(Homer, Strabo, &c.), a small oblong island, island, adjoining to the continent of Egypt, over-against Alexandria. On this island stood a cognominal light-tower, of four sides, each side a stadium in length; and the tower so high as to be seen 100 miles off. Some affirm, each of its four corners rested on a large sea-crab of glass or of hard transparent stone of Ethiopia or Memphis. Others imagine the crabs were only added externally to the base by way of ornament, or as emblematical of its situation and use. The architect was Sostrates the Cnidian, as appears by an inscription on the tower, under Ptolemy Philadelphus, who laid out 800 talents upon it. On account of the port of Alexandria, the entrance to which was difficult and dangerous, the Pharos was called the key of the Egyptian sea, or even of Egypt itself (Lucan); and Pharos, from being a proper name, became an appellative to denote all lighthouses.

Phare, a light-house; a pile raised near a port, where fire is kept burning in the night, to guide and direct vessels near at hand. The pharos of Alexandria, built in the island of Pharos, at the mouth of the Nile, was anciently very famous, inasmuch as to communicate its name to all the sea. This most magnificent tower consisted of several stories and galleries, with a lantern at top, in which a light being continually burning, might be seen for many leagues at sea, and along the coast. It was accounted one of the seven wonders of the world. It was built by the famed architect Sostrates, a native of Cnidos, or, according to some, by Deiphanes, the father of Sostrates; and cost Ptolemy Philadelphus 800 talents. The several stories were adorned with columns, balustrades, galleries of the finest marble and workmanship; to which some add, that the architect had contrived to fasten some looking-glasses so artificially against the highest galleries, that one could see in them all the ships that sailed on the sea for a great way. Instead of which noble structure, one sees now only a kind of irregular castle, without ditches or outworks of any strength, the whole being accommodated to the inequality of the ground on which it stands, and which it seems is no higher than that which it should command. Out of the midst of this clumsy building rises a tower, which serves for a light-house, but which has nothing of the beauty and grandeur of the old one. The Colossus of Rhodes also served as a pharos.