INTRODUCTION. 



IN consequence probably of my connection of more than fifty 

 years with the Northern Lighthouse Board, and of the almost 

 equally long service of my father, I have been requested, and 

 with much diffidence have complied with the request, to write, 

 by way of Introduction to these very interesting and instruc- 

 tive "Notes from the Bell Rock," a few words regarding 

 Lighthouses, and a short account of the Northern Lighthouse 

 Service and its Lightkeepers. My love for that service, and 

 the esteem I have for those responsible and patient watch- 

 men of the night, whose duty it is to keep their lights burning 

 to guard the mariner from some of the dangers to which he is 

 exposed, and to guide him on his way over the vasty deep, 

 may possibly enable me to say something to interest readers 

 of the Notes in a service whose appropriate motto is " IN 

 SALUTEM OMNIUM." 



The origin, as well as the early history, of lighthouses is 

 involved in much obscurity, although we learn from ancient 

 writers that lights of some sort, or beacon fires, were used 

 for guiding vessels or warning them of danger at least three 

 hundred years before the Christian era. The Colossus of 

 Rhodes and the Pharos of Alexandria are those that we first 

 read of, but very little authentic information is to be got 

 regarding them. At a much later date we know that sea 

 lights for such purposes were produced by the burning of 

 wood and coal in chauffers on coasts where they could be 

 well seen. One such beacon fire was shown from a tower 

 on the Isle of May, at the entrance to the Frith of Forth, 

 from the year 1635 till 1816, when the present lighthouse 



was built, and is supposed to have been the first sea light 



a 



