Lighthouses or beacons were first introduced into England by the Romans, to whom we are indebted for so much that is valuable and useful. On the crest of the high hill at Dover still stands the pharos, which is supposed to have been built for the guidance of vessels from the coasts of France to the Roman station at Portus Rutupiæ (now Richborough) near Sandwich, or to Regulbium (now known as the Reculvers) on the Thames. At the present day it is nothing more than a massive shell. In the inside the walls are vertical and squared; on the outside, they incline to assume a conical form. Of the building, as we now see it, only the basement is of Roman work; the octagonal chamber above was constructed in the reign of Henry VIII. The dimensions are about fourteen feet square. [Sidenote: English beacons.] The English beacons were of a ruder and more primitive construction than the Roman. We read in Lambarde, the old topographer, that "before the time of King Edward III. they were made of great stacks of wood; but about the eleventh year of his reign it was ordained that in one shire [Kent] they should be high standards, with their pitch-pots"--that is, tall masts, to whose summit was fastened a vessel full of burning pitch. Those beacons, however, were more frequently used to warn the country on the approach of a hostile fleet than for the purpose of lighting the coasts, though, doubtlessly, they answered both objects. Professor Faraday suggests that the first idea of a lighthouse was the candle in the cottage window, guiding the husband across the water or the pathless moor. The main point to be secured was a steady light, and it mattered not whether this was obtained from pitch-pots, coals, or oil. Wood, however, as the material readiest at hand, was most generally used. The Tour de Cordouan, situated at the mouth of the Gironde, was long lit up by fires of wood; while, until a comparatively recent period, the lighthouses at Spurn Head, north of the Humber, and on the Isle of May, at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, were lighted by braziers of burning coal. [Sidenote: On Dungeness.]