This admirable and useful structure was erected in two of the shortest day months of the year, in which time day-light did not occur at any low-water period; the workmen therefore had to depend on torches and moonlight. Nor is the portability of this form of building its least advantage: should there occur any local changes which might threaten the safety of the house, it can be taken down, and erected in another site within a month. Perhaps one of the boldest schemes ever devised for lighthouses was the structure proposed to be erected by Mr. Bush, on a plan patented by him, on the Goodwin Sands, or on the Varne in the channel between Folkestone and Cape Grisnez, in four fathoms water. This plan, was recommended to the consideration of parliament by several merchants, ship-owners, and other influential persons. The building proposed to be called ‘The Light of all Nations,’ was to consist of a Doric column one hundred and twenty-five feet high supporting a lantern twelve feet in diameter, surmounted by a colossal statue of the Queen, her sceptre being the point of a lightning-conductor. This column was to rise from a base one hundred feet in height, and fifty in diameter, to be formed by a caisson composed of cast-iron plates bolted together: the part under water was to be divided into four pyramidal chambers, opening into and supporting one another; the lower one resting on the rock beneath the sands, and the whole forming a conical core to the cylindrical base. The only part of this plan that was executed was the cast-iron caisson, which was deposited in its place among the sands. In this situation, during one dark and stormy night, it was struck by a ship and shivered to a thousand fragments. This untoward accident has led to the abandonment of the design. One of the characteristics of this country is the mode in which we lay out the mineral wealth which nature has bestowed upon us so liberally in the shape of coal and iron. With the assistance of the former we mould the latter into a thousand shapes of usefulness, neatness, and durability, and so much attached are we to this material, that it is daily superseding the use of the more cumbrous wood and stone, and other substances which were once in great demand. Iron furnishes most of the multifarious instruments required in the mechanical and agricultural arts--it ministers alike to war and to peace, by furnishing the sword and the ploughshare. It supplies some of the most useful domestic apparatus for the kitchen, the parlour, and the bed-room, and now even the bedstead itself may be formed of iron. It has been long used in some of our great public works: we have iron roads--iron bridges--iron statues--steam-boats of iron--houses of iron, and lastly, iron lighthouses.