THE SKERRYVORE LIGITIOUSE. 87 
first summer; and, lest 1t might be supposed that this was but 
little work for so long a time, it may be as well to remark that, 
such was the turbulence of the sea that between August 7 and 
September 11, it had only been possible to be 165 hours on the 
rock. Much inconvenience was occasioned by the hard and 
slippery nature of the volcanic formation of the Skerryvore, to 
which the action of the sea had given the appearance and the 
smoothness of a mass of dark-coloured glass, so that the foreman 
of the masons compared the operation of landing on it to that of 
climbing up the neck of a bottle. When we consider how often, 
by how many persons, and under what circumstances of swell 
and motion, this operation was repeated, we must look upon 
this feature of the spot as an obstacle of no slight amount. 
At length, after much danger and difficulty, the barrack was 
completed, but the first November storm swept it away and 
utterly annihilated the work of the season. Iron stancheons 
had been drawn, broken, and twisted like the wires of a 
champagne bottle ; the smith’s iron anvil had been transported 
eight yards from where it was left; and a stone three-fourths 
of a ton was lifted out from the bottom of a hole and sent 
towards the top of the rock. 
Mortified, but nothing daunted by this disaster, which gave 
him a warning of the tremendous power he had to contend with, 
Mr. Stevenson prepared during the winter for the labours of 
1839, which, besides the re-erection of the barrack on an im- 
proved plan, chiefly consisted in the levelling or blasting of a flat 
surface of forty-two feet diameter on the top of the rock from 
which the lighthouse was to arise. This foundation pit was in 
itself a work of no small magnitude, as it required for its ex- 
cavation the labours of 20 men for 217 days, the firing of 296 
shots, and the removal into deep water of 2,000 tons of material. 
The blasting, from the absence of all cover and the impossibility 
of retiring to a distance farther in any case than thirty feet, and 
often reduced to twelve, demanded all possible carefulness. 
The only precautions available were a skilful appointment of 
the charge and the covering the mines with mats and coarse net- 
ting made of old rope. Every charge was fired by or with the 
assistance of the architect in person, and no mischief occurred. 
The year 1840 had now arrived, and the construction of the 
lighthouse was about to begin. Quarriers and labourers had been 
