During the whole of the summer, the traffic at the pier at Hynish was so great in landing materials from the Mull quarries, and in shipping stones for the Rock, that much inconvenience was felt from want of room. Nearly 4000 tons were shipped and discharged at the quay, independently altogether of the ballasting of each vessel which discharged at the pier, and the receiving, storing, and finally supplying coals to the steamer, which formed no inconsiderable item of the labour. Every exertion was made to extend the pier, so soon as the works at the Rock were closed for the season and the stone trade with Mull had ceased; and by great perseverance on the part of Mr James Scott, the foreman of the workyard, whom I always found ready, night and day, to second and even to anticipate my wishes in regard to the progress of the works, an additional length of 36 feet was added to the berthage of the quay before the winter had set in. ~The Rock.~ The first landing on the Rock, for the purpose of resuming the work in 1840, was on the 30th April, when all things connected with the Barrack were found in nearly the same state in which we had left them seven months before. The red paint with which we had coated it had become nearly white, partly by a covering of sea-salt, and by blanching of the paint itself, but chiefly towards the top by the soil of the numerous sea-fowl which had perched on the roof. The timbers, also, bore the signs of being wave-washed, and in the more sheltered parts were tufted with the finer kinds of seaweed; the iron-work was much rusted and entirely divested of paint. The door had been firmly secured with lashings and bolts, and some difficulty was experienced in forcing an entrance into the interior, about the state of which, as our future abode, much curiosity was naturally felt by the men, who were desirous to know how it had weathered a seven months’ exposure to the waves of the Atlantic. It was with no small pleasure, therefore, that, when the door was opened and the windows unbarred and the sunshine admitted to dispel its gloom and chilly damp, we found, that although the water had forced its way through some of the imperfect seams in the window-frames, the interior shewed evident signs of the stability of the fabric, and was in some places so dry, that the greater part of the biscuits which we had left the year before, as a store for shipwrecked seamen who might find their way to the Rock, although some of them were wet and pulpy on the side nearest the outer walls, admitted of being dried, and when a little toasted at the fire, were palatable enough to hungry men, so that, in fact, we consumed the greater part of that stock before we entered on our new supply.