and their temperature consequently falling below that of the circumambient atmosphere, they condense its aqueous vapours. Clouds on the contrary compensate for the loss of heat the grass sustains from radiation, by reflecting or throwing back again upon the terrestrial surface, the caloric which would else have been dissipated in a clear sky, and this is the reason why dew does not fall, or but slightly falls during clouded nights. It is easy to conceive why none is formed in windy weather, as then the air in contact with the ground is constantly removed ere it has time to cool so far as to compel it to part with its moisture. We can also understand why dew is more abundant in autumn and spring than at any other season; as then very cold nights frequently follow upon warm days; and why it is most copious in the torrid zone, as in those sultry regions the air is more saturated with moisture than anywhere else, and the comparatively cold nights are almost constantly serene and calm. Hoar-frost is nothing but congealed dew, and owes its formation to the same causes.
When warmer air-currents are cooled by being transported into colder regions, or from any other refrigerating cause, a great part of their moisture generally condenses into small vesicles, but very little heavier than the surrounding atmosphere, which then becomes visible under the form of clouds, those great beautifiers of our changing skies, that frequently trace such picturesque, gorgeous, or singular groups and landscapes in the aërial regions. The inhabitants of countries where the heavens are monotonously serene, may well envy us the charms of a phenomenon which in some measure affords us compensation for so many disagreeable vicissitudes of the weather. Who that has admired at sunset the light clouds so beautifully fringed with silver and gold, or glowing with the richest purple, and loves to follow them in all their wonderful and fantastic transformations, will deny that they are the poesy and life of the skies, the awakeners of pleasing fancies and delightful reveries?
Thin wreaths of clouds have been observed, by travellers that have ascended the most elevated mountains, floating high above the peak of Chimborazo or Dhawalagiri, and thus shows us to what an amazing altitude the emanations of ocean are carried by the ascending air-current.
Sometimes when light clouds pass into a warmer atmosphere, they gradually dissolve and vanish; more frequently the accumulating moisture, too heavy to continue floating in the air, or condensed by electrical explosions, descends upon the earth in rain, which, with few exceptions, visits every part of the globe, either in its liquid form or congealed to snow or hail. But the quantity of rain which annually falls in different regions is very unequal, and strange to say, it is not most considerable in those countries whose climate enjoys an unenviable notoriety for its clouded atmosphere and the great number of its rainy days. In the tropical regions it is generally only about the time of the summer solstice that abundant showers of rain fall regularly every afternoon, while the rest of the year, the sky is uninterruptedly serene; but during the short period of the rainy season, a far greater quantity of water is precipitated upon the earth, than in the temperate zones.
While on the island of Guadaloupe, the annual quantity of rain amounts to 274·2 French inches, and to 283·3 at Mahabuleshwar, on the western declivity of the Ghauts, which, as far as has hitherto been ascertained, is the place where most rain descends; only from 35 to 40 inches fall on the western coast of England, where the skies are chronically weeping.
It is a remarkable circumstance that the annual quantity of rain which falls in the same place remains about the same from year to year; so that by an admirable balancing of conflicting influences, nature seems to have provided for stability in a province which of all others might be supposed most open to the caprices of chance.
Having thus followed the exhalations of ocean to the end of what may be called the first stage of their journey, and seen them descend in a condensed form upon the surface of the dry land, I will now accompany them in their ulterior progress to the bosom of the seas. A great part of them have many transformations and changes to undergo ere they can accomplish their return; repeatedly rising in vapours from the solid earth, and falling in showers upon its surface; or circulating through the tissues of organic life: but after all these intermediate stages and delays, they ultimately find their way into rivulets or streams, which after many a meander restore them to the vast reservoir from which they arose.
