"'The keepers had improperly built a sort of deck or platform, upon which were placed heavy articles, such as fuel, water-barrels, etc., which should have been in the store-room, designed for their reception. The deck, in addition to the weight placed upon it, was fastened to the piles and braces, thus offering a large surface, against which the sea could strike.
"'In addition to this, the keepers had attached a five-and-a-half inch hawser to the lantern deck, and anchored the other end to a granite block, weighing, according to their account, seven tons, placed upon the bottom at a distance of some fifty fathoms from the base of the tower. The object of this was to provide means for running a box or landing-chair up and down; but it is very clear that so much surface exposed to the moving sea had the same effect upon the light-house as would have been produced by a number of men pulling at a rope attached to the highest part of the structure, with the design of pulling it down.
"'At 4 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, the 16th, or ten hours before the light fell, the platform above mentioned came ashore at Cohasset. As this was forty-three feet above the line of low water, and twenty-eight feet above high water, spring tides, the sea had at that time reached within seven feet of the base of the store-room of the light-house. Without undertaking to speculate upon the probable shock that the structure must have received from the effect of the sea upon a platform fastened to the piles forty feet above the rock, it is enough to know that the sea had reached within seven feet of the body or solid part of the structure.
"'Still increasing, it required but a slight increase in the height of the waves, after having reached the deck, to bring it in contact with the main body of the structure. When this took place it is plain to perceive that such a sea, acting upon the surface of the building at the end of a lever fifty or sixty feet long, must be well nigh irresistible, and I doubt not that the light-house was thus destroyed.'
"So you see, Sonny, carelessness had, 'cordin' to the belief of the Government engineer, a good deal to do with the loss of the light," Captain Eph said as he came to an end of the reading.