Upon _Needles Point_, the westernmost extremity of the Isle of Wight, at an elevation of 474 feet, a lighthouse was erected early in the last century. Notwithstanding its great height, it is recorded that its windows were sometimes shattered by stones flung up by the mounting and raging billows.[46] It had ten Argand lamps, and the same number of plated reflectors; and its light, on clear and cloudless nights, was visible at a distance of eleven leagues. Seven hundred gallons of oil, we are told, were consumed annually; and in stormy nights the blaze attracted hundreds of small birds, which dashed themselves against the glass reflectors, and were killed. [46] We think, however, that this statement is in great need of verification. [Illustration: NEEDLES LIGHTHOUSE.] Owing to its great elevation, however, this lighthouse was of little service in hazy and foggy weather. The Trinity House, therefore, in 1859, caused a new one to be constructed on the outer part of the farthest of the celebrated chalk rocks, called the Needles, which was previously cut down and levelled almost to the water’s edge. This lighthouse is about 109 feet in height from the base to the top of the ball, and possesses only one light, with three concentrated wicks, whose brilliancy, however, is so great that it can be seen fourteen miles at sea. The shades are alternately white and red. A fog bell is rung by mechanical agency during stormy weather; its sounds may be heard at a distance of five miles. The base of the building is 38 feet in diameter. * * * * * Near the south shore of the Isle of Wight rises the remarkable and picturesque eminence of _St. Catherine’s Hill_, 769 feet above the level of the sea. It looks down upon the rock-bound sweep of Chale Bay, which has been the scene of many deplorable catastrophes. From its summit the traveller commands a prospect of singular beauty, as remarkable for its extent as for its variety; since it not only includes by far the larger part of the “garden-isle,” but the green masses of the New Forest, the blue line of the misty Hampshire hills, and the undulating range of the coast of Sussex as far as the bold bluff promontory of Beachy Head. It is said that, in an opposite direction, the high lands about Cherbourg have occasionally been seen. On a calm, clear day the island lies at your feet like an open map, and you can trace each bare bold hill; each valley, dusky with its wealth of foliage; each village church and manor-house, girt with venerable trees; each distant town, with its floating canopy of smoke; each stream that trails like a silver snake through the emerald pastures; and all around and about, the mighty ocean, heaving with a flood of glorious light.