This whimsicality of the man in some measure accounts for the oddity of the wooden building erected by him on the Eddystone Rock; and it is matter of surprise that it should have stood the severe weather of the English Channel for several seasons. The building was begun in the year 1696, and finished in four years. It must necessarily have been a work attended with great difficulty as well as danger, as operations could only be carried on during fine weather, when the sea was comparatively smooth. The first summer was wholly spent in making twelve holes in the rock, and fastening twelve irons in them, by which to hold fast the superstructure. “Even in summer,” Winstanley says, “the weather would at times prove so bad that for ten or fourteen days together the sea would be so raging about these rocks, caused by out-winds and the running of the ground seas coming from the main ocean, that although the weather should seem and be most calm in other places, yet here it would mount and fly more than two hundred feet, as has been so found since there was lodgment on the place, and therefore all our works were constantly buried at those times, and exposed to the mercy of the seas.” The second summer was spent in making a solid pillar, twelve feet high and fourteen feet in diameter, on which to build the lighthouse. In the third year all the upper work was erected to the vane, which was eighty feet above the foundation. In the midsummer of that year Winstanley ventured to take up his lodging with the workmen in the lighthouse; but a storm arose, and eleven days passed before any boats could come near them. During that period the sea washed in upon Winstanley and his companions, wetting all their clothing and provisions, and carrying off many of their materials. By the time the boats could land, the party were reduced almost to their last crust; but, happily, the building stood, apparently firm. Finally, the light was exhibited on the summit of the building, on the 14th of November, 1698. The fourth year was occupied in strengthening the building round the foundations, making all solid nearly to a height of twenty feet, and also in raising the upper part of the lighthouse forty feet, to keep it well out of the wash of the sea. This timber erection, when finished, somewhat resembled a Chinese pagoda, with open galleries and numerous fantastic projections. The main gallery, under the light, was so wide and open that an old gentleman who remembered both Winstanley and his lighthouse, afterwards told Smeaton that it was possible for a six-oared boat to be lifted up on a wave and driven clear through the open gallery into the sea on the other side. In the perspective print of the lighthouse, published by the architect after its erection, he complacently represented himself as fishing out of the kitchen window! [Illustration: WINSTANLEY’S LIGHTHOUSE.]