An Account of the Bell Rock Light-House: Including the Details of the Erection and Peculiar Structure of That Edifice; to Which Is Prefixed a Historical View of the Institution and Progress of the Northern Light-HousesStevenson, Robert
History
An Account of the Bell Rock Light-House: Including the Details of the Erection and Peculiar Structure of That Edifice; to Which Is Prefixed a Historical View of the Institution and Progress of the Northern Light-Houses
Stevenson, Robert
Bell Rock Lighthouse (Scotland); Lighthouses -- Scotland
[Sidenote: 17 stones are laid. The Building operations completed for
the season.]
The Smeaton not having been made fast to the buoy, had, with the
ebb-tide, drifted to leeward, a considerable way eastward of the
Rock, and could not, till the return of the flood-tide, be worked up
to her moorings, so that the present tide was lost, notwithstanding
all exertions which had been made both ashore and afloat with this
cargo. The artificers landed at 6 A. M., but as no materials could be
got upon the Rock this morning, they were employed in boring trenail
holes, and in various other operations, and after four hours’ work they
returned on board the Tender. When the Smeaton got up to her moorings,
the landing-master’s crew immediately began to unload her. There being
too much wind for towing the praams in the usual way, they were warped
to the Rock, in the most laborious manner, by their windlasses, with
successive grapplings and hawsers laid out for this purpose. At 6 P.
M., the artificers landed, and continued at work till half-past 10,
when the remaining seventeen stones were laid, which completed the
Third entire course, or Fourth of the Light-house, with which the
building operations were closed for this season.
[Sidenote: Summary of the Building operations at the Rock.]
The building, being now on a level with the highest part of the margin
of the foundation-pit, or about 5 feet 6 inches above the lower bed
of the foundation-stone, is computed to contain about 388 tons of
stone; consisting of 400 blocks, connected with 738 oaken trenails,
and 1215 pairs of oaken wedges. The number of hours of low-water work
upon the Rock this season, amounted to about 265, of which number only
80 were employed in building. It was further highly satisfactory to
find, that the apparatus, both in the work-yard at Arbroath, and also
the craft and building apparatus at the Rock, were found to answer
every purpose much beyond expectation. The operations of this season,
therefore, afforded the most flattering prospects of the practicability
of completing the solid part, or first 30 feet of the building, in the
course of another year.
[Sidenote: Sunday, 25th.]
[Sidenote: Shipping obliged to run for Arbroath.]
Owing to very heavy gales of wind from a north-eastern direction, the
Sir Joseph Banks Tender, the Sloop Smeaton, and Light-house Yacht,
were, on the 22d, obliged to slip their moorings, and proceed with
all hands for Arbroath. The Tender and the Smeaton again returned to
their stations at the Bell Rock on the 25th; the former to attend
the mill-wrights, joiners, and smiths, while they completed certain
operations connected with the Railways, and Beacon-house, that
everything might be left in as secure a state as possible for the
winter months; the crew of the Smeaton being at the same time occupied
in lifting the several sets of moorings, building-cranes, and other
apparatus connected with the works, which she carried to Arbroath.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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