It was not long before it encouraged the founding of a permanent light on Eddystone Shoals, a group of reefs near Plymouth, exceedingly dangerous because they lie precisely in the track of ships bound up or down the English Channel, yet almost invisible. Upon the mere standing-room afforded by the crest of this rock, Sir William Winstanley managed to erect, two hundred years ago, a tower of wood and iron trestle-work, bolted to its foundation and carrying a glass room or lantern containing a coal-grate, eighty feet above low-water mark. This was completed in 1698. One winter’s experience convinced him that it needed strengthening, and in 1699 a case of masonry was built about the tower, and made solid to the height of twenty feet, while the whole structure was increased to the height of one hundred and twenty feet. Then, it is related, Winstanley boasted that the sea had not strength enough to tear it down, and all England rejoiced in so noble a beacon; but we now know that the construction was faulty, in its large diameter, polygonal outline, excess of ornament, and lack of weight. While Sir William was within it making repairs, four years later, the memorable hurricane of November 20, 1703, swept the coast, and left scarcely a trace of the tower. Its value had been proved, however, and it was replaced, in 1706, by a straight-sided tower of oaken timbers, weighted in their lower courses by stone. This was designed by an engineer named Rudyerd, and lasted until burned down in 1755; and engineers say it was better for its place than was the round, solid-based stone tower of Smeaton that followed it, and became so celebrated. This was finished in three years, and in 1760 was lighted, not by a fire, as of old, but by candles—the first use of such an illuminant. This truly illustrious lighthouse remained until a few years ago, when it became so racked by the assaults of the sea as to be unsafe. It was then replaced by the one that stands there to-day, rivaling its magnificent neighbor on the Biscay shore opposite, the lighthouse of Carduan, which was built to support a bonfire of oak, but has remained to be lighted successively by oil-lamps, by gas-burners, and finally by electricity. [Illustration: ENGRAVED BY R. C. COLLINS. THE WRECK OF THE FIRST MINOT’S LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE.] A somewhat similar history belongs to some of the lighthouses on this side of the Atlantic. The first one regularly set up in the United States was that on the north side of the entrance to Boston harbor, erected in 1716; but many others go back to Colonial days—that on Sandy Hook, for instance. Perhaps the most interesting history is attached to the light on Minot’s Ledge, in Boston harbor. This is a dangerous reef, concealed at high water and so exposed that the problem of lighting it was much the same as that presented at Eddystone, Bell Rock, Dhu Heartach, and other well known islets on the British coast.