About incidents connected with the erection of this fourth lighthouse on the Eddystone it is scarcely necessary to say very much, for they are in the recollection of most of us. Both the foundation stone and the last stone of the tower were placed in position by the present Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, late Master of the Trinity House, the former in 1879 and the latter in 1881. Dangerous as was much of the work performed, Douglas could say at its completion, as Smeaton had done, that from it there had resulted neither loss of life nor injury to limb; yet some of those engaged in the building operations experienced hairbreadth escapes: Mr. Douglas, a son of Sir James, was standing on the old tower, superintending its un-building, when a portion of the machinery employed struck and hurled him towards the sharp rugged rocks seventy feet below; had he fallen upon these, he must inevitably have been dashed to pieces. The workmen on the tower, on the rocks, and in the supply-boat, were powerless to help or save him, and, silent and horror-stricken, waited the end. Suddenly a shout burst from the lips of all, ‘Saved!’ and the young engineer was borne high above the angry rocks on the breast of one of the huge waves that rolled in from the westward, and quickly rescued by the men in the supply-boat. [Illustration: THE PRESENT EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.] Granite is the material of which the present lighthouse is built, and the blocks are skilfully dovetailed together, so as to give the building the strength of solidity; indeed, for five-and-twenty feet from the base it is actually solid, with the exception of a large water-tank let into the granite. It stands 130 feet above the high-water mark, and so in height exceeds any of its predecessors. The light is given by an oil lamp fitted with a burner which was invented by Sir James Douglas, and which possesses illuminating power equal to that of a quarter of a million candles—more than six thousand times the power of that shed from Smeaton’s light. It is visible at sea for over fifteen nautical miles, so that in a westerly direction its range overlaps that shed from the Lizard, the lighthouse of which we shall speak next. The living arrangements in the new Eddystone are the most approved, and all is done to render the keepers’ isolation as little irksome as possible. Irksome to a certain degree it must always be—the very isolation necessitates that, and this is frequently prolonged beyond the period intended; for communication with the rock on the days arranged is not always possible, and it is since the erection of the present lighthouse that the keepers’ food supply has been on one occasion nearly exhausted. When the boat from Plymouth at last effected a landing it was found that those on the rock were reduced in their store to a few biscuits.