University of Virginia Library

114a. Smeaton, John.

A / NARRATIVE OF THE BUILDING / AND / A DESCRIPTION of
the CONSTRUCTION / OF THE / EDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE /
WITH STONE: / TO WHICH IS SUBJOINED, / An APPENDIX,
giving some Account of the Lighthouse on the SPURN POINT, /
BUILT UPON A SAND. / By JOHN SMEATON, CIVIL ENGINEER,
F.R.S. / LONDON: / PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, BY
H. HUGHS: / SOLD BY G. NICOL, / BOOKSELLER TO HIS MAJESTY,
PALL-MALL. 1791.

Folio. Title page with engraving ([i]); dedication ([iii-iv]); preface (vvi);
table of contents (vii-xiv); text (1-184); appendix (185-92); description
of plates (193-98); 23 engraved plates, of which 1 is folding.

The engravers were A. or O. Birrel (fl.1786-1800), who worked at London;
William Faden; John Record (fl. 1768-90), English; Henry Roberts
(d. ca.1790), an English engraver who died at about age 80; Edward
Rooker (see No. 3); Charles Reuben Ryley (1752-98), a native of
London who became a history painter and an engraver; and Sam Ward.

Many of the plates in this work are dated; the dates range from
1761 to 1790.

John Smeaton (1724-92) was born near Leeds, the son of an attorney.
He was educated at Leeds Grammar School and his father's office.
He went to London to further his legal studies, but he abandoned
the law and became a philosophical instrument maker. By 1750 he was a
Fellow of the Royal Society.

The new Edystone Lighthouse (1756-59) was built of stone by
Smeaton. Replacing an earlier wooden one, it made use of an ingenious
system of interlocking stones in order to withstand the force of the
waves. The engraving on the title page is a very romantic and Turneresque
view (see Plate CXXIV).

Jefferson would have had a special interest in the chapter "Containing
Experiments to Ascertain a Complete Composition for Water Cements;
with Their Results," since he had at least one other work on the
same subject (No. 42).

Kimball (p. 100) says this book entered Jefferson's library between

Plate CXXIV. From No. 114a. Title page.

1785 and 1789, but Sowerby quotes a letter of May 11, 1791, from Jefferson
thanking Benjamin Vaughan for it. Jefferson's copy was sold to
Congress. This edition was not ordered for the University. The library's
present copy has been recently acquired, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson
Memorial Foundation.

M

Sowerby 4213

*TC375.S63.1791