n these and the shore are the two entrances to
the harbour--one a quarter of a mile wide, and the other three-quarters.
The width of the wall at the top is forty-five feet, but at the bottom
it is three hundred and sixty feet, and weighs nearly four million tons.
Surely it would be a boisterous sea that would carry this away. Its
total cost was about one million five hundred thousand pounds, and it
was finished in 1848.

Before the lighthouse was built, it became necessary to warn vessels of
the position of the new sea-wall, and for more than twenty years a
lightship burned a signal there. This was the state of affairs when that
terrible storm of 1824 swept up the Sound, and among the wrecks it
caused was one of an unusual character. A small vessel, laden with cork,
was nearing the mouth of the Sound, when she was suddenly struck by a
violent gust of wind and turned completely over. The captain, a boy, and
two passengers were the only ones below at the time, and these, finding
the water rushing in, sought refuge in the ship's coal-hole, which,
owing to the reversed position of the hull, was now above them instead
of below. In total darkness, and lapped by the encroaching water, they
floated thus for six hours. In the early morning they struck against the
west point of the Breakwater, heeled over it and drifted toward the
lightship. Those on board the latter, little thinking that the wreck had
life on it, pushed the hull away with poles, and, caught by the tide, it
soon drifted from sight. Three hours later it appeared again. The return
tide had washed it back, and a little later a larger wave than usual
carried it on to the rough stones of the unfinished Breakwater, where it
held fast. The water receded, and the four unhappy voyagers crept out on
to the rocks, to be rescued half an hour later by a pilot boat. Such was
one of the unexpected services rendered by the Breakwater at Plymouth;
but its expected benefits, worthily accomplished, have been too numerous
to record.

JOHN LEA

UNION IS STRENGTH.

A True Anecdote.

A water-hen, seeing a pheasant feed out of one of those mechanical boxes
which open when the bird stands on the rail in front of the box, went
and stood in the same place, as soon as the pheasant quitted it. Finding
that its weight was not sufficient to raise the lid of the box, it kept
jumping upon the rail to try to open it. It could net succeed in lifting
the lid sufficiently high, and so