THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE. 85 



and Skerryvore. Nothing could exceed the patient ingenuity, 

 the sagacity, and forethought with which that great engineer 

 mortised his tall tower to the wave-worn rock, and then dove- 

 tailed the whole together, so as to make rock and tower prac- 

 tically one stone, and that of the very best form for deadening 

 the action of the wave. Nor must we forget that our great marine 

 lighthouses, of which Smeaton gave the model, are as remark- 

 able from an artistic as from a utilitarian point of view, as 

 pleasing to the man of taste as to the friend of humanity. " It is 

 to be regretted," says, with perfect j usti.ee, the author of an excel- 

 lent article in the Quarterly Eeview,* " that these structures are 

 placed so far at sea that they are very little seen, for they are, 

 taken altogether, perhaps the most perfect specimens of modern 

 architecture which exist. Tall and graceful as the minar of an 

 Eastern mosque, they possess far more solidity and beauty of con- 

 struction ; and, in addition to this, their form is as appropriate 

 to the purposes for which it was designed as anything ever done 

 by the Greeks, and consequently meets the requirements of 

 good architecture quite as much as a column of the Parthenon." 



Covered to the height of fifteen feet at spring tide, and 

 little more than a hundred yards in its extent, the famous 

 Bell Rock, or Inchcape, facing the Frith of Tay at a distance of 

 twelve miles at sea, was as dangerous to the navigation of the 

 ■eastern coast of Scotland as the Eddystone had been to the 

 entrance of the Channel. To erect a tower on a spot like this 

 was an undertaking of no common boldness, but, fired by 

 Smeaton's example, Mr. Eobert Stevenson no less gloriously 

 succeeded in converting what for ages had been a source of 

 danger into a beacon of safety. 



On the opposite coast of Scotland, and placed in the same 

 parallel of latitude as Bell Bock, the Skerryvore Beef had a name 

 equally dreaded by the mariner. Situated considerably farther 

 from the mainland than the Bell Bock, it isless entirely submerged, 

 some of its summits rising above the level of high water, though 

 the surf dashes over them ; but the extent of foul ground is much 

 greater, and hidden dangers, even in fine weather, beset the in- 

 tervening passage between its eastern extremity and Tyree, from 

 which island it is distant some eleven miles. In rough weather 

 the sea which rises there is described as one in which no ship 



* No. 228. 



