The men took their tools and materials with them on every visit, and, as the tower rose, the working spells between the tides became longer and longer, until, when a point above high-water was reached, work was continued throughout the day whenever the rock was approachable. A small wooden platform was erected on one side, on which the concrete was mixed, while on the other there was a little shelf with a small cistern, which was filled with water from the boats below, through the agency of a pump. A jury derrick was rigged up to lift the material and men to the working level. As the tower rose in height, the wooden mould had to be dismembered and re-erected upon the new level, this operation being repeated no less than forty times until the desired height was gained. Work was exasperatingly slow and intermittent, while it had to be suspended entirely for about six or seven months, as no one dared to venture near the rock in winter. Taken on the whole, it was one of the most anxious and difficult pieces of the work of this character which the French Government has ever undertaken, while the working area was so confined that less than a dozen men could toil simultaneously without getting in one another’s way. Recently the Brittany coast has been further protected by another magnificent beacon, the Jument lighthouse, off Ushant. This awful spot has long been marked by a very powerful electric light at Creach, which may be seen over twenty miles away, and, together with its fellow on the opposite end of the island, may be said to guide the crowded shipping around this promontory very effectively. But foggy weather reduces the mariner to helplessness, as the sea for two miles round the island is studded with reefs, ridges and rocky humps of a very formidable character, so that vessels have to keep well beyond this zone. When the light is obscured, safe travelling is possible only by going very slowly and making liberal use of the lead, while the captain must keep a sharp eye upon the rapid currents which set inshore if he would not be thrown upon the rocks he is seeking sedulously to avoid. The French Government, with its characteristic thoroughness, determined to secure the complete indication of the Ushant and all its dangers by a carefully-conceived and comprehensive chain of lights distributed over the dangerous area. The urgency of such a scheme is obvious when it is remembered that it is computed that 24,000 vessels of all classes pass Ushant in the course of the year. At the same time the sea’s harvest of vessels and lives off this rocky shore every year is appallingly heavy. The only handicap to the immediate completion of the Government’s humane project is the extreme difficulty of the work and its prodigious cost.