tectural magnificence
was long regarded as one of the wonders of the world, in the same way
as the Pharos of Alexandria had been in ancient times.

The Tour de Corduan is situated on an extensive reef about three miles
from land, at the mouth of the river Garonne, and from its position
serves as an important guide to the shipping of Bordeaux, the
Languedoc Canal, and all that part of the Bay of Biscay. It was
founded in the year 1584, but was not completed until 1610, in the
time of Henry IV. Its style of architecture is a mixture of classic
and gothic, and so very elaborate, that a just idea cannot be formed
of it without reference to drawings in detail. The building is one
hundred and ninety-seven feet in height, and consists of a number of
galleries rising above each other, and gradually diminishing in
diameter. The base consists of an immense platform of solid masonry,
surrounded by a wall one hundred and thirty-four feet in diameter, so
placed as to act as an outwork of defence to receive the chief shock
of the waves. The light-keeper's houses and the store-rooms form a
detached range of buildings on the great platform, from which a
private staircase conducts to the light-room. At the entrance door of
the main tower, the busts of Henry II. and Henry IV. are placed in
niches, over these are the arms of France, and an emblematical figure
of St. Mary, to whom the building is dedicated; there is also another
female figure, holding a branch of palm in one hand and a crown in the
other.

In the solid masonry of the platform is the fuel-store; over this is
the great hall, twenty-two feet square with an arched roof twenty feet
high. On this floor are also two wardrobes and other conveniences.
Over the hall is the king's apartment, twenty-one feet square, with an
elliptical roof twenty feet in height. This floor has also a
vestibule, two wardrobes, &c. The third floor contains the chapel, in
which a priest occasionally performs mass. Its diameter is twenty-one
feet, and from the floor to the centre of the dome-roof the height is
forty feet. It is highly adorned with mosaic, and is lighted by eight
lantern windows. In the crown of the dome-roof is a circular opening
surrounded by a balustrade, through which is seen the ornamental roof
of the room above. This room is fourteen feet in diameter and
twenty-seven feet high; it is used as a watch-room by the
light-keepers, and was probably intended as a place to which they
coul