The waters that descend upon solid rocks, or fall in large quantities upon abrupt declivities, immediately flow into the brooks or rivers; but when they gently and gradually alight upon a porous soil, they are absorbed by the earth, and, displacing in virtue of capillary attraction, and of their superior weight, the air which fills the interstices between its solid particles, sink deeper and deeper until they meet with a solid and impenetrable stratum. If this forms a hollow basin, they naturally settle in the cavity; whence they are slowly displaced by fresh accessions and evaporation; but if its deepest declivity lies somewhere near the surface, they gradually gush forth under the form of sources or springs, having unequal distances to perform before they can reach the orifice. If no fresh supply of water falls, ere the most distant particles have reached their journey's end, the source dries up: but if new atmospheric precipitations continually take place, the source is perennial, although naturally of unequal strength at different times.
The temperature of springs varies from icy coldness to boiling heat. Cold springs arise when the waters, by which they are fed, descend from high mountains or do not penetrate a great way into the bowels of the earth; but if the filtering waters reach a depth which is constantly of a higher temperature, they then gush forth in the form of warm or even boiling springs.
A crowd of agreeable associations attaches itself to the idea of sources and springs, for they are generally both pleasing and useful to man. How we long in summer for the refreshing waters of the cool fountain issuing from the mountain side, and murmuring through the woods. The lover of nature spends hours near some solitary spring, and forgets the flow of time, as he observes the bubbling and listens to the sweet music of its crystal waters. A luxuriant vegetation marks their progress, though all around be burnt up by the scorching sun. Along their margin many a wild flower blooms, and herbs and shrubs and trees rejoice in a more vivid green, and statelier growth. There also congregate such members of the finny race, as delight in cooler streams of untainted purity, and birds love to build their nests among the sheltering foliage. Thus a little world forms around the gushing spring, and shows on a diminutive scale, how all that lives and breathes depends upon the liquid element for its existence.
While the waters filter through the earth they naturally dissolve a variety of substances, and all springs are more or less mixed with extraneous particles. But many of them, particularly such as are of a higher temperature and consequently arise from deeper strata, contain either a larger quantity or so peculiar a combination of mineral substances as to acquire medicinal virtues of the highest order, and to become objects of importance to a large portion of mankind. Numberless invalids annually flock to the hygeian fountains which nature unceasingly pours forth from her mysterious laboratory, and are by them restored to the enjoyments of a pleasurable existence.
How truly wonderful is the chain of processes which first raises vapours from the deep, and eventually causes them to gush forth from the entrails of the earth, laden with blessings and enriched with treasures more inestimable than those the miner toils for!
Although a river generally has its source in mountainous regions, it must be remembered that all the waters that descend upon the territory of which it forms the lowest level, gradually find their way into its current. Thus, the monarch of all streams, the Amazon River, is the natural drain of a territory thirty times larger than England. Thousands of rivulets and brooks, fed by the waters which descend from the slopes of thousands of glens and valleys, or filter through the vast forest-plains that rise but a few feet above their surface, all contribute to swell the majesty of its current. Its sources are in reality wherever, on that vast extent of land, water descends and drains into any one of its innumerable affluents. When we hear that on an average the river of the Amazons alone restores every minute half a million of tons of water to the ocean, and then consider the countless number of streams all alike active, that are scattered over the globe, we may form a faint idea of the vast quantity of vapours which are constantly rising from the deep, and of the magnitude of these silent operations of nature. Yet such is the immensity of ocean, that supposing all the waters it constantly loses, never to return again into its bosom, it would require thousands of years of evaporation to exhaust the immensity of its reservoirs!
It might be supposed that the waters which congeal on the sides of mountains covered with perennial snow, or fill Alpine valleys in the form of glaciers, were eternally fixed on earth—but there also we are deceived by delusive appearances of immobility. Every year the glacier slowly but restlessly makes a step forwards into the valley, and while its lower end dissolves, new supplies of snow constantly feed it from above. It has been calculated by Agassiz that the ice masses of the Aar glacier require 133 years to perform their descent from its summit to its inferior extremity—a distance of ten miles—so that their sojourn in that chilled valley far surpasses that of the oldest patriarch of the mountains. How great must be their delight when they at last are liberated from the spell which so long enchained them, and freely bound along on their way to Ocean! How they must shudder at the idea of once more returning to their desolate prison, and long for the perpetual warmth of spicy groves and tropical gardens!
