The first Eddystone lighthouse, a fantastic structure of wood, with six stages, begun in 1690 by Winstanley--who, while engaged in building it, was carried off by a French privateer, but promptly released by command of Louis XIV--was swept away, with its builder and three other men, in the historic storm of 1703. The second lighthouse, also of wood, built by Rudyerd in 1706, was destroyed by fire in 1755. The third, which was the first real lighthouse ever erected, was constructed by Smeaton of stones dovetailed together, with a shaft eighty-seven feet high, shaped like the trunk of an oak-tree for the sake of strength, and with the idea that it would offer greater resistance to the waves. It was finished in 1759, but its woodwork having been burnt in 1770 was then replaced by stone. The foundations of this tower having been undermined by the sea, a fourth lighthouse, whose top is 133 feet above high-water mark, was built by Douglas, between 1878 and 1882, on a rock forty yards south-south-east of the original site, which is nine miles and a quarter from the nearest land. Part of the old tower was taken down, and re-erected on Plymouth Hoe, in memory of Smeaton. Like most of the Devonshire lights the Eddystone lantern is of the group-flashing order, giving a light equal to that of nearly 300,000 candles, with two quick flashes every half-minute, and visible in clear weather for seventeen miles. A minor fixed light, in the same tower, shines on the Hand Deeps, a bank to the north-west; and the lighthouse is also provided with an explosive fog-signal, giving two reports every five minutes. [Illustration: The Start Lighthouse] Other very powerful lights, visible for from seventeen to twenty-one miles, are--giving them in ascending order--those at Hartland, Bull Point, Countisbury Foreland, North Lundy, the Start, and South Lundy, the last named being the most brilliant of all, of 374,225 candle-power. All these lighthouses have fog-sirens or explosive fog-signals. Most of the English lighthouses are under the charge of the Trinity House, a corporation founded in 1512, and now having a yearly revenue of £300,000, derived from "light-dues" levied on shipping. The expense of keeping up the lighthouses of the United Kingdom in 1909 amounted, however, to £464,540. The early beacon-lights were simply fires of coal, and one of these was in use at St Bees Head as recently as 1812. There are now round the coasts of Britain more than a thousand lighthouses and lights of various degrees of importance, from those at the Lizard and at St Catherine's Point, which are the most brilliant in the world, and may be reckoned in millions of candles, down to insignificant little structures, of which there are many, like the 100-candle-power "Jack-in-the-Box" on the river Tees. 11. Climate and Rainfall.