86 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 
could live. This terrible reef, so fatal to many a gallant bark, 
rendered the erection of a lighthouse most desirable, yet such 
was the difficulty of the case that although so long ago as 1814 
an Act was obtained for a light on Skerryvore, it was not before 
1837 than Mr. Alan Stevenson, son of the famous architect of 
the Bell Rock sea-tower, was authorised to commence the work. 
That difficulty was not confined to the position and character 
Bell Rock Lighthouse. 
of the raef itself, as the neighbouring island of Tyree afforded 
no resource, and all the materials for the building, even the stone 
itself, liad to be transported from distant quarters. At length, 
all preliminary arrangements being settled, the engineer reached 
the rock and commenced his work, in June 1838, by erecting a 
barrack-house upon stilts—a sort of dovecot perched on poles— 
high out of the water on the reef, close to the proposed site of 
the lighthouse. The erection of this barrack fully occupied the 
