The solid portion of the building is 40 feet in height from the level of the first complete ring of stones, and the tower is 80 feet high to the lantern gallery. The over-all height to the top of the lantern cupola is 102¾ feet, while the focal plane is 84½ feet above mean high-water. The first stone was laid on July 9, 1857, while the masons completed their duties on June 29, 1860, so that five years were occupied upon the work. In erection 3,514 tons of rough and 2,367 tons of hammered stone, in addition to 1,079 numbered stones, were used, and the total cost, including the light-keepers’ houses on the mainland, was £60,000, or $300,000, so that it ranks among the more costly lights which have been provided for the seafarer’s benefit. On November 15, 1860, nine and a half years after the destruction of the first beacon, the light was once more thrown from Minot’s Ledge for the benefit of passing ships. The light is of the second order, visible fourteen and three-quarter miles out to sea, and is of the flashing type, signalling “143” every thirty seconds thus--one flash followed by three seconds’ darkness, four flashes with three seconds’ eclipse, and three flashes with an interval of fifteen seconds’ darkness. The tower has been subjected to repeated prodigious assaults, the north-east gales in particular thundering upon this reef with tremendous fury, but it has withstood all attacks with complete success. CHAPTER XIV THE TILLAMOOK ROCK LIGHT-STATION While the Northern Pacific Ocean is the loneliest stretch of salt water in the world, yet it possesses one or two busy corners. Prominent among the latter is that where it washes the shores of the United States around the entrance to the mighty Columbia River. The estuary is wide, and, although navigation is handicapped by a bar, it is well protected. But coming up from the south there is a stretch of terribly forbidding coastline, with the cliffs at places towering 1,500 feet or more into the air and dropping sheer into the water. Rock-slides are of frequent occurrence, and the beach is littered with heavy falls from above. Here and there protuberances rise from the sea, formed of rock sufficiently dense and hard to withstand more effectively the process of erosion, only to constitute fearful menaces to navigation. Often the mainland is completely obscured, either by streaks of mist or heavy clouds of smoke produced by forest fires, which in the dry season rage with great violence. A ship caught within the toils of this stern coast has no possible chance of escape, while the crew would find it difficult to get ashore, inasmuch as at places there is not a single landing-place within a distance of twenty miles.