Whatever may be the truth regarding the foundations of the Eddystone, the old lighthouse has done good work for considerably over a century. Sometimes when the sea rolls in with more than usual fury the lighthouse is enveloped in spray, and when struck by a strong wave, the central portion shoots up the perpendicular shaft and leaps quite over the lantern, but soon its brilliant light shines forth again, a warning and a guide to the mariner. When a wave hurls itself upon the lighthouse, the report of the shock is like a cannon, and a tremor passes through the building. At first the lighthouse-keepers were afraid for their lives. The year after the completion of the tower, a terrible storm raged, the sea dashing over the lighthouse so that those inside dare not open the lantern door, nor any other, for even an instant. A man who visited the rock after some similar storm wrote to Mr. Jessop, “The house did shake as if a man had been up in a great tree. The old men were almost frightened out of their lives, wishing they had never seen the place, and cursing those that first persuaded them to go there. The fear seized them in the back, but rubbing them with oil of turpentine gave them relief.” The men, however, soon became used to the life; and Smeaton mentions the case of one of them who was even accustomed to give up to his companions his turn for going on shore. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SMEATON.] “Many a heart,” says Mr. Smiles, “has leapt with gladness at the cry of ‘The Eddystone in sight!’ sung out from the maintop. Homeward-bound ships, from far-off ports, no longer avoid the dreaded rock, but eagerly run for its light as the harbinger of safety. It might even seem as if Providence had placed the reef so far out at sea as the foundation for a beacon such as this, leaving it to man’s skill and labour to finish His work. On entering the English Channel from the west and the south, the cautious navigator feels his way by early soundings on the great bank which extends from the Channel into the Atlantic, and these are repeated at fixed intervals until land is in sight. Every fathom nearer shore increases a ship’s risks, especially on dark nights. The men are on the look-out, peering anxiously into the dark, straining the eye to catch the glimmer of a light, and when it is known that ‘the Eddystone is in sight!’ a thrill runs through the ship, which can only be appreciated by those who have felt or witnessed it after long months of weary voyaging. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE LIGHT-CHAMBER OF THE EDDYSTONE.]