Obituary Notices. 
Ixiii 
as if there were not room left for Tom. Accordingly lie chose, at 
least provisionally, what he liked next best, and was received, 
without a regular apprenticeship, into the printing-office of Dr 
Patrick Neill, his father’s much esteemed and life-long friend. 
Here he found, I believe, sufficiently congenial employment, and the 
days went pleasantly by, but varied by, at least, one sufficiently 
startling experience. One morning when on his way to the print- 
ing-office in the Old Fishmarket Close, when it was blowing a 
furious gale of wind, a heavy chimney-pot from some of the lofty 
High Street lands fell so close to his feet that a fragment of it 
rebounding from the pavement, cut his dress, but happily without 
striking his body ; and thus it may be said that his temporary 
typographical pursuits had in more ways than one nearly lost him 
for his great life’s work as an engineer. Now, however, he entered 
his father’s office before he had completed his eighteenth year. 
He afterwards superintended the construction of various works, 
among which was the lighthouse on Little Ross Island ; and it was 
while thus engaged that he wrote a paper on the geology of that 
island. This was published in 1843 ; but a still earlier paper, 
which appeared in 1842, “On the Defects of Rain-gauges, with the 
description of one of an improved form,” was the first of a series 
of writings, in course of time, contributed to various scientific 
societies and journals embracing a very wide field, and which 
included lighthouse and harbour engineering, lighthouse optics, 
experiments on the force of waves, meteorology, and other subjects. 
In 1846 he became a partner with his brothers Alan and David, of 
whom the former, who had succeeded his father as engineer to the 
Board of Northern Lights in 1843, in 1853, owing to ill-health, 
resigned that post, when his brother David was appointed in his 
place as engineer to the Board, and in 1855 Thomas was con- 
joined with David in the engineership. During their joint tenure 
of office, extending over a period of thirty-two years, they de- 
signed and erected numerous beacons and lighthouses, among which 
the lighthouses on Dhu Heartach and the Chicken’s Rocks were 
works of no ordinary difficulty. During his brief term of active 
professional work, Alan Stevenson had designed and personally 
superintended the erection of the magnificent lighthouse tower on the 
Skerryvore Reef, and had also introduced into the Scottish light- 
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