The destruction of the second lighthouse at the Eddystone could not have happened at a more unfortunate time, for the long dark nights of the next few months were the worst in the year for vessels passing up and down Channel in proximity to the rock. It is strange, therefore, that, though the proprietors took in hand the rebuilding of the lighthouse immediately after the fire, the means, then well known, of marking dangerous shoals by a lightship, were not sooner taken. No lightship was placed by the Eddystone rock till the August following the fire. The man consulted by the proprietors about rebuilding the lighthouse was John Smeaton, who, by the way in which he carried out the work, won for himself a fame that has lasted till to-day. The lighthouse built by him withstood the storms of years, and, as we most of us remember, it was only in 1881 that it was deemed necessary actually to remove it and to build another lighthouse on another part of the Eddystone rocks. [Illustration: THE EDDYSTONE BUILT BY SMEATON.] When Smeaton first met the proprietors he alarmed their economical feelings by proposing to build a stone and not a wooden lighthouse; but so powerfully did he urge the ultimate saving that would be effected by having a building of this more durable material that he left them with an order to carry out the work as he thought fit, and he started off to Plymouth to execute his commission. [Illustration: SMEATON’S MODE OF DOVETAILING THE STONES.] Many were the difficulties he encountered; the mayor of the town would not lend him the Guildhall as a room in which to piece together his models—he thought it would ‘spoil the floor’; for the same reason the keeper of the Assembly Rooms refused the use of his chief apartment; it was, he said, the only decent dancing-floor in Plymouth, and his life would be a burden to him if he permitted it to be spoilt—there was a large feminine population at Plymouth! Then Smeaton had the same trouble with the press-gangs that Winstanley and Rudyerd had experienced. His workmen, too, caused him some anxiety; there were many incipient ‘strikes’ among them, and though he seems to have known how to deal with such outbreaks, they naturally retarded the work and ruffled his temper a great deal.