Owing to the uncertain and stormy weather in spring, it was not till the 13th of May, that the first landing was effected on the Rock. The result of our visit, however, was most satisfactory. We found the Barrack quite as we had last seen it six months before; and not one joint of the pile of masonry, which we had left exposed to the waves, had been shaken or _started_. The Railway and Landing Wharf, although much exposed to the breach of the sea, had survived the winter’s storms with no greater damage than the loss of one of the sleepers or beams, on which the rails rested, which had been torn by the waves from its fixtures to the rock. It was not till a week after our first landing that we were enabled again to take up our quarters on the Rock; for we had few landings in the mean time, and some of them, owing to the heavy surf which played round the Rock, were of no very satisfactory kind. Our first experience of this season was indeed far from inviting. So difficult was the first landing, that we were forced to direct all our endeavours to laying in a small stock of provisions in the Barrack, before being left on the Rock; and, considering the scanty nature of the supplies which the weather permitted us to secure, it was thought prudent to restrict the number of men to eight masons and myself, with as many tools as we could land, to enable them to make the necessary repairs and arrangements before fairly commencing for the season the works of a more strictly progressive character. The vessel then returned to Tyree with the rest of the men and all the heavy apparatus which we could not land; and, to add to the unpleasantness of being left in such a position, with the improbability of a visit from the vessel for several days, one of the masons took alarmingly ill soon after the steamer was too far off for a signal, and suffered so acutely during the whole night, that his piercing cries in the spasms which accompanied his disorder, combined with the howling of a strong _north-wester_ and the incessant lash of the waves, deprived the whole party of sleep during the first night. In this uncomfortable predicament, until the steamer returned on the 22d, we spent two days exposed to winds piercingly cold and in apartments soaked with spray, which found its way through inlets which had been made by the winter’s storms. We were not sorry, at the same time, to have an opportunity of removing the poor man to the care of Dr Campbell, the surgeon who was attached to the workyard at Hynish and of reinforcing our stock of provisions and the detachment of men. We also succeeded in landing the cranes and other building apparatus, which, owing to the heavy surf on the 20th, we had not been able to accomplish.