In the colder regions of the earth, in Greenland or Spitzbergen, immense glaciers frequently fill the valleys that open on the sea, descend even beyond the water's edge, and, as they move along, their overhanging masses separate from their base and plunge into the deep with a crash louder than thunder. The icebergs that drift about the Arctic seas, and are annually conveyed by the currents into lower latitudes, are formed in this manner. Huge blocks of granite, detached by atmospherical vicissitudes from the higher mountains and precipitated on the surface of the glaciers, frequently float on the broad back of an iceberg far away from the spot where they seemed rooted for eternity. As their crystal support melts away in its progress to warmer climes, these rocky fragments, which have been appropriately named erratic blocks, fall to the bottom of the sea hundreds or even thousands of miles from the starting point of their journey. Thus the great bank of Newfoundland is covered with stones from distant Greenland, raised high in the air by volcanic power myriads of years ago, and now condemned to an equally long repose below the surface of ocean. When will they rise again above the waters, and what further changes will they have to undergo ere their compacted atoms resolve themselves into dust and assume new forms? But, however remote their dissolution, it will inevitably come, for Time is all-powerful, and has an eternity to work out his changes.
The large blocks of stone that so wonderfully migrate on the wandering iceberg form but a small and insignificant portion of the terrestrial spoils which are transported to ocean by the returning waters. Every river is more or less laden with earthy particles which its current carries onwards to the sea and deposits at its mouth. In course of time their accumulation, as I have already mentioned, forms large tracts of fertile territory encroaching upon the maritime domains.
I shall end with a few words on the influence of forests in attracting or retaining the atmospherical moisture, as it is a subject of great importance in the economy of nations, and shows us how much it is in the power of man to improve or to defeat the provisions of nature in his favour.
Forests always cool the neighbouring atmosphere, for their foliage offers an immense warmth-radiating surface, so that the vapours readily condense above them and descend in frequent showers. At the same time their roots loosen the soil, and the successive falling of their leaves forms a thick layer of humus, which has an uncommon power in attracting and retaining moisture. Their thick canopy of verdure also prevents the rays of the sun from penetrating to the ground, and absorbing its humidity. Thus the soil on which forests stand is constantly saturated with water, and becomes the parent of perennial sources and rills, that spread fertility and plenty far from the spot where they originated.
The rain-attractive influence of forests did not escape the attention of Columbus, who ascribed the frequent showers which refreshed and cooled the air, as he sailed along the coasts of Jamaica, to the vast extent and density of the woods that covered the mountains of that island. On this occasion he mentions in his journal that formerly rain had been equally abundant on Madeira, the Canaries, and the Azores, before their shady forests were felled or burnt by the improvident settlers.
The wanton destruction of woods has entailed barrenness on countries renowned in former times for their fertility. The mountains of Greece were covered with trees during the great epoch of her history, and the well-watered land bore abundant fruits, and sustained a numerous population. But man recklessly laid waste the sources of his prosperity. Along with the woods, many brooks and rivulets disappeared, and ceased to water the parched plains. The rain gradually washed the vegetable earth from the sides of the naked hills, and condemned them to sterility. When the snow of the mountains began to thaw under the warm breath of spring, it was now no longer retained by the spongy soil of the forests, and gradually dissolved under their cover; but, rapidly melting, filled with its impetuous torrents the bed of the rivers, and overflowing their banks, spread ruin and devastation far around.
