onductor, and, in fact, all the remaining parts of the
lighthouse, with the stores and necessary furniture, were set in their
places by the 16th of October, on which day a light was once more
exhibited on the Eddystone Rock.

It may be imagined that Smeaton took peculiar pleasure in this
beautiful monument of his skill and ingenuity. He slept in the
lighthouse, viewed it from sea and land, and made every observation
that an ingenious and clever man might be expected to make. The
account he gives of its appearance after a storm, as he viewed it with
his telescope from the garrison at Plymouth, is this: 'Though I had
had many opportunities of viewing the unfinished building, when buried
in waves in a storm at S. W., yet never having before had a view of it
under this circumstance in its finished state, I was astonished to
find that the account given by Mr. Winstanley did not appear to be at
all exaggerated. At intervals of a minute, and sometimes two or three,
I suppose when a combination happens to produce an overgrown wave, it
would strike the rock and the building conjointly, and fly up in a
white column, enwrapping it like a sheet, rising at least to double
the height of the house, and totally intercepting it from sight; and
this appearance being momentary, both as to its rising and falling,
one was enabled to judge of the comparative height very nearly, by the
comparative spaces alternately occupied by the house, and by the
column of water, in the field of the telescope.'

The year 1759 closed with a series of very stormy weather, and as this
was the first winter's trial of the lighthouse, it may be supposed
that there was some anxiety among the more timid and doubting of those
concerned in it. Especially was the courage of the light-keepers put
to the test. When a boat could come near them after one of these
storms, a letter was sent by Henry Edwards, one of the light-keepers,
to the manager of the works acquainting him that they had had such bad
weather, and that the sea ran over the house in such a manner, that
for twelve days together they could not open the door of the lantern
or any other. 'The house did shake,' says the poor light-keeper, '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
th