162 Analysis of' Scientific Books and Memoirs. 



the most difficult operations rendered it necessary that the work should 

 be carried on upon Sunday ; and Mr. Stevenson and all the artificers, ex- 

 cept a mason or two, who declined to labour more than six days in the 

 week, continued their labours from day to day without intermission. 

 In boring the holes in the rock, the men often wrought knee deep in wa- 

 ter. On many occasions the smith was obliged to labour at his forge with 

 his feet in the sea, while his face was scorched with the fire, and buffet- 

 ed with the smoke and the sparks which the wind scattered in volumes 

 around him. 



These individual calamities, however, became more general in the 

 month of September. The sloop Smeaton broke adrift from her moor- 

 ings ; and from the current of the tides, it was impossible that she could 

 return till after the rock was overwhelmed by the sea. Two boats only 

 were now upon the rock, which could not hold more than one-half of 

 the thirty-two workmen, especially in a heavy sea. The drifting of the 

 Smeaton was known only to Mr. Stevenson and the landing-master. The 

 artificers, while either sitting or kneeling at their work, in the founda- 

 tion pit, did not know their perilous situation, till the rise of the sea 

 drove them from their work, and made them repair to their respective 

 boats for their jackets and stockings. To their astonishment they saw 

 only two boats in place of three. " Not a word," says Mr. Stevenson, 

 " was uttered by any one, but all appeared to be silently calculating the 

 numbers, and looking to each other with evident marks of perplexity 

 depicted in their countenances." In this state of alarm a pilot boat 

 fortunately came to their relief, and after a dreadful passage, in which 

 Mr. Stevenson's face and ears were encrusted with a film of salt, from 

 the sea spray which broke over the bow of the boat, they got all safely 

 on board of the floating light-ship. 



In the year 1808 the work proceeded with great activity. The stones 

 were all prepared at Arbroath, and were fixed with trenails of oak wood 

 and joggles of stone, as in the Eddystone Lighthouse. The cranes and 

 implements were prepared ; the site of the beacon was excavated, in 

 some places to the depth of five feet, and the foundation stone was laid 

 on the 10th July. In this season four courses were completed, which 

 brought the masonry to the height of 5^ feet above the lowest part of 

 the foundation pit. 



In 1809 the building advanced with rapidity. When it had attained 

 the height of eight feet, one of the cranes was erected on the top of it, 

 and in the course of the season it rose to the height of about thirty feet 

 above low water mark. On the 19th of June, however, there was a 

 remarkable ground swell, which made a tremendous breach upon the rock. 

 The sea, at the meeting of the waves, was observed to rise in the most 

 beautiful conical jets of about thirty or forty feet in diameter at the 

 base, to the height of ten or fifteen feet above the crane, and some of the 

 last laid stones were partially lifted, in consequence of^ their not having 

 been fixed by trenails. On the 11th of August another swell of the sea 

 broke one of the legs of the shear crane, an iron bar containing about 

 sixteen square inches of se ction, which was snapped, on three different 



