Smeaton and Lighthouses
Description:... "[...]merchant of Edessa, for a sum, it is said, equal to thirty-six thousand pounds. But the most celebrated lighthouse of antiquity was that erected about the year 283 B. C. by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, on the island of Pharos, opposite to Alexandria. It is from the name of this island that lighthouses have received their generic name of Pharos. Strabo records, that the architect Sostratus, having first secretly carved his own name on the solid walls of the building, covered the words with plaster, and in obedience to Ptolemy's command inscribed thereon, 'King Ptolemy to the gods the preservers, for the benefit of sailors.' The height of this building is stated at four hundred feet; but this, as well as many other accounts relating to it, must [...]".
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