excessive hardness and unworkable nature of the rock, the quality and size of the blocks required to entitle them to claim a place in a marine tower, and the great loss of time, caused by the badness of the weather, be considered, it will not appear that Mr Scott and his party had been eating the bread of idleness. * * * * * In the mean time, measures had been taken for obtaining from his Grace the Duke of Argyll a feu of fifteen acres of ground at Hynish, for carrying on the works, with a view to its being finally occupied as an establishment for the crew of the vessel which was to attend the Lighthouse, and the families of the four lightkeepers, as well as for the site of the harbour. To this was added a lease of thirty acres, for the various purposes connected with a workyard, and such an establishment as seemed necessary for carrying on the work. A subject of anxious deliberation with the Board, was the construction of the harbour at Hynish for the vessels engaged in the service of the work; and the Commissioners, on the 24th May 1837, authorized the Engineer to make arrangements for commencing the formation of the Pier. The work was, accordingly, undertaken, in terms of his Reports of the 31st December 1835, and 27th February 1836; and the summer of 1837 was chiefly occupied in preparing a wharf, mostly composed of _pierres-perdues_,[6] and in the opening of the quarry already noticed. Such may serve as a brief and somewhat desultory notice of the work during the seasons of 1836 and 1837, after which it appeared to the Board that the operations must soon assume such an aspect as to require the superintendence of a committee of their number, as well as that of an Engineer specially entrusted with the management of the work. [6] Blocks rough from the quarry, which are dropt or thrown promiscuously into the sea. * * * * * ~Skerryvore Committee appointed.~ At the meeting of the Board, on the 8th December 1837, a Committee of their number was accordingly named, to superintend the erection of the Lighthouse. This Committee consisted of--ROBERT BRUCE, Esq., Sheriff of Argyllshire; ANDREW MURRAY, Esq., Sheriff of Aberdeenshire; ROBERT THOMSON, Esq., Sheriff of Caithness; and the late JAMES MACONOCHIE, Esq., Sheriff of Orkney and Zetland; and, shortly after its appointment, the Committee, on the motion of Mr BRUCE, the Chairman, appointed me Engineer for the work. * * * * *