The most important change which had occurred during the winter, was the removal of a mass of rock in the neighbourhood of the foundation-pit, which had been shaken by the effects of the blasting operations of the previous year. That mass, the moving of which shewed that a great weight of water had passed over the Rock, weighed about five tons, and had been detached from its bed during a heavy gale from the N.W., in the month of March, and carried right across the foundation-pit to the Barrack, against one of the beams of which it had rested, and had partially injured the iron _collars_ or _glands_ by which the beam was secured. The stone was broken into small fragments by a party of men, who had been appointed to visit the Rock after heavy gales, and had landed on the 27th of March, to see the state of the Barrack. The men, in their anxiety to break down the block, which they feared might injure the Barrack, if thrown against it by the waves, and allured by the smoothness of the sea, most imprudently remained all night, mooring their boat in the landing creek, and trusting to the scanty stock of provisions which they had brought out, with the intention of at once returning to Hynish. The risk involved in such a proceeding, we afterwards had many opportunities of knowing during our stay on the Rock, as we were often forced to make fast all our materials, to prevent their being washed away by the sudden rising of the waves, especially about the time of high-water in spring-tides. The discomforts, however, experienced by the men on that occasion while in the Barrack, without fire, light or bedding, in a cold dark night of spring were such, that several of them did not afterwards much affect the Rock as a residence even in summer. ~Life in the Barrack.~