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
On this trip to the Rock, the Light-house Yacht picked up a
floating-buoy belonging to the navigation of the river Weser. It was
marked “Bremen 1808, W. R. No. 2.,” and measured six feet in length,
and three feet in diameter over the head, being of the form known to
mariners as a Cann buoy. It appeared to have drifted, in the course
of this winter, from the shores of Germany, which, in a direct line,
is a distance of at least 340 miles. This circumstance, as the buoy
presented, while afloat, but a small surface for the wind to act upon,
being heavily bound with iron, and having about two fathoms of mooring
chain appended to it, affords an extraordinary proof of the effects
of the tides and currents in the ocean. We may likewise here notice,
among other instances corroborative of this curious anomaly of the
tides, the drifting, within the same period, of part of the apparatus
belonging to the works of the Bell Rock; particularly the two buoys,
formerly mentioned, that parted from their moorings, and came ashore,
the one, along with a raft of timber, at Fifeness, and the other at
the Island of May, after having been upwards of two months at sea.
But, perhaps, the most remarkable occurrence of this kind, was that of
the Praam-boat, also formerly mentioned, which broke loose from the
Floating-light, and was found at the Redhead about 13 miles distant,
having been at sea for the space of three months and eight days.
[Sidenote: Three large drift-stones found upon the Rock.]
The artificers again landed at the Rock on the morning of the 31st
at 7 o’clock, being rather before _day-break_, and left it again
at 10, after having been on it about three hours. Several of the
bracing-chains were found loosened, notwithstanding the precautions
hitherto used for preventing the bolts from unlocking. But the writer
had resolved, when the weather would admit, to remove these chains
altogether, and introduce strong bars of malleable iron, about
eight feet above the Rock, as represented in Plate VIII., to connect
the several beams in a horizontal direction. At this landing, three
large masses of rock were found close to the Beacon, which had been
drifted upon the Rock by the force of the sea. They were of various
dimensions, the largest containing no less than about 20 cubic feet,
equal perhaps to a ton and a quarter in weight. After a careful
examination, in every direction, of the low-water surface of the rock,
it was ascertained that these stones had formed no part of it, though
of the same description of rock; and it was therefore concluded, they
must have been thrown up from deep water. The refitting of the chains
of the Beacon and the cast-iron Railways, so occupied the time of the
artificers, that they could not get the stones so broken as to be
removed, and thereby prevent their being perhaps thrown, by the force
of the sea, against the Beacon and Railways, like so many battering
rams.
[Sidenote: February.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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