On the 2nd of April he set sail for the rock, but winds and waves beat so vehemently that he found it impossible to land. All he could do was to view the low, treacherous black thing on which he was to build his house of stone. Back he went three days later, and for the first time he stood on Eddystone, but only for a couple of hours. There was almost nothing to be seen, only one or two iron branches left from the wrecks of the former wooden buildings. On the third attempt he made he could not even see the rock. Spray and foam hid it entirely from view. In the same way his fourth and fifth visits failed, but his sixth was successful, and he landed at low water, and in the stillness of the evening made his first measurements. "I went on with my business till nine in the evening," he wrote, "having worked an hour by candlelight." Again and again he tried to get a landing. Sometimes he managed it, at others it was impossible. After having spent fifteen hours in all on the rock he went back to London, and with his own expert hands made a model. The work took him two months in all, and that proficiency that he had learned as a boy in his little workshop at Austhorpe stood him in good stead now. After this he set out for Plymouth again. No detail of his work was too small for him to attend to himself. He visited the quarries where the stones were to be hewn. He carefully chose the kind of cement that was to bind them together; the workmen, the work-yards, the ships that were to carry the stones to the rock. Each and all passed under his eye. It was a great day when, in August, 1756, he and his men started for Eddystone, and the master fixed the centre and laid down the lines. Now the work might be said to be fairly begun. But was ever work so often broken in upon? Winds and waves are not to be counted on--least of all about the stormy Eddystone, for often though the water is calm and smooth in other places, it smothers in foam the low black reef. There were times when the workmen could work as long as six hours at a stretch, going on eagerly by torchlight if necessary. Again it would happen they could not work more than two hours out of the twenty-four. Time was precious, and time was grievously taken up in going to and from Plymouth, and so Smeaton arranged that a "buss"--a fishing-vessel with two masts and a cabin at either end--should ride at anchor near the scene of work, with provisions and other necessaries. But here, again, it was hard to plan ahead. One day a mighty storm arose. The men could not work. Their yawl broke from its moorings. They could neither send to shore, nor could they get help. But they must eat. Days passed, and gradually their store of provisions grew less and less. By the time relief reached them they were at their last crust.