own by four trenails. The stones
surrounding the central stone were dove-tailed to it in the same
manner as before, and thus the courses proceeded with no other
interruption than arose from the nature of the situation.

Smeaton tells us that when the work had proceeded so far as to afford
a level platform, the pleasure he took in it, and the novelty of the
thing, led him to walk to and fro upon it with much complacency. But
making a false step, and not being able to recover himself, he tumbled
over the brink of the work down among the rocks on the west side. The
tide had then retreated, so that no serious result happened, but in
his fall he dislocated his thumb, and as no medical aid could be
procured, he set it himself, and then returned to his work. It was
more than six months, however, before he recovered the full use of his
thumb.

Owing to very boisterous weather, and repeated losses of the necessary
materials left on the rock, the seventh course was not laid until the
7th of September. But Smeaton had the satisfaction to find that all
the work actually completed, stood the utmost severity of the weather
unmoved. At this time the sea became so calm that the work proceeded
rapidly, and for three days in succession the top of the work was not
wetted. The eighth course was completed on the 13th, but the weather
again becoming unfavourable, the ninth was not finished until the
30th, and here Smeaton found it desirable to close the operations for
this year.

The ensuing winter was of so stormy a nature as severely to test the
strength of the work at the Eddystone. Smeaton went early in the
spring to view it, and says, 'I was much surprised, notwithstanding
what had been reported of the soundness of the work, to find it so
perfectly entire, for, except a small spawl which had been washed from
the rock itself, the whole did not seem to have suffered a diminution
of so much as a grain of sand since I left it on the 1st of October:
on the contrary, the cement, and even the grouted part, appeared to be
as hard as the stone itself, the whole having become one solid mass,
and, indeed, it had quite that appearance, as it was covered with the
same coat of sea-weed as the rock, the top of the work excepted, which
was washed clean and white.'

Various disasters to the vessels, moorings, &c. near the rock retarded
the work in the spring of 1758. It was not till the 10th of July that
the eleventh course was finished. Twelve day