Having fully described the gradual erection of the Eddystone lighthouse in a previous chapter, we will not weary the reader with a repetition of details with which he is already acquainted. But reference may appropriately be made to the energy and restless activity with which Smeaton watched the progress of the enterprise. If there was any position of danger his men hesitated to occupy, he immediately stepped forward and took the foremost place. One morning, in the summer of 1757, when heaving up the moorings of the store-ship, preparatory to starting for the rock, the links of the buoy chain were exposed to a considerable strain upon the davit-roll, which was of cast-iron, and began to bend upon its convex surface. To remedy this, Smeaton ordered the carpenter to cut some trenails into small pieces, and split each length into two, with the view of applying them between the chain and the roll at the flexure of each link, so as to relieve the strain. One of the men remarked that if the chain should break anywhere between the roll and the tackle, the person engaged in inserting the wooden wedges might be cut in two by the chain, or carried overboard along with it. Smeaton, who never required others to undertake what he would not do himself, immediately put aside his men, took the "post of honour," as he called it, and superintended the getting in of the chain, link by link, until it was all on board. We borrow the following interesting sketch from Mr Smiles:-- While living at Plymouth, he says, the restless, enthusiastic engineer was accustomed every morning to take his post on the grassy summit of the Hoe, and with his telescope to survey the famous rock. [Sidenote: The Plymouth Hoe.]