In 672 Rhodes was captured by the Saracens, and their leader, one of the lieutenants of Othman, sold the brass of which the famous statue was composed, to a Jewish merchant of Edessa, for a sum, it is said, of £36,000. The bargain must have been very profitable, if it be true that the materials thus acquired loaded a thousand camels. * * * * * A few words may be added in reference to the sculptor of the Colossus. According to Pliny, he was a pupil of Lysippus, a native of Lindos, and named Chares. Such, too, is the evidence of Strabo and the anonymous author of the Greek epigram. But in the writings of the Pyrrhonist, Sextus Empiricus, we find the honour of the achievement ascribed to one Laches. According to Sextus, Chares, discovering that he was cheated of half the sum of money promised for the completion of the statue, killed himself in despair; and Laches, succeeding him, perfected the glorious work. The authority of Pliny and Strabo, however, seems to us preferable to that of Sextus: the Colossus was truly the work of Chares, alone and unaided, and to him belongs the glory of having, as Philo of Byzantium says, “Made a god like to a god, and endowed the world with a second sun.” [Illustration] BOOK II. _THE SCIENCE OF LIGHTHOUSES._ CHAPTER I. HOW THEY ARE ADMINISTERED. From antiquity we return to our own time, with the view of examining the present condition of our coast-defences, so far as they include the lighthouse, the lightship, the beacon, and the buoy. To England belongs the praise, among modern nations, of having first understood all the importance of lighthouses, and of having made their erection, mode of illumination, and maintenance, a matter of national concern. The direction of the Imperial lighthouses is confided to three Boards—one for each of the three kingdoms:— 1st, The _Corporation of the Trinity House of Deptford Strand_, who possess the control of all the English lighthouses;— 2nd, The _Corporation of the Commissioners of Northern Lights_, to whom is intrusted the management of the lighthouses of Scotland; and,— 3rd, The _Corporation for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin_, who administer the coast-illumination of Ireland. * * * * *