LIGHT-HOUSKS.

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which word they are conceived to have borrowed from thePersians , as we are informed by Moscophulus, in vocibusAtticis, Pollux, and others.

It may not be, perhaps, hazarding loo much, should wesay, that to ns it appears probable this latter instrument ob-tained existence nearly as early as the former; taking intoconsideration the naturally hostile nature of our species, andtheir sanguinary appetites.

W e had almost forgotten to notice, that the wife ofMoses, the Hebrew historian, is said to have taken a sharpstone or Hint, to supply the place of a knife in the sacrificeof circumcision; as he informs us, from the expressionwhich she used upon this occasion. “ Then Zipporah took“ a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and“ cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art“ thou to me.” Exodus, chap. iv. ver. 25. And, it isadded, she said so, on account of the circumcision.

LIGHTHOUSES.

A light-house, in marine architecture, is a building orwatch-tower, erected on the sea-shore, to serve as a land-markto mariners, on a low coast, by day, and in any situation toinform them of their approach to land in the night;—beingof most essential utility to forewarn them to take soundings,avoid shoals, rocks, &e.: or else it is a building erected upona rock in the sea, which, from its situation, would be ex-tremely dangerous to vessels, were not some intimationgiven of the existence of a rock, where it is locally situated.Of this latter description is the celebrated Eddy stone light-house, off Plymouth.

Although this species of architecture is not likely to havebeen so general in extreme antiquity, because it could nothave been essentially necessary to any, except to thosenations who, from the proximity of their situation to thecoast, or other circumstances, pursued maritime concerns;or to those whose connexions rendered the encouragementof the marine of other nations important.

The oldest building of this description, which we believe tobe upon record, is the famous Pharos, erected on the Egyptiancoast, which being very low land, and exposed entirely to thealmost constant west winds coming up the Mediterraneanfrom the vast Atlantic, must have, of necessity, made the portof modern Alexandria, anciently called that of Damietta , orPelusium, very dangerous. It was originally erected by

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