In the forties of last century it was decided that this graveyard should be marked, but there was one great difficulty. This was the exposure of the low-lying rock to some 4,000 miles of open Atlantic, where the rollers rise and fall with a force that turns the waters for miles around into a seething maelstrom of foam and surf. The aspect presented at this spot during a stiff south-westerly or westerly gale is terrifying in the extreme, and it is not surprising that approaching vessels stand so far off that the tower is often barely discernible against the background of cloud and banks of mist caused by the spray hurled into the air from the breakers smashing on the rocks. [Illustration: _Photo, Paul, Penzance._ THE WOLF ROCK LIGHTHOUSE. One of the famous lights of England. Owing to the rocks being exposed to the full fury of the Atlantic, its erection was attended with prodigious difficulty.] When it was proposed to build a lighthouse upon a crag in the heart of this vortex, many people who knew the neighbourhood shook their heads doubtfully. The ledge was so small, the force of the elements so powerful, that it appeared to be tempting Fate unduly to attempt the erection of a slim stalk of stonework thereon. Some records of the wind pressure exerted during the heaviest tempests were taken, and they showed that the pressure of the wind at times exceeded 7,000 pounds per square foot. It was decided to provide a structure which should offer the minimum of resistance to the waves. This assumed the form of the iron screw-pile tower so common in American waters. The legs were cast-iron tubes sunk into the solid granite, braced and stayed by means of wrought-iron rods. The engineers maintained that the waves would be able to roll unrestrainedly among the piles, instead of being obstructed, so that the skeleton building would escape the heavy buffetings which solid masonry would experience. But engineering science proved woefully frail when pitted against the unharnessed forces of Nature. A heavy gale sprang up one night; the waves rose and fell upon the stilts, broke them up like reeds, and carried away the whole of the superstructure. The following low-tide revealed only a few short lengths of broken and bent tubes, around which the waves bubbled and hissed as if in triumph at their victory. Thus ended the first attempt to provide the Bishop Rock with a lighthouse.