A coal fire continued to light Dungeness till the completion of the now existing lighthouse, 110 feet high, in 1792. Then eighteen sperm-oil lamps took the place of the flickering fire, and shone steadily out to sea. This third lighthouse at Dungeness was built under the direction of Wyat, after the model of Smeaton’s lighthouse on the Eddystone. It now stands more than five hundred yards from the high-water mark, though when first it was built, it was barely a hundred, so rapidly has the neck of shingle grown. This increased distance was becoming somewhat misleading to passing ships, so the Trinity House has placed a small revolving light nearer the sea, and in connection with it a siren fog-horn, which latter was a present from America. The utility of the fog-horn is great, though it renders a foggy night spent in the neighbourhood of Dungeness anything but tranquil. But then, not many people—that is, people unused to the songs of the modern sea siren—are likely to spend a night at or near Dungeness. True, there is now a railway to it, and there are a few houses built around the lighthouse. These are tenanted by people whose work is in some way connected with it, with the coastguard duty, with Lloyds’ signalling station, with the new lifeboat, or with the Dutch ‘Consulate,’ an ambitious title bestowed upon a grocer’s shop whose fortunate owner happens to have a patent from the Netherlands Government in connection with signalling vessels of that nationality that pass the ‘Ness.’ These people _are_, probably, pretty well used to the siren’s cries, which are particularly frequent during autumn and winter nights, when fogs hang in the Channel. Some twenty years after the present lighthouse was built, a violent storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, swept round it, and the lightning, striking it, cracked it in such a way that it was at first thought necessary to pull down the whole structure and set up a fresh building in its stead. But the cracks were carefully filled up with cement, the tower was bound round with iron hoops, barrel fashion, and now it stands as firm as ever. If it is taken away, it will be because Nature’s work in lengthening the shingle banks renders it useless where it is. CHAPTER X ST. CATHERINE’S POINT TO THE EDDYSTONE There is not much to say about the lighthouses along our southern coast between Dungeness and St. Catherine’s, in the Isle of Wight; but the lighthouse at this latter place has an interesting history.