The few first days after getting fairly established in our habitation for the season, were occupied in extending the railway to a point on the northern part of the Rock, somewhat sheltered during certain seas (see Plate III.), where a crane for stowing the materials previously to building them had been erected; and thus it was not till the 25th of May that the first cargo of stones was landed. Next day a crane (then thirty-four years old), which had been used in the building of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, was placed on the top of the masonry, and the more cheering operations of mixing the mortar and of _setting_ stones were begun. In spite of the unfavourable state of the weather and the continual distraction of our exertions, occasioned by storms and the landing of materials, we continued our operations with such vigour as to complete the solid part of the masonry of the Tower on the 8th July. Until the building had reached to the level of 15 feet, the work was carried on by the use of two jib-cranes, one on the Rock and the other on the Tower, by means of which latter the stones were _set_, after being _brought to hand_ by the first. But above that level, _shear-legs_ similar to those used at the Eddystone, were employed. Those shear-legs were about 50 feet high, and were erected in the situation, at the side of the Tower, shewn in Plate III. They consisted of two spars attached at the base to _jointed_ sockets _batted_ into the Rock, and connected at the top by means of a crosshead of timber. The jointed sockets permitted the shears to hang forward at any angle suited to the level and distance of the part of the Tower to be reached; and chain guys both in front and behind, secured them from falling either backwards or forwards. At the crosshead hung an iron sheave with a chain, one end of which was provided with a hook for raising stones, while the other was wound around the barrel of a _crab machine_ well batted down to the rock, by working which the blocks were raised to such a level as to be within reach of the building crane on the top of the masonry. The _shear-poles_ were used, until the building of the Tower was completed, to raise the stones the first lift of forty feet above the Rock. In the later stages of the work, the stones, instead of being taken by the building cranes directly from the _shear-poles_, were raised from storey to storey by means of crabs placed inside the Tower, which worked chains, _reeved_ through sheaves hanging from the end of beams projecting from the windows. Such beams are called _needles_, and are described at page 504, and shewn in Plate IX., fig. 3, of my Father’s Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, where they were used for the same purpose. ~The Waves.~ ~Colours of breaking Waves.~