(father of the late eminent engineer of that name,) who then had the charge of it. From this time till the year 1755, Rudyerd's light-house sustained no particular injury; but in that year it was totally destroyed, by a catastrophe which cannot be so well expressed as in the words of the celebrated Smeaton, the engineer of the stone light-house. The present erection, considering the difference of the materials, may be considered as a parallel chef-d'œuvre with that of Rudyerd.

"On the 22d of August, 1755," says Smeaton, "the workmen returned on shore, having finished all necessary repairs of that season; between which time and the 2d of December following, the attending boat had been off several times to the Eddystone, and particularly on the 1st of December, and had landed some stores, when the light-keepers made no manner of complaint, and said all was right, except that one or two of the bricks in the kitchen fire-place had been loosened by a late storm. What in reality might occasion the building's first catching fire, it has never been possible fully to investigate; but, from the most distinct account, it appears to have commenced in the very top of the lantern, that is, in the cupola. From whatever cause it originated, it is certain that when the light-keeper then upon the watch, (about two o'clock in the morning of the 2d of December,) went into the lantern as usual, to snuff the candles, he found the whole in a smoke, and upon opening the door of the lantern into the balcony, a flame instantly burst from the inside of the cupola: he immediately endeavoured to alarm his companions; but they, being in bed and asleep, were not so ready in coming to his assistance as the occasion required. As there were always some leathern buckets kept in the house, and a tub of water in the lantern, he attempted as speedily as pos

sible to extinguish the fire in the cupola, by throwing water from the balcony with a leather bucket, upon the outside cover of lead; by this time, his comrades approaching, he encouraged them to fetch up water with the leather buckets from the sea: but as the height would be, at a medium, full seventy feet, this, added to the natural consternation that must attend such a sudden and totally unexpected event, would occasion this business of bringing up water, at the best, to go on but slowly. Meanwhile the flames gathering strength every moment, and the poor man, though making use of every exertion, having the water to throw full four yards higher than his own head, to be of any service, we must by no means be surprised, that, under all these difficulties, the fire, instead of being soon extinguished, would increase; and what put a sudden stop to further exertions, was the following most remarkable circumstance:-As he was looking upward with the utmost attention, to see the direction and success of the water thrown, a quantity of lead, dissolved by the heat of the flames, suddenly rushed like a torrent from the roof, and fell not only on the man's head, face, and shoulders, but over his clothes; and a part of it made its way through his shirt collar and very much burnt his neck and shoulders from this moment he had a violent internal sensation, and imagined that a quantity of this lead had passed down his throat, and got into his body. The man, who was ninety-four years age, died on the twelfth day after the accident; on opening the stomach, a solid piece of lead was found in it, weighing seven ounces five drachms. Under this violence of pain and anxiety, as every attempt had proved ineffectual, and the rage of the flames was increasing, it is not to be wondered that the terror and dismay of the three men increased in proportion; so that they all found themselves in

of

timidated, and glad to make their retreat from that immediate scene of horror, into one of the rooms below, where they would find themselves precluded from doing any thing: for had they thrown down ever so much water there, it could not have extinguished what was burning above them, nor indeed produce any other effect than that of running down into the rooms below, and from thence finally through the staircase, back again into the sea. They seem, therefore, to have had no other resource, or means of retreat, than that of retiring downwards from room to room, as the fire advanced over their heads. How soon the fire was seen from the shore, is not very certain; but early in the morning it was perceived by some of the Cawsand fishermen, and intelligence thereof given to Mr. Edwards of Rame, in that neighbourhood, a gentleman of some fortune, and more humanity. This prompted him immediately to send out a fishing boat and men, to the relief of the people he supposed in distress upon the Eddystone. The boat and men got thither about ten o'clock, after the fire had been burning full eight hours; and in this time the three light-keepers were not only driven from all the rooms, and the staircase, but, to avoid the falling of the timber, and red-hot bolts, &c., upon them, they were found sitting in the hole or cove in the east side of the rock, under the iron ladder, almost in a state of stupefaction, it being then low water. At this time the wind was eastward, and did not blow very fresh, but just hard enough to make a landing upon the rock, at the proper landingplace, quite impracticable, or attended with the utmost hazard. It, therefore, became a difficulty how the men were to be taken off; for the ground-swell upon the west side produced so great surf upon the sloping surface, that no boat could attempt to land there.

They, however, fell upon the following ex

pedient: having a small boat with them, they moored their principal boat by a grappling to the westward, but as near the rock as they durst; and then launching their small boat, they rowed it toward the rock, veering out a rope, which they fastened to the large boat, till they got near enough to throw a coil of small rope on the rock; which having been laid hold of by the men, they one by one fastened it round their waists, and jumping into the sea, they were towed into the small boat, and thence delivered into the large one; and as they found it was out of their power to do any further service, the boat hastened to Plymouth to get the men relieved. No sooner, however, were they set on shore, than one of them made off, and has never since been heard of, which would, on the first blush, induce one to suppose, that there were something culpable in this man; and if it had been a house on the shore, one would have been tempted to suspect he had been guilty of some foul play: but the circumstance of its being a light-house, situated so as to afford no retreat in the power of its inhabitants, seems to preclude the possibility of its being done wilfully; as he must know he must perish, or be in extreme danger of doing so at least, along with the rest."

Such was the termination of a building, which has always been looked upon as a matchless specimen of skill in carpentry; and which was destroyed by means that had not been contemplated, and therefore not guarded against at the time of its erection. In a few days it was burnt down to the very foundation, after it had stood for forty-nine years, and been the means of saving many a ship from being wrecked upon that dangerous rock.

T

FORESTS AND PLANTING.

We have thus taken a general view of the principal timber which is used in this country, in building and in manufactures. The limits of this work necessarily preclude the insertion of much information that might be useful and amusing; but we have endeavoured to select from the great mass of materials which the subject affords, such as might best gratify the curiosity of the reader, and excite that habit of observation which is the first step towards real knowledge.

As timber is one of the most important and valuable materials which man employs for the promotion of his comforts, and is, even to the rudest, absolutely necessary in many ways, so, fortunately, it is the most plentiful of all the productions of nature. We have given, in the preceding pages, many details of the extent of the forests of the north of Europe, and of America. In parts of the coasts of South America, Humboldt found the largest trees growing in such unbounded luxuriance, that he could scarcely set foot on the shore, so thick were the woods, running down even to the water's edge. This thickness of vegetation is a remarkable characteristic of that part of the world; and where the climate is unfavourable to the growth of trees, rank grass and thistles shoot up, in a profusion, and with a rapidity, which is quite astonishing. The great plain on the east of the Cordillera, called the Pampas, is about nine hundred miles in breadth; and its vegetable productions are either small evergreens, clover, or thistles, according to the climate of the several districts. In the spring, the region of thistles presents a most extraordinary spectacle. They suddenly spring