Unfortunately, forests when once destroyed are not so easily restored, and it requires many centuries ere the bared mountain side reassumes its pristine vesture of shady woods. First lichens, mosses, and other thrifty herbs, content to feed upon nothing, have to prepare a scanty humus for the reception of more pretentious guests. In course of time some small stunted shrub makes its appearance here and there in some peculiarly favoured spot, and after all requires vast powers of endurance to maintain itself on the niggard soil, exposed to the full enmity of wind and weather. This paves the way for a more vigorous and fortunate offspring; and as every year adds something to the vegetation on the mountain's side, and opposes increasing obstacles to the winds, the falling leaves and decaying herbage accumulate more and more, until dwarfish trees first find a sufficiency of soil to root upon, and finally, the proud monarch of the forest spreads out his powerful arms and raises his majestic summit to the skies.
While Greece and Asia Minor have seen their fertility decrease or vanish with the trees that once covered their hills, other countries have improved as their vast woods have been thinned by the axe of the husbandman. In the time of the Romans all Germany formed one vast and continuous forest, and its climate was consequently much more rigorous than it is at present. All the low grounds were covered with impervious morasses, and the winter is described by historians in terms like those we should employ to paint the cold of Siberia.
But the scene gradually changed as tillage usurped the sylvan domain. The excessive humidity of the soil diminished, the swamps disappeared, and the heat of the sea, penetrating into the bosom of the earth, developed its productive powers. Thus the chestnut and the vine now thrive and ripen their fruits on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, where 2000 years ago they could not possibly have existed. But Germany would also see her fertility decline, if the destruction of the forests which still crown the brow of many of her hills should continue in a considerable degree. Numerous rivulets would then be dried up during the warm season, in consequence of the more rapid descent and thaw of vernal rains and wintry snows, and most likely, refreshing summer showers would be far less frequent. Even now the inundations which almost annually desolate the banks of the Elbe, the Oder, and the Rhine, are ascribed by competent judges to the excessive clearing of the forests in the mountainous countries where those rivers originate. These few examples suffice to prove to us the power of man in modifying the climates of the earth, and the vast importance of the study of terrestrial physics. By planting or destroying woods, he is able to compel nature to a more equitable distribution of her gifts. In marshy and low countries, he may remove the superfluous waters by drainage, and increase the productiveness of arid plains by judicious irrigation. Thus man is the lord and master of the earth; but hitherto he has done but little to reap all the advantages he might have obtained from his dominion, or even used it to his own detriment. Drainage, irrigation, and a judicious management of forest-lands, are only beginning to be understood even among the most enlightened nations. A great part of our damp island still remains undrained, and we allow the rivers of India to pour their waters into the sea, instead of diverting them upon her thirsty plains. But there can be no doubt that as knowledge increases, man will gradually learn to provide every soil with the exact measure of humidity that is requisite to make it bring forth its fruits in the greatest abundance. Views such as these teach us, that, far from having attained the summit of civilisation, we are still on the threshold of her temple, and that most likely our descendants will look down upon our present condition as we do upon that of our barbarous ancestors.
MARINE CONSTRUCTIONS.
In one of the finest passages of "Childe Harold," Byron contrasts the gigantic power of the sea with the weakness of man. He describes the resistless billows contemptuously playing with the impotent mariner—now heaving him to the skies, now whelming him deep in the bosom of the tumultuous waters; he mocks the vain pride of our armadas, which are but the playthings of ocean, and points with a bitter sneer at the wrecks with which he strews his shores. A less misanthropic mood or a more truthful view of things might have prompted the wayward poet to celebrate the triumphs of man over the brute strength of the winds and waves; how, guided by the compass, he boldly steers through the vast waste of waters, how he excavates the artificial harbour, or piles up the breakwater to protect his bark against the destructive agencies of the billow and the storm, or how he erects the lighthouse to point out the neighbourhood of dangerous shoals or the entrance of the friendly port.
The various constructions planned and executed by man to disarm the turbulent or perfidious seas of a great part of their terrors, are indeed among the noblest monuments of his architectural genius, nor are any more deserving of universal applause and gratitude. Who has ever performed a winter voyage homewards over the wide Atlantic and not felt a thrill of delight when the first bright flash of light beamed over the dark waters and welcomed him back to his native isle? or what generous mind has ever experienced this feeling without devoting the tribute of its thanks to the wise and beneficent men whose energy and perseverance have succeeded in lighting every headland or estuary of our rugged coast? So completely has this been done, that in the dark and stormy night, almost as well as in the brightest day, the homeward-bound ship need not approach danger without receiving friendly warning, for her pathway is illuminated by gigantic fire-beacons so thickly set that when one fades to the sight a new one rises to the view.
Among the numerous lighthouses with which the genius of humanity has encircled our native shores, the Eddystone, the Bell Rock, and the Skerryvore, are pre-eminent for the vast difficulties that had to be surmounted in their construction, situated as they are upon solitary rocks, exposed to the full fury of the insurgent waves; and should by some revolution all other monuments erected by man be swept away from the surface of our land, and these alone remain, they would suffice to testify to future ages that these islands were once inhabited by a highly civilised and energetic race, one well worthy to lay claim to the dominion of the seas.
At the distance of about twelve miles and a half from Plymouth Sound, and intercepting, as it were, the entrance of the Channel, the Eddystone rocks had been for ages a perpetual menace to the mariner. The number of vessels wrecked on these perfidious shoals must have been terrible indeed, it being even now a common thing in foggy weather for homeward-bound ships to make the Eddystone Lighthouse as the first point of land of Great Britain, so that in the night and nearly at high water, when the whole range of the rocks is covered, the most careful pilot might run his ship upon them, if nothing was placed there by way of warning. As the trade of England increased, the number of fatal accidents naturally augmented, rendering it more and more desirable to crest the Eddystone with a tutelary beacon; yet years elapsed before an architect appeared bold enough to undertake the task. At length, in 1696, Mr. Winstanley, a country gentleman and amateur engineer, made the first attempt of raising a lighthouse on those sea-beaten rocks, but as he was possessed of more enterprise than solid knowledge, the structure he erected was deficient in every element of stability. Yet such was the presumption of the man that he was known to express a wish that the fiercest storm that ever blew might arise to test the solidity of the fabric. The elements took him at his word, for while on a visit of inspection to his lighthouse the dreadful storm of November 26, 1703, arose, the only storm which in our latitude has equalled the rage of a tropical hurricane. "No other tempest," says Macaulay in his Essay on Addison, "was ever in this country the occasion of a Parliamentary address or of a public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away. Large mansions had been blown down. One Prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of his palace. London and Bristol had presented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds of families were still in mourning. The prostrate trunks of large trees and the ruins of houses still attested in all the southern counties the fury of the blast." No wonder that a tempest like this swept away the ill-constructed lighthouse like the "unsubstantial fabric of a vision," and that neither poor Mr. Winstanley nor any of his companions survived to recount the terrors of that dreadful night.
Strange to say, the task of rebuilding the Eddystone lighthouse, which was now felt as a national necessity, once more devolved, not upon a professed architect, but upon a Mr. Rudyerd, a linendraper of Ludgate Hill, the son of a Cornish vagrant, who had raised himself by his talents and industry from rags and mendicancy to a station of honourable competence. The choice, however, was not ill made, for, with the assistance of two competent shipwrights, the London tradesman constructed an edifice which, though mainly of timber, was so firmly bolted to the rock with iron branches that for nearly half a century it resisted the fury of the billows, and might have withstood them for many a year to come had it not been rapidly and completely destroyed by fire. This catastrophe, which happened on December 2, 1755, was marked by a strange accident, for while one of the light-keepers was engaged in throwing up water four yards higher than himself, a quantity of lead, dissolved by the heat of the flames, suddenly rushed like a torrent from the roof, and falling upon his head, face, and shoulders, burnt him in a dreadful manner. Having been conveyed to the hospital at Plymouth, he invariably told the surgeon who attended him, that he had swallowed part of the lead while looking upward; the reality of the assertion seemed quite incredible, for who could suppose it possible that any human being could exist after receiving melted lead into the stomach, much less that he should afterwards be able to bear the hardships and inconvenience from the length of time he was in getting on shore before any remedies could be applied. On the twelfth day, however, the man died, and having been opened a solid piece of lead, which weighed above seven ounces, was found in his stomach.[H]
[H] A full account of this extraordinary circumstance was sent to the Royal Society, and printed in vol. xlix. of their Transactions, p. 477.
Another interesting anecdote is attached to the history of Rudyerd's lighthouse. Louis XIV. being at war with England while it was being built, a French privateer took the men at work upon it and carried them to France, expecting, no doubt, a good reward for the achievement. His hopes, however, were doomed to a grievous disappointment, for while the captives lay in prison, the transaction reached the ears of the monarch, who immediately ordered them to be released and the captors to be put in their place; 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; observing that the Eddystone lighthouse was so situated as to be of equal service to all nations navigating the Channel. It is gratifying to meet with this trait of natural generosity in a mind long since obscured by the bigotry which prompted the revocation of the Edit de Nantes.
After these repeated disasters, the rebuilding of Eddystone lighthouse, in a more substantial manner than had hitherto been effected, was now no longer confided to amateur ingenuity, but to John Smeaton, an eminent civil engineer, one of those men who by originality of genius and strength of character are so well entitled to rank among the worthies of England. From his early infancy Smeaton (born May 28, 1724) gave tokens of the extraordinary abilities which were one day to render his name illustrious. Before he attained his sixth year his playthings were not the playthings of children but the tools which men employ: before he was fifteen he made for himself an engine for turning, forged his iron and steel, and had self-made tools of every sort for working in wood, ivory, and metals. At eighteen he by the strength of his genius acquired the art of working in most of the mechanical trades, and such was his untiring zeal that a part of every day was generally occupied in forming some ingenious piece of mechanism. In 1753, his various inventions and improvements had already attracted such notice that he was elected member of the Royal Society; and when, a few years later, the accident happened which burnt down the Eddystone lighthouse to the ground, he was at once fixed upon as the person most proper to rebuild it. A better choice could not possibly have been made, for Smeaton's lighthouse, firm as the rock on which it stands, has now already braved the storms of more than a century, and will no doubt continue to brave them for many ages to come. Of him it may well be said "exegit monumentum ære perennius," for to him is due the honour of having fixed the best form to be given to a marine lighthouse, and even now the Eddystone beacon-tower remains a model which has hardly been surpassed by the taller and more graceful edifices of Bell Rock and Skerryvore. Nothing could exceed the patient ingenuity, the sagacity, and forethought with which that great engineer mortised his tall tower to the wave-worn rock, and then dove-tailed the whole together, so as to make rock and tower practically one stone, and that of the very best form for deadening the action of the wave. Nor must we forget that our great marine lighthouses, of which Smeaton gave the model, are as remarkable from an artistic as from a utilitarian point of view, as pleasing to the man of taste as to the friend of humanity. "It is to be regretted," says, with perfect justice, the author of an excellent article in the Quarterly Review,[I] "that these structures are placed so far at sea that they are very little seen, for they are, taken altogether, perhaps the most perfect specimens of modern architecture which exist. Tall and graceful as the minar of an Eastern mosque, they possess far more solidity and beauty of construction; and, in addition to this, their form is as appropriate to the purposes for which it was designed as anything ever done by the Greeks, and consequently meets the requirements of good architecture quite as much as a column of the Parthenon."
[I] No. 228.
Covered to the height of fifteen feet at spring tide, and little more than a hundred yards in its extent, the famous Bell Rock, or Inchcape, facing the Frith of Tay at a distance of twelve miles at sea, was as dangerous to the navigation of the eastern coast of Scotland as the Eddystone had been to the entrance of the Channel. To erect a tower on a spot like this was an undertaking of no common boldness, but, fired by Smeaton's example, Mr. Robert Stevenson no less gloriously succeeded in converting what for ages had been a source of danger into a beacon of safety.