gnarled, as though
the waves which tore them to pieces had been harder than they.

Then, for a time, a lightship tossed and tugged at its cables to warn
shipping away from Minot's Ledge. Old Bostonians may still remember the
gallant Newfoundland dog that lived on the ship, and, when excursion boats
passed, would plunge into the sea and swim about, barking, until the
excursionists would throw him tightly rolled newspapers, which he would
gather in his jaws, and deliver to the lightship keepers to be dried for
the day's reading. But, while the lightship served for a temporary beacon,
a new tower was needed that might send the warning pencil of light far out
to sea. Minot's was too treacherous a reef and too near a populous ocean
highway to be left without the best guardian that science could devise.
Accordingly, the present stone tower was planned and its construction
begun in 1855. The problem before the designer was no easy one. The famous
Eddystone and Skerryvore lighthouses, whose triumphs over the sea are
related in English verse and story, were easier far to build, for there
the foundation rock is above water at every low tide, while at Minot's
Ledge the bedrock on which the base of the tower rests is below the level
of low tide most of the year. The working season could only be from April
1 to September 15. Nominally, that is almost six months; but in the first
season the sea permitted exactly 130 hours' work; in the second season
157, and in the third season, 130 hours and 21 minutes. The rest of the
time the roaring surf held Minot's Ledge for its own. Nor was this all.
After two years' work, the piles and debris of the old lighthouse had
been cleared away, and a new iron framework, intended to be anchored in
solid masonry, had been set, when up came a savage gale from the
northeast; and when it cleared all was swept away. Then the spirit of the
builder wavered, and he began to doubt that any structure built by men
could withstand the powers of nature at Minot's Ledge. But, in time, the
truth appeared. A bark, the _New Eagle_, heavy laden with cotton, had been
swept right over the reef, and grounded at Cohasset. Examination showed
that she had carried away in her hull the framework of the new tower.
Three years' heart-trying work were necessary before the first cut stone
could be laid upon the rock. In the meantime, on a great table at
Cohasset, a precise model of the new tower was built, each stone cut to
the ex