ock off of Plymouth;' with the motto, _Furit natura coercet
ars_, dedicated to Thomas Earl of Pembroke, then Lord High Admiral.

Rudyerd did not fail to observe that owing to the very considerable
slope of the surface of the Eddystone rock, nothing would stand upon
it without artificial means: he therefore concluded, that if the rock
were reduced to level bearings, the heavy bodies to be placed upon it
would then have no tendency to slide. He therefore intended to have
reduced the inclined surface to a set of regular steps, which would
have been attended with the same good effect, as if the whole could
have been reduced to one level; but in consequence of the hardness of
the rock, the shortness and uncertainty of the intervals in which this
part of the work was performed, and the great tendency of the laminae
of the rock to rise in _spawls_, according to the inclined surface
when acted upon by tools with sufficient force to make an impression,
this part of the work, _i. e._ the reducing of the rock to steps, was
never perfectly carried out. The face of the rock was, however,
divided into seven rather unequal ascents: thirty-six holes were cut
in the rock, to the depth of from twenty to thirty inches. These holes
were six inches square at the top, gradually narrowing to five inches,
and then spreading again and flattening to nine inches by three at the
bottom. They were all cut smooth within, and with great dispatch, as
Rudyerd himself informs us, (though the stone was harder than any
marble or stone thereabouts,) with engines for that purpose. Every
cramp or bolt was forged exactly to the size of the hole it was
designed to fill, weighing from two to five hundred weight, according
to its different length and substance. These bolts or branches served
to fasten the foundation to the rock.

The method of fixing these branches in the rock was ingenious, and
proved quite effectual; so that when Smeaton took out some of these
branches more than forty years afterwards, they were perfectly sound,
and the iron had not even rusted. When the holes were finished and
cleared of water, Rudyerd caused a considerable quantity of melted
tallow to be poured into each hole: the iron branch was then heated to
a blue heat, and being put down into the tallow, the key was firmly
driven in. Thus all the space unfilled by the iron would become full
of tallow even to overflowing. While all remained hot, a quantity of
melted pewter was